irst gloomy
impression, now went to the other extreme and saw power where it was
not. The general feeling reacted on Carrie. She presented her part with
some felicity, though nothing like the intensity which had aroused the
feeling at the end of the long first act.

Both Hurstwood and Drouet viewed her pretty figure with rising feelings.
The fact that such ability should reveal itself in her, that they should
see it set forth under such effective circumstances, framed almost in
massy gold and shone upon by the appropriate lights of sentiment and
personality, heightened her charm for them. She was more than the old
Carrie to Drouet. He longed to be at home with her until he could tell
her. He awaited impatiently the end, when they should go home alone.

Hurstwood, on the contrary, saw in the strength of her new
attractiveness his miserable predicament. He could have cursed the
man beside him. By the Lord, he could not even applaud feelingly as he
would. For once he must simulate when it left a taste in his mouth.

It was in the last act that Carrie's fascination for her lovers assumed
its most effective character.

Hurstwood listened to its progress, wondering when Carrie would come on.
He had not long to wait. The author had used the artifice of sending all
the merry company for a drive, and now Carrie came in alone. It was
the first time that Hurstwood had had a chance to see her facing the
audience quite alone, for nowhere else had she been without a foil of
some sort. He suddenly felt, as she entered, that her old strength--the
power that had grasped him at the end of the first act--had come back.
She seemed to be gaining feeling, now that the play was drawing to a
close and the opportunity for great action was passing.

"Poor Pearl," she said, speaking with natural pathos. "It is a sad thing
to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping
about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp."

She was gazing now sadly out upon the open sea, her arm resting
listlessly upon the polished door-post.

Hurstwood began to feel a deep sympathy for her and for himself. He
could almost feel that she was talking to him. He was, by a combination
of feelings and entanglements, almost deluded by that quality of voice
and manner which, like a pathetic strain of music, seems ever a
personal and intimate thing. Pathos has this quality, that it seems ever
addressed to one alone.

"And yet, she ca