第167章

A light appeared through the transom overhead.It sent a thrill of possibility through the watchers.There was a murmur of recognition.At last the bars grated inside and the crowd pricked up its ears.Footsteps shuffled within and it murmured again.Some one called: "Slow up there, now," and then the door opened.It was push and jam for a minute, with grim, beast silence to prove its quality, and then it melted inward, like logs floating, and disappeared.There were wet hats and wet shoulders, a cold, shrunken, disgruntled mass, pouring in between bleak walls.It was just six o'clock and there was supper in every hurrying pedestrian's face.And yet no supper was provided here--nothing but beds.

Hurstwood laid down his fifteen cents and crept off with weary steps to his allotted room.It was a dingy affair--wooden, dusty, hard.A small gas-jet furnished sufficient light for so rueful a corner.

"Hm!" he said, clearing his throat and locking the door.

Now he began leisurely to take off his clothes, but stopped first with his coat, and tucked it along the crack under the door.His vest he arranged in the same place.His old wet, cracked hat he laid softly upon the table.Then he pulled off his shoes and lay down.

It seemed as if he thought a while, for now he arose and turned the gas out, standing calmly in the blackness, hidden from view.

After a few moments, in which he reviewed nothing, but merely hesitated, he turned the gas on again, but applied no match.

Even then he stood there, hidden wholly in that kindness which is night, while the uprising fumes filled the room.When the odour reached his nostrils, he quit his attitude and fumbled for the bed."What's the use?" he said, weakly, as he stretched himself to rest.

And now Carrie had attained that which in the beginning seemed life's object, or, at least, such fraction of it as human beings ever attain of their original desires.She could look about on her gowns and carriage, her furniture and bank account.Friends there were, as the world takes it--those who would bow and smile in acknowledgment of her success.For these she had once craved.

Applause there was, and publicity--once far off, essential things, but now grown trivial and indifferent.Beauty also--her type of loveliness--and yet she was lonely.In her rocking-chair she sat, when not otherwise engaged--singing and dreaming.

Thus in life there is ever the intellectual and the emotional nature--the mind that reasons, and the mind that feels.Of one come the men of action--generals and statesmen; of the other, the poets and dreamers--artists all.

As harps in the wind, the latter respond to every breath of fancy, voicing in their moods all the ebb and flow of the ideal.

Man has not yet comprehended the dreamer any more than he has the ideal.For him the laws and morals of the world are unduly severe.Ever hearkening to the sound of beauty, straining for the flash of its distant wings, he watches to follow, wearying his feet in travelling.So watched Carrie, so followed, rocking and singing.

And it must be remembered that reason had little part in this.

Chicago dawning, she saw the city offering more of loveliness than she had ever known, and instinctively, by force of her moods alone, clung to it.In fine raiment and elegant surroundings, men seemed to be contented.Hence, she drew near these things.