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第4章 学炼仙丹

　　"If you do, maybe I can help you. I've got a lot of friends inthat line."

　　"No," she answered, rising. "Besides, it's time I was gettingready for the theatre. I'll have to leave you. Come, now.""Oh, stay a minute," pleaded Drouet. "You've got plenty oftime."

　　Hurstwood laid down his fifteen cents and crept off with wearysteps to his allotted room. It was a dingy affair--wooden,dusty, hard. A small gas-jet furnished sufficient light for sorueful a corner.

　　"No-o," said Mrs. Vance, realising the change of it all. "I'mreally very much in a hurry. I thought I'd just run up and lookin, but I couldn't stay. Just tell your wife she must come andsee me."

　　"Say, Maggie," he called, "if you wait, I'll walk with you."

　　"Let me fix my coat for you, anyway," and he arose and arrangedhis light coat in a comfortable position to receive her head.

　　A man of Hurstwood's age and temperament is not subject to theillusions and burning desires of youth, but neither has he thestrength of hope which gushes as a fountain in the heart ofyouth. Such an atmosphere could not incite in him the cravingsof a boy of eighteen, but in so far as they were excited, thelack of hope made them proportionately bitter. He could not failto notice the signs of affluence and luxury on every hand. Hehad been to New York before and knew the resources of its folly.In part it was an awesome place to him, for here gathered allthat he most respected on this earth--wealth, place, and fame.The majority of the celebrities with whom he had tipped glassesin his day as manager hailed from this self-centred and populousspot. The most inviting stories of pleasure and luxury had beentold of places and individuals here. He knew it to be true thatunconsciously he was brushing elbows with fortune the livelongday; that a hundred or five hundred thousand gave no one theprivilege of living more

　　So now, the house, to his mind, had a most pleasing andcomfortable appearance. In the hall he found an evening paper,laid there by the maid and forgotten by Mrs. Hurstwood. In thedining-room the table was clean laid with linen and napery andshiny with glasses and decorated china. Through an open door hesaw into the kitchen, where the fire was crackling in the stoveand the evening meal already well under way. Out in the smallback yard was George, Jr., frolicking with a young dog he hadrecently purchased, and in the parlour Jessica was playing at thepiano, the sounds of a merry waltz filling every nook and cornerof the comfortable home. Every one, like himself, seemed to haveregained his good spirits, to be in sympathy with youth andbeauty, to be inclined to joy and merry-making. He felt as if hecould say a good word all around himself, and took a most genialglance at the spread table and polished sideboard before goingupstairs to read his paper in the comfortable armchair of thesitting-room which looke

　　"You wait here," he said to Carrie, when they reached thewaiting-room, "while I get the tickets."