There was another pause, longer than any of the previous ones. Then
Dudley said, shortly:

"You need not wait here any longer. I am going to see her myself."

Carrie had got upon her feet in the automatic manner she had maintained
throughout the interview.

"Going to the wharf, are you?" she said, with the first sign of human
interest she had shown. "Oh, very well."

There was something noticeable in her tone, something which made Max
suspicious and anxious on his friend's account. He came round the table
with rapid steps, touched Dudley's shoulder, and said, in a low voice:

"I'll go with you!"

At the sound of his voice Carrie started violently, and looked up at
Max, staring with eyes full of wonder and something very like delight.
The rigidity with which she had held herself, the automatic manner, the
hard, off-hand tone, all disappeared at once; and it was a new, a
transformed Carrie, the fascinating, wayward, irresistible girl he had
remembered, who gave him a smile and a nod, as she said, in a voice full
of the old charm he remembered:

"You! Is it you?" Then, breathlessly, with a change to anxiety in her
voice: "And are you going, too?"

"Yes. I'm going with my friend," said Max, as he came forward and held