until Carrie bumped into a pedestrian.

" You must be thinking,” he said.

They dined and went to the theatre.  That spectacle pleased Carrie immensely.  The color and grace of it caught her eye.  She had vain imaginings about place. and power, about far-off lands and magnificent people.  When it was over, the clatter of coaches and the throng of fine ladies made her stare.

" Wait a minute,” said Drouet, holding her back in the showy foyer where ladies and gentlemen were moving in a social crush, skirts rustling, lace-covered heads nodding, white teeth showing through parted lips. " Let’s see.”

" Sixty-seven,” the coach-caller was saying, his voice lifted in a sort of euphonious cry. " Sixty-seven.”

" Isn’t it fine?” said Carrie.

" Great,” said Drouet.  He was as much affected by this show of finery and gayety as she.  He pressed her arm warmly.  Once she looked up, her even teeth glistening through her smiling lips, her eyes alight.  As they were moving out he whispered down to her, " You look lovely!” They were right where the coach-caller was swinging open a coach-door and ushering in two ladies.

" You stick to me and we’ll have a coach.” laughed Drouet.

Carrie scarcely heard, her head was so full of the swig of life.

They stopped in at a restaurant for a little after-theater lunch.  Just a shade of a though of the hour entered Carrie’s head, but there was no household law to govern her now.  If any habits ever had time to fix upon her things.  They will drive the really non-religious mind out of bed to say prayers that are only a custom and not a devotion.  The victim of habit, when he had neglected the thing which it was his custom to do, feels a little scratching in the brain, a little irritating something which comes of being out of the rut, and images it to be that prick of conscience, the still, small voice that is urging him ever to righteousness.  If the digression is unusual enough, the drag of habit will be heavy enough to cause the unreasoning victim to return and perform the perfunctory thing. " Now, bless me, as a matter of fact, it has merely done its old, unbreakable trick once again.

Carrie had no excellent home principles fixed upon her.  If she had, she would have been more consciously distressed.  Now the lunch went off with considerable warmth.  Under the influence of the varied occurrences, the fine, invisible passion which was emanating from Drouet, the food, the still unusual luxury, she relaxed and heard with open ears.  She was again the victim of the city’s hypnotic influence.

" Well,” said Drouet at last, " we had better be going.”

They had been dawdling over the dishes, and their eyes had frequently met.  Carrie could not help but feel the vibration of force which followed, which, indeed, was his gaze.  He had a way of touching her hand in explanation, as if to impress a fact upon her.  He touched it now as he spoke of going.