The game of deception was up with Drouet.  He did not try to simulate indifference further.

“Did he spend the evenings here?” he asked.

“Sometimes.  Sometimes they went out.”

“In the evening?”

“Yes.  You mustn’t look so mad, though.”

“I’m not,” he said.  “Did any one else see him?”

“Of course,” said the girl, as if, after all, it were nothing in particular.

“How long ago was this?”

“Just before you came back.”

The drummer pinched his lip nervously.

“Don’t say anything, will you?” he asked, giving the girl’s arm a gentle squeeze.

“Certainly not,” she returned.  “I wouldn’t worry over it.”

“All right,” he said, passing on, seriously brooding for once, and yet not wholly unconscious of the fact that he was making a most excellent impression upon the chambermaid.

“I’ll see her about that,” he said to himself, passionately, feeling that he had been unduly wronged.  “I’ll find out, b’George, whether she’ll act that way or not.”

Chapter XXI THE LURE OF THE SPIRIT—­THE FLESH IN PURSUIT

When Carrie came Hurstwood had been waiting many minutes.  His blood was warm; his nerves wrought up.  He was anxious to see the woman who had stirred him so profoundly the night before.

“Here you are,” he said, repressedly, feeling a spring in his limbs and an elation which was tragic in itself.

“Yes,” said Carrie.

They walked on as if bound for some objective point, while Hurstwood drank in the radiance of her presence.  The rustle of her pretty skirt was like music to him.

“Are you satisfied?” he asked, thinking of how well she did the night before.

“Are you?”

He tightened his fingers as he saw the smile she gave him.

“It was wonderful.”

Carrie laughed ecstatically.

“That was one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time,” he added.

He was dwelling on her attractiveness as he had felt it the evening before, and mingling it with the feeling her presence inspired now.

Carrie was dwelling in the atmosphere which this man created for her.  Already she was enlivened and suffused with a glow.  She felt his drawing toward her in every sound of his voice.

“Those were such nice flowers you sent me,” she said, after a moment or two.  “They were beautiful.”

“Glad you liked them,” he answered, simply.

He was thinking all the time that the subject of his desire was being delayed.  He was anxious to turn the talk to his own feelings.  All was ripe for it.  His Carrie was beside him.  He wanted to plunge in and expostulate with her, and yet he found himself fishing for words and feeling for a way.

“You got home all right,” he said, gloomily, of a sudden, his tune modifying itself to one of self-commiseration.