In the interval which marked the preparation of the meal Carrie found time to study the flat.  She had some slight gift of observation and that sense, so rich in every women intuition.

She felt the drag of a lean and narrow life.  The walls of the rooms were discordantly papered.  The floors were covered with matting and the hall laid with a thin rag carpet.  One could see that the furniture was of that poor, hurriedly patched together quality sold by the installment houses.

She sat with Minnie, in the kitchen, holding the baby until it began to cry.  Then she walked and sang to it, until Hanson, disturbed in his reading, came and took it A pleasant side to his nature came out here.  He was patient.  One could see that he was very much wrapped up in his offspring.

“Now, now,” he said, walking.  “There, there,” and there was a certain Swedish accent noticeable in his voice

“You’ll want to see the city first, won’t you?” said Minnie, when they were eating.  “Well, we’ll go out Sunday and see Lincoln Park.”

Carrie noticed that Hanson had said nothing to this He seemed to be thinking of something else.

“Well,” she said, " I think I’ll look around to-morrow I’ve got Friday and Saturday, and it won’t be any trouble Which way is the business part?”

Minnie began to explain, but her husband took this part of the conversation to himself.

“It’s that way,” he said, pointing east.  “That’s east Then he went off into the longest speech he had yet indulged in, concerning the lay of Chicago.  You’d better look in those big manufacturing houses along Franklin Street and just the other side of the river,” he concluded.  “Lots of girls work there.  You could get home easy, too.  It isn’t very far.”

Carrie nodded and asked her sister about the neighborhood.  The latter talked in a subdued tone, telling the little she knew about it, while Hanson concerned himself with the baby.  Finally he jumped up and handed the child to his wife.

“I’ve got to get up early in the morning, so I’ll go to bed,” and off he went, disappearing into the dark little bedroom off the hall, for the night.

“He works way down at the stock-yards,” explained Minnie, “so he’s got to get up at half-past five.”

“What time do you get up to get breakfast?” asked Carrie.

“At about twenty minutes of five.”  Together they finished the labor of the day, Carrie washing the dishes while Minnie undressed the baby and put it to bed.  Minnie’s manner was one of trained industry, and Carrie could see that it was a steady round of toil with her.

She began to see that her relations with Drouet would have to be abandoned.  He could not come here.  She read from the manner of Hanson, in the subdued air of Minnie, and, indeed, the whole atmosphere of the flat, a settled opposition to anything save a conservative round of toil.  If Hanson sat every evening in the front room and read his paper, if he went to bed at nine, and Minnie a little later, what would they except of her?  She saw that she would first need to get work and establish herself company of any sort.  Her little flirtation with Drouet seemed now an extraordinary thing.