Carrie listened to this with mingled feelings.  Her mind was shaken loose from the little mooring of logic that it had.  She was stirred by this thought, angered by that—­her own injustice, Hurstwood’s, Drouet’s, their respective qualities of kindness and favor, the threat of the world outside, in which she had failed once before, the impossibility of this state inside, where the chambers were no longer justly hers, the effect of the argument upon her nerves, all combined to make her a mass of jangling fibers—­an anchorless, storm-beaten little craft which could do absolutely nothing but drift.

“Say,” said Drouet, coming over to her after a few moments, with a new idea, and putting his hand upon her.

“Don’t!” said Carrie, drawing away, but not removing her handkerchief from her eyes.  “Never mind about this quarrel now.  Let it go.  You stay here until the month’s out, anyhow, and then you can tell better what you want to do.  Eh?”

Carrie made no answer.

“You’d better do that,” he said.  “There’s no use your packing up now.  You can’t go anywhere.”

Still he got nothing for his words.

“If you’ll do that, we’ll call it off for the present and I’ll get out.”

Carrie lowered her handkerchief slightly and looked out of the window.

“Will you do that?” he asked.

Still no answer.

“Will you?” he repeated.

She only looked vaguely into the street.

“Aw! come on,” he said, “tell me.  Will you?”

“I don’t know,” said Carrie softly, forced to answer.

“Promise me you’ll do that,” he said, “and we’ll quit talking about it.  It’ll be the best thing for you.”

Carrie heard him, but she could not bring herself to answer reasonably.  She felt that the man was gentle, and that his interest in her had not abated, and it made her suffer a pang of regret.  She was in a most helpless plight.

As for Drouet, his attitude had been that of the jealous lover.  Now his feelings were a mixture of anger at deception, sorrow at losing Carrie, misery at being defeated.  He wanted his rights in some way or other, and yet his rights included the retaining of Carrie, the making her feel her error.

“Will you?” he urged.

“Well, I’ll see,” said Carrie.

This left the matter as open as before, but it was something.  It looked as if the quarrel would blow over, if they could only get some way of talking to one another.  Carrie was ashamed, and Drouet aggrieved.  He pretended to take up the task of packing some things in a valise.