Curiously this idea soon took hold of Hurstwood. His vanishing sum suggested that he would need sustenance. Why could not Carrie assist him a little until he could get something?
He came in one day with something of this idea in his mind.
“I met John B. Drake to-day,” he said. “He’s going to open a hotel here in the fall. He says that he can make a place for me then.”
“Who is he?” asked Carrie.
“He’s the man that runs the Grand Pacific in Chicago.”
“Oh,” said Carrie.
“I’d get about fourteen hundred a year out of that.”
“That would be good, wouldn’t it?” she said, sympathetically.
“If I can only get over this summer,” he added, “I think I’ll be all right. I’m hearing from some of my friends again.”
Carrie swallowed this story in all its pristine beauty. She sincerely wished he could get through the summer. He looked so hopeless.