He dropped the note and looked quietly round.  Now he knew what he missed.  It was the little ornamental clock, which was hers.  It had gone from the mantelpiece.  He went into the front room, his bedroom, the parlor, lighting the gas as he went.  From the chiffonier had gone the knick-knacks of silver and plate.  From the table-top, the lace coverings.  He opened the wardrobe—­no clothes of hers.  He opened the drawers—­nothing of hers.  Her trunk was gone from its accustomed place.  Back in his own room hung his old clothes, just as he had left them.  Nothing else was gone.

He stepped into the parlor and stood for a few moments looking vacantly at the floor.  The silence grew oppressive.  The little flat seemed wonderfully deserted.  He wholly forgot that he was hungry, that it was only dinner-time.  It seemed later in the night.

Suddenly, he found that the money was still in his hands.  There were twenty dollars in all, as she had said.  Now he walked back, leaving the lights ablaze, and feeling as if the flat were empty.

“I’ll get out of this,” he said to himself.

Then the sheer loneliness of his situation rushed upon him in full.

“Left me!” he muttered, and repeated, “left me!”

The place that had been so comfortable, where he had spent so many days of warmth, was now a memory.  Something colder and chillier confronted him.  He sank down in his chair, resting his chin in his hand—­mere sensation, without thought, holding him.

Then something like a bereaved affection and self-pity swept over him.

“She needn’t have gone away,” he said.  “I’d have got something.”

He sat a long while without rocking, and added quite clearly, out loud: 

“I tried, didn’t I?”

At midnight he was still rocking, staring at the floor.

Chapter XLIII THE WORLD TURNS FLATTERER—­AN EYE IN THE DARK

Installed in her comfortable room, Carrie wondered how Hurstwood had taken her departure.  She arranged a few things hastily and then left for the theatre, half expecting to encounter him at the door.  Not finding him, her dread lifted, and she felt more kindly toward him.  She quite forgot him until about to come out, after the show, when the chance of his being there frightened her.  As day after day passed and she heard nothing at all, the thought of being bothered by him passed.  In a little while she was, except for occasional thoughts, wholly free of the gloom with which her life had been weighed in the flat.

It is curious to note how quickly a profession absorbs one.  Carrie became wise in theatrical lore, hearing the gossip of little Lola.  She learned what the theatrical papers were, which ones published items about actresses and the like.  She began to read the newspaper notices, not only of the opera in which she had so small a part, but of others.  Gradually the desire for notice took hold of her.  She longed to be renowned like others, and read with avidity all the complimentary or critical comments made concerning others high in her profession.  The showy world in which her interest lay completely absorbed her.