Now a critic called to get up one of those tinsel interviews which shine with clever observations, show up the wit of critics, display the folly of celebrities, and divert the public.  He liked Carrie, and said so, publicly—­adding, however, that she was merely pretty, good-natured, and lucky.  This cut like a knife.  The “Herald,” getting up an entertainment for the benefit of its free ice fund, did her the honor to beg her to appear along with celebrities for nothing.  She was visited by a young author, who had a play which he thought she could produce.  Alas, she could not judge.  It hurt her to think it.  Then she found she must put her money in the bank for safety, and so moving, finally reached the place where it struck her that the door to life’s perfect enjoyment was not open.

Gradually she began to think it was because it was summer.  Nothing was going on much save such entertainments as the one in which she was the star.  Fifth Avenue was boarded up where the rich had deserted their mansions.  Madison Avenue was little better.  Broadway was full of loafing thespians in search of next season’s engagements.  The whole city was quiet and her nights were taken up with her work.  Hence the feeling that there was little to do.

“I don’t know,” she said to Lola one day, sitting at one of the windows which looked down into Broadway, “I get lonely; don’t you?”

“No,” said Lola, “not very often.  You won’t go anywhere.  That’s what’s the matter with you.”

“Where can I go?”

“Why, there’re lots of places,” returned Lola, who was thinking of her own lightsome tourneys with the gay youths.  “You won’t go with anybody.”

“I don’t want to go with these people who write to me.  I know what kind they are.”

“You oughtn’t to be lonely,” said Lola, thinking of Carrie’s success.  “There’re lots would give their ears to be in your shoes.”

Carrie looked out again at the passing crowd.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Unconsciously her idle hands were beginning to weary.

Chapter XLV CURIOUS SHIFTS OF THE POOR

The gloomy Hurstwood, sitting in his cheap hotel, where he had taken refuge with seventy dollars—­the price of his furniture-between him and nothing, saw a hot summer out and a cool fall in, reading.  He was not wholly indifferent to the fact that his money was slipping away.  As fifty cents after fifty cents were paid out for a day’s lodging he became uneasy, and finally took a cheaper room—­thirty-five cents a day—­to make his money last longer.  Frequently he saw notices of Carrie.  Her picture was in the “World” once or twice, and an old “Herald” he found in a chair informed him that she had recently appeared with some others at a benefit for something or other.  He read these things with mingled feelings.  Each one seemed to put her farther and farther away into a realm which became more imposing as it receded from him.  On the billboards, too, he saw a pretty poster, showing her as the Quaker Maid, demure and dainty.  More than once he stopped and looked at these, gazing at the pretty face in a sullen sort of way.  His clothes were shabby, and he presented a marked contrast to all that she now seemed to be.