“That’s her, all right, I guess,” he said.

Then he looked about upon a dingy, moth-eaten hotel lobby.

“I guess she’s struck it,” he thought, a picture of the old shiny, plush-covered world coming back, with its lights, its ornaments, its carriages, and flowers.  Ah, she was in the walled city now!  Its splendid gates had opened, admitting her from a cold, dreary outside.  She seemed a creature afar off—­like every other celebrity he had known.

“Well, let her have it,” he said.  “I won’t bother her.”

It was the grim resolution of a bent, bedraggled, but unbroken pride.

Chapter XLIV AND THIS IS NOT ELF LAND—­WHAT GOLD WILL NOT BUY

When Carrie got back on the stage, she found that over night her dressing-room had been changed.

“You are to use this room, Miss Madenda,” said one of the stage lackeys.

No longer any need of climbing several flights of steps to a small coop shared with another.  Instead, a comparatively large and commodious chamber with conveniences not enjoyed by the small fry overhead.  She breathed deeply and with delight.  Her sensations were more physical than mental.  In fact, she was scarcely thinking at all.  Heart and body were having their say.

Gradually the deference and congratulation gave her a mental appreciation of her state.  She was no longer ordered, but requested, and that politely.  The other members of the cast looked at her enviously as she came out arrayed in her simple habit, which she wore all through the play.  All those who had supposedly been her equals and superiors now smiled the smile of sociability, as much as to say:  “How friendly we have always been.”  Only the star comedian whose part had been so deeply injured stalked by himself.  Figuratively, he could not kiss the hand that smote him.

Doing her simple part, Carrie gradually realized the meaning of the applause which was for her, and it was sweet.  She felt mildly guilty of something—­perhaps unworthiness.  When her associates addressed her in the wings she only smiled weakly.  The pride and daring of place were not for her.  It never once crossed her mind to be reserved or haughty--to be other than she had been.  After the performances she rode to her room with Lola, in a carriage provided.

Then came a week in which the first fruits of success were offered to her lips—­bowl after bowl.  It did not matter that her splendid salary had not begun.  The world seemed satisfied with the promise.  She began to get letters and cards.  A Mr. Withers-whom she did not know from Adam—­having learned by some hook or crook where she resided, bowed himself politely in.

“You will excuse me for intruding,” he said; “but have you been thinking of changing your apartments?”

“I hadn’t thought of it,” returned Carrie.

“Well, I am connected with the Wellington—­the new hotel on Broadway.  You have probably seen notices of it in the papers.”