Plot Summary

Carrie boards the train to Chicago with big ambitions. She gets a job stitching shoes and her sister's husband takes almost all of her pay for room and board. Then she injures a finger and is fired. This is the 1890s. Charles Drouet, a salesman she met on the train, comes to her rescue and invites her to dine at Fitzgerald's where the manager George Hurstwood sends over a bottle of champagne. She stays in Drouet's apartment, as he will be on the road 10 days. When she leaves the apartment many months later -- on a train bound for New York -- her traveling companion is Hurstwood. Why is he in such a hurry?