“Then you do care for him?” said Drouet, stopping completely and experiencing a rush of feeling.

“Oh, stop!” said Carrie.  “Well, I’ll not be made a fool of,” exclaimed Drouet.  “You may trifle around with him if you want to, but you can’t lead me.  You can tell me or not, just as you want to, but I won’t fool any longer!”

He shoved the last few remaining things he had laid out into his valise and snapped it with a vengeance.  Then he grabbed his coat, which he had laid off to work, picked up his gloves, and started out.

“You can go to the deuce as far as I am concerned,” he said, as he reached the door.  “I’m no sucker,” and with that he opened it with a jerk and closed it equally vigorously.

Carrie listened at her window view, more astonished than anything else at this sudden rise of passion in the drummer.  She could hardly believe her senses—­so good-natured and tractable had he invariably been.  It was not for her to see the wellspring of human passion.  A real flame of love is a subtle thing.  It burns as a will-o’-the-wisp, dancing onward to fairylands of delight.  It roars as a furnace.  Too often jealousy is the quality upon which it feeds.

Chapter XXIV ASHES OF TINDER—­A FACE AT THE WINDOW

That night Hurstwood remained down town entirely, going to the Palmer House for a bed after his work was through.  He was in a fevered state of mind, owing to the blight his wife’s action threatened to cast upon his entire future.  While he was not sure how much significance might be attached to the threat she had made, he was sure that her attitude, if long continued, would cause him no end of trouble.  She was determined, and had worsted him in a very important contest.  How would it be from now on?  He walked the floor of his little office, and later that of his room, putting one thing and another together to no avail.

Mrs. Hurstwood, on the contrary, had decided not to lose her advantage by inaction.  Now that she had practically cowed him, she would follow up her work with demands, the acknowledgment of which would make her word law in the future.  He would have to pay her the money which she would now regularly demand or there would be trouble.  It did not matter what he did.  She really did not care whether he came home any more or not.  The household would move along much more pleasantly without him, and she could do as she wished without consulting any one.  Now she proposed to consult a lawyer and hire a detective.  She would find out at once just what advantages she could gain.

Hurstwood walked the floor, mentally arranging the chief points of his situation.  “She has that property in her name,” he kept saying to himself.  “What a fool trick that was.  Curse it!  What a fool move that was.”

He also thought of his managerial position.  “If she raises a row now I’ll lose this thing.  They won’t have me around if my name gets in the papers.  My friends, too!” He grew more angry as he thought of the talk any action on her part would create.  How would the papers talk about it?  Every man he knew would be wondering.  He would have to explain and deny and make a general mark of himself.  Then Moy would come and confer with him and there would be the devil to pay.