The progress of the play did not improve matters for him.  Carrie, from now on, was easily the center of interest.  The audience, which had been inclined to feel that nothing could be good after the first gloomy impression, now went to the other extreme and saw power where it was not.  The general feeling reacted on Carrie.  She presented her part with some felicity, though nothing like the intensity which had aroused the feeling at the end of the long first act.

Both Hurstwood and Drouet viewed her pretty figure with rising feelings.  The fact that such ability should reveal itself in her, that they should see it set forth under such effective circumstances, framed almost in massy gold and shone upon by the appropriate lights of sentiment and personality, heightened her charm for them.  She was more than the old Carrie to Drouet.  He longed to be at home with her until he could tell her.  He awaited impatiently the end, when they should go home alone.

Hurstwood, on the contrary, saw in the strength of her new attractiveness his miserable predicament.  He could have cursed the man beside him.  By the Lord, he could not even applaud feelingly as he would.  For once he must simulate when it left a taste in his mouth.

It was in the last act that Carrie’s fascination for her lovers assumed its most effective character.

Hurstwood listened to its progress, wondering when Carrie would come on.  He had not long to wait.  The author had used the artifice of sending all the merry company for a drive, and now Carrie came in alone.  It was the first time that Hurstwood had had a chance to see her facing the audience quite alone, for nowhere else had she been without a foil of some sort.  He suddenly felt, as she entered, that her old strength—­the power that had grasped him at the end of the first act—­had come back.  She seemed to be gaining feeling, now that the play was drawing to a close and the opportunity for great action was passing.

“Poor Pearl,” she said, speaking with natural pathos.  “It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp.”

She was gazing now sadly out upon the open sea, her arm resting listlessly upon the polished door-post.

Hurstwood began to feel a deep sympathy for her and for himself.  He could almost feel that she was talking to him.  He was, by a combination of feelings and entanglements, almost deluded by that quality of voice and manner which, like a pathetic strain of music, seems ever a personal and intimate thing.  Pathos has this quality, that it seems ever addressed to one alone.

“And yet, she can be very happy with him,” went on the little actress.  “Her sunny temper, her joyous face will brighten any home.”

She turned slowly toward the audience without seeing.  There was so much simplicity in her movements that she seemed wholly alone.  Then she found a seat by a table, and turned over some books, devoting a thought to them.