" Hello, Charley,” said Hurstwood, looking out from his office door.

Drouet strolled over and looked in upon the manger at his desk.

" When do you go out on the road again?” he inquired.

" Pretty soon,” said Drouet.

" Haven’t seen much of you this trip,” said Hurstwood.

" Well, I’ve been busy,” said Drouet.

They talked some few minutes on general topics.

" Say,” said Drouet, as if stuck by a sudden idea, " I want you to come out some evening.”

" Out where?” inquired Hurstwood.

" Out to my house, of course,” said Drouet smiling.

Hurstwood looked up quizzically, the least suggestion of a smile hovering about his lips.  He studied the face of Drouet in his wise way, and then with the demeanor of a gentlemen, said:  " Certainly; glad to.”

" We’ll have a nice game of euchre.”

" May I bring a nice little bottle of Sec?” asked Hurstwood.

" Certainly,” said Drouet. " I’ll introduce you.”

Chapter X THE COUNSEL OF WINTER:  FORTUNE’S AMBASSADOR CALLS

In the light of the world’s attitude toward woman and her duties, the nature of Carrie’s mental state deserves consideration.  Actions such as hers are measured by an arbitrary scale.  Society possesses a conventional standard whereby it judges all things.  All men should be good, all women virtuous.  Wherefore, villain, hast thou failed?

For all the liberal analysis of Spencer and our modern naturalistic philosophers, we have but an infantile perception of morals.  There is more in the subject than mere conformity to a law of evolution.  It is yet deeper than conformity to things of earth alone.  It is more involved than we, as yet, perceive.  Answer, first, why the heart thrills; explain wherefore some plaintive note goes wandering about the world, undying; make clear the rose’s stable alchemy evolving its ruddy lamp in light and rain.  In the essence of these facts lie the first principles of morals.

" Oh,” though Drouet, " how delicious is my conquest.”

" Ah,” though Carrie, with mournful misgivings, " what is it I have lost?”

Before this world-old proposition we stand, serious, interested, confused; endeavoring to evolve the true theory of morals-the true answer to what is right.

In the view of a certain stratum of society, Carrie was comfortably established-in eyes of the traveling, beaten by every wind and gusty sheet of rain, she was safe in a halcyon harbor.  Drouet had taken three rooms, furnished, in Ogden Place, facing Union Park, on the West Side.  That was a little, green-carpeted breathing spot than which, to-day, there is nothing more beautiful in Chicago.  It afforded a vista pleasant to contemplate.  The best room looked out upon the lawn of the park, now sear and brown, where a little lake lay sheltered.  Over the bare limbs of the trees, which now swayed in the wintry wind, rose the steeple of the Union park Congregational Church, and far off the towers of several others.