Minnie felt the atmosphere of good feeling which Carrie brought with her.  She felt now was the time to express to Carrie the state of Hanson’s feeling about her entire Chicago venture.

" If you shouldn’t get it-” she paused, troubled for an easy way.

" If I don’t get something pretty soon, I think I’ll go home.”

Minnie saw her chance.

" Sven thinks it might be best for the winter, anyhow.”

The situation flashed on Carrie at once.  They were unwilling to keep her any longer, out of work.  She did not blame Minnie, she did not blame Hanson very much.  Now, as she sat there digesting the remark, she was glad she had Drouet’s money.

" Yes,” she said after a few moments, " I thought of doing that.”

She did not explain that the though, however, had aroused all the antagonism of her nature.  Columbia City, what was there for her?  She knew its dull little round by heart.  Here was the great, mysterious city which was still a magnet for her.  What she had seen only suggested its possibilities.  Now to turn back on it and live the little old life out there-she almost exclaimed against the thought.

She had reached home early and went in the front room to think.  What could she do?  She could not buy new shoes and wear them here.  She would need to save part of the twenty to pay her fare home.  She did not want to borrow of Minnie for that.  And yet how could she explain where she even got that money?  If she could only get enough to let her out easy.

She went over the tangle again and again.  Here, in the morning, Drouet would expect to see her in a new jacket, and that couldn’t be.  The Hansons expected her to go home, and she wanted to get away, and yet she did not want to go home.  In the light of the way they would look on her getting money without work, the taking of it now seemed dreadful.  She began to be ashamed.  The whole situation depressed her.  It was all so clear when she was with Drouet.  Now it was all so tangled, so hopeless-much worse than it was before, because she had the semblance of aid in her hand which she could not use.

Her spirits sank so that at supper Minnie felt that she must have had another hard day.  Carrie finally decided that she would give the money back.  It was wrong to take it.  She would go down in the morning and hunt for work.  At noon she would meet Drouet as agreed and tell him.  At this decision her heart sank, until she was the old Carrie of distress.

Curiously, she could not hold the money in her hand without feeling some relief.  Even after all her depressing conclusions, she could sweep away all thought about the matter and then the twenty dollars seemed a wonderful and delightful thing.  Ah, money, money, money!  What a thing it was to have.  How plenty of it would clear away all these troubles.