That night he felt a cold coming on and took quinine.He was feverish until morning, and sat about the next day while Carrie waited on him.He was a helpless creature in sickness, not very handsome in a dull-coloured bath gown and his hair uncombed.He looked haggard about the eyes and quite old.Carrie noticed this, and it did not appeal to her.She wanted to be good-
natured and sympathetic, but something about the man held her aloof.
Toward evening he looked so badly in the weak light that she suggested he go to bed.
"You'd better sleep alone," she said, "you'll feel better.I'll open your bed for you now."
"All right," he said.
As she did all these things, she was in a most despondent state.
"What a life! What a life!" was her one thought.
Once during the day, when he sat near the radiator, hunched up and reading, she passed through, and seeing him, wrinkled her brows.In the front room, where it was not so warm, she sat by the window and cried.This was the life cut out for her, was it?
To live cooped up in a small flat with some one who was out of work, idle, and indifferent to her.She was merely a servant to him now, nothing more.
This crying made her eyes red, and when, in preparing his bed, she lighted the gas, and, having prepared it, called him in, he noticed the fact.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked, looking into her face.
His voice was hoarse and his unkempt head only added to its grewsome quality.
"Nothing," said Carrie, weakly.
"You've been crying," he said.
"I haven't, either," she answered.
It was not for love of him, that he knew.
"You needn't cry," he said, getting into bed."Things will come out all right."
In a day or two he was up again, but rough weather holding, he stayed in.The Italian newsdealer now delivered the morning papers, and these he read assiduously.A few times after that he ventured out, but meeting another of his old-time friends, he began to feel uneasy sitting about hotel corridors.
Every day he came home early, and at last made no pretence of going anywhere.Winter was no time to look for anything.
Naturally, being about the house, he noticed the way Carrie did things.She was far from perfect in household methods and economy, and her little deviations on this score first caught his eye.Not, however, before her regular demand for her allowance became a grievous thing.Sitting around as he did, the weeks seemed to pass very quickly.Every Tuesday Carrie asked for her money.
"Do you think we live as cheaply as we might?" he asked one Tuesday morning.
"I do the best I can," said Carrie.
Nothing was added to this at the moment, but the next day he said:
"Do you ever go to the Gansevoort Market over here?"
"I didn't know there was such a market," said Carrie.
"They say you can get things lots cheaper there."
Carrie was very indifferent to the suggestion.These were things which she did not like at all.
"How much do you pay for a pound of meat?" he asked one day.
"Oh, there are different prices," said Carrie."Sirloin steak is twenty-two cents."
"That's steep, isn't it?" he answered.
So he asked about other things, until finally, with the passing days, it seemed to become a mania with him.He learned the prices and remembered them.
His errand-running capacity also improved.It began in a small way, of course.Carrie, going to get her hat one morning, was stopped by him.
"Where are you going, Carrie?" he asked.
"Over to the baker's," she answered.
"I'd just as leave go for you," he said.
She acquiesced, and he went.Each afternoon he would go to the corner for the papers.
"Is there anything you want?" he would say.
