Here was another proposition nearly, if not quite, as disturbing.  She would have to talk with and explain to him.  He would want her to admit that he was right.  It would be impossible for her to live with him.

On Friday Carrie remembered her appointment with Hurstwood, and the passing of the hour when she should, by all right of promise, have been in his company served to keep the calamity which had befallen her exceedingly fresh and clear.  In her nervousness and stress of mind she felt it necessary to act, and consequently put on a brown street dress, and at eleven o’clock started to visit the business portion once again.  She must look for work.

The rain, which threatened at twelve and began at one, served equally well to cause her to retrace her steps and remain within doors as it did to reduce Hurstwood’s spirits and give him a wretched day.

The morrow was Saturday, a half-holiday in many business quarters, and besides it was a balmy, radiant day, with the trees and grass shining exceedingly green after the rain of the night before.  When she went out the sparrows were twittering merrily in joyous choruses.  She could not help feeling, as she looked across the lovely park, that life was a joyous thing for those who did not need to worry, and she wished over and over that something might interfere now to preserve for her the comfortable state which she had occupied.  She did not want Drouet or his money when she thought of it, nor anything more to do with Hurstwood, but only the content and ease of mind she had experienced, for, after all, she had been happy—­happier, at least, than she was now when confronted by the necessity of making her way alone.

When she arrived in the business part it was quite eleven o’clock, and the business had little longer to run.  She did not realize this at first, being affected by some of the old distress which was a result of her earlier adventure into this strenuous and exacting quarter.  She wandered about, assuring herself that she was making up her mind to look for something, and at the same time feeling that perhaps it was not necessary to be in such haste about it.  The thing was difficult to encounter, and she had a few days.  Besides, she was not sure that she was really face to face again with the bitter problem of self-sustenance.  Anyhow, there was one change for the better.  She knew that she had improved in appearance.  Her manner had vastly changed.  Her clothes were becoming, and men—­well-dressed men, some of the kind who before had gazed at her indifferently from behind their polished railings and imposing office partitions—­now gazed into her face with a soft light in their eyes.  In a way, she felt the power and satisfaction of the thing, but it did not wholly reassure her.  She looked for nothing save what might come legitimately and without the appearance of special favor.  She wanted something, but no man should buy her by false protestations or favor.  She proposed to earn her living honestly.