glint in his eye.  Carrie noticed all these things as he leaned toward her and felt exceedingly young.  This man was far ahead of her.  He seemed wiser than Hurstwood, saner and brighter than Drouet.  He seemed innocent and clean, and she thought that he was exceedingly pleasant.  She noticed, also, that his interest in her was a far-off one.  She was not in his life, nor any of the things that touched his life, and yet now, as he spoke of these things, they appealed to her.

“I shouldn’t care to be rich,” he told her, as the dinner proceeded and the supply of food warmed up his sympathies; “not rich enough to spend my money this way.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you?” said Carrie, the, to her, new attitude forcing itself distinctly upon her for the first time.

“No,” he said.  “What good would it do?  A man doesn’t need this sort of thing to be happy.”

Carrie thought of this doubtfully; but, coming from him, it had weight with her.

“He probably could be happy,” she thought to herself, “all alone.  He’s so strong.”

Mr. and Mrs. Vance kept up a running fire of interruptions, and these impressive things by Ames came at odd moments.  They were sufficient, however, for the atmosphere that went with this youth impressed itself upon Carrie without words.  There was something in him, or the world he moved in, which appealed to her.  He reminded her of scenes she had seen on the stage—­the sorrows and sacrifices that always went with she knew not what.  He had taken away some of the bitterness of the contrast between this life and her life, and all by a certain calm indifference which concerned only him.

As they went out, he took her arm and helped her into the coach, and then they were off again, and so to the show.

During the acts Carrie found herself listening to him very attentively.  He mentioned things in the play which she most approved of—­things which swayed her deeply.

“Don’t you think it rather fine to be an actor?” she asked once.

“Yes, I do,” he said, “to be a good one.  I think the theatre a great thing.”

Just this little approval set Carrie’s heart bounding.  Ah, if she could only be an actress—­a good one!  This man was wise—­he knew—­and he approved of it.  If she were a fine actress, such men as he would approve of her.  She felt that he was good to speak as he had, although it did not concern her at all.  She did not know why she felt this way.

At the close of the show it suddenly developed that he was not going back with them.

“Oh, aren’t you?” said Carrie, with an unwarrantable feeling.

“Oh, no,” he said; “I’m stopping right around here in Thirty-third Street.”

Carrie could not say anything else, but somehow this development shocked her.  She had been regretting the wane of a pleasant evening, but she had thought there was a half-hour more.  Oh, the half-hours, the minutes of the world; what miseries and griefs are crowded into them!