When Carrie reached her own room she had already fallen a prey to
those doubts and misgivings which are ever the result of a lack
of decision. She could not persuade herself as to the
advisability of her promise, or that now, having given her word,
she ought to keep it. She went over the whole ground in
Hurstwood's absence, and discovered little objections that had
not occurred to her in the warmth of the manager's argument. She
saw where she had put herself in a peculiar light, namely, that
of agreeing to marry when she was already supposedly married.
She remembered a few things Drouet had done, and now that it came
to walking away from him without a word, she felt as if she were
doing wrong. Now, she was comfortably situated, and to one who
is more or less afraid of the world, this is an urgent matter,
and one which puts up strange, uncanny arguments. "You do not
know what will come. There are miserable things outside. People
go a-begging. Women are wretched. You never can tell what will
happen. Remember the time you were hungry. Stick to what you
have."

Curiously, for all her leaning towards Hurstwood, he had not
taken a firm hold on her understanding. She was listening,
smiling, approving, and yet not finally agreeing. This was due
to a lack of power on his part, a lack of that majesty of passion
that sweeps the mind from its seat, fuses and melts all arguments
and theories into a tangled mass, and destroys for the time being
the reasoning power. This majesty of passion is possessed by
nearly every man once in his life, but it is usually an attribute
of youth and conduces to the first successful mating.