The third time he forgot entirely and explained afterwards.

These events were months apart, each.
"Where were you, George ?" asked Carrie, after the first absence.
"Tied up at the office," he said genially.

"There were some accounts I had to straighten." "I'm sorry you couldn't get home," she said kindly.

"I was fixing to have such a nice dinner." The second time he gave a similar excuse, but the third time the feeling about it in Carrie's mind was a little bit out of the ordinary.
"I couldn't get home," he said, when he came in later in the evening, "I was so busy." "Couldn't you have sent me word ?" asked Carrie.
"I meant to," he said, "but you know I forgot it until it was too late to do any good." "And I had such a good dinner!" said Carrie.
Now, it so happened that from his observations of Carrie he began to imagine that she was of the thoroughly domestic type of mind.

He really thought, after a year, that her chief expression in life was finding its natural channel in household duties.