Carrie’s cheek burned with a crimson heat.  Her lips trembled a little.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

It was this constant urging, coupled with irascibility and energy, for three long hours.  Carrie came away worn enough in body, but too excited in mind to notice it.  She meant to go home and practice her evolutions as prescribed.  She would not err in any way, if she could help it.

When she reached the flat Hurstwood was not there.  For a wonder he was out looking for work, as she supposed.  She took only a mouthful to eat and then practiced on, sustained by visions of freedom from financial distress—­“The sound of glory ringing in her ears.”

When Hurstwood returned he was not so elated as when he went away, and now she was obliged to drop practice and get dinner.  Here was an early irritation.  She would have her work and this.  Was she going to act and keep house?

“I’ll not do it,” she said, “after I get started.  He can take his meals out.”

Each day thereafter brought its cares.  She found it was not such a wonderful thing to be in the chorus, and she also learned that her salary would be twelve dollars a week.  After a few days she had her first sight of those high and mighties—­the leading ladies and gentlemen.  She saw that they were privileged and deferred to.  She was nothing—­absolutely nothing at all.

At home was Hurstwood, daily giving her cause for thought.  He seemed to get nothing to do, and yet he made bold to inquire how she was getting along.  The regularity with which he did this smacked of some one who was waiting to live upon her labor.  Now that she had a visible means of support, this irritated her.  He seemed to be depending upon her little twelve dollars.

“How are you getting along?” he would blandly inquire.

“Oh, all right,” she would reply.

“Find it easy?”

“It will be all right when I get used to it.”

His paper would then engross his thoughts.

“I got some lard,” he would add, as an afterthought.  “I thought maybe you might want to make some biscuit.”

The calm suggestion of the man astonished her a little, especially in the light of recent developments.  Her dawning independence gave her more courage to observe, and she felt as if she wanted to say things.  Still she could not talk to him as she had to Drouet.  There was something in the man’s manner of which she had always stood in awe.  He seemed to have some invisible strength in reserve.

One day, after her first week’s rehearsal, what she expected came openly to the surface.

“We’ll have to be rather saving,” he said, laying down some meat he had purchased.  “You won’t get any money for a week or so yet.”

“No,” said Carrie, who was stirring a pan at the stove.

“I’ve only got the rent and thirteen dollars more,” he added.

“That’s it,” she said to herself.  “I’m to use my money now.”