A women should some day write the complete philosophy of clothes.  No matter how young, it is one of the things she wholly comprehends.  There is an indescribably faint line in the matter of man’s apparel, which somehow divides for her those who are worth glancing at and those who are not.  Once an individual has passed this faint line on the way downward he will get no glance from her.  There is another line at which the dress of a man will cause her to study her own.  This line the individual at her elbow now marked for Carrie.  She became conscious of an inequality.  Her own plain blue dress, with its black cotton tape trimmings, now seemed to her shabby.  She felt the worn state of her shoes.

“Let’s see,” he went on, “I know quite a number of people in your town.  Morgenroth the clothier and Gibson the dry goods man.”

“Oh, do you?” she interrupted; aroused by memories of longings their show windows had cost her.

At last he had a clew to her interest, and followed it deftly.  In a few minutes he had come about into her seat.  He talked of sales of clothing, his travels, Chicago, and the amusements of that city.

“If you are going there, you will enjoy it immensely.  Have you relatives?”

“I am going to visit my sister,” she explained.

“You want to see Lincoln Park,” he said, “and Michigan Boulevard.  They are putting up great buildings there.  It’s a second New York great.  So much to see theatres, crowds, fine houses oh, you’ll like that.”

There was a little ache in her fancy of all he described.  Her insignificance in the presence of so much magnificence faintly affected her.  She realized that hers was not to be a round of pleasure, and yet there was something promising in all the material prospect he set forth.  There was something satisfactory in the attention of this individual with his good clothes.  She could not help smiling as he told her of some popular actress of whom she reminded him.  She was silly and yet attention of this sort had its weight.

“You will be in Chicago some little time, won’t you?” he observed at one turn of the now easy conversation.  “I don’t know,” said Carrie vaguely a flesh vision of the possibility of her not securing employment rising in her mind.

“Several weeks, anyhow,” he said, looking steadily into her eyes.

There was much more passing now than the mere words indicated.  He recognized the indescribable thing that made up for fascination and beauty in her.  She realized that she was of interest to him from the one standpoint, which a women both delights in and fears.  Her manner was simple, though for the very reason that she had not yet learned the many little affectations with which women conceal their true feelings.  Some things she did appeared bold.  A clever companion had she ever had one would have warned her never to look a man in the eyes so steadily.

“Why do you ask?” she said.