“It isn’t anything difficult. ‘It’s something that is very simple,’ he says, ‘and would suit you exactly.’” “Of course, I wouldn’t mind trying,” said Carrie, archly. “Would you mind coming to the box-office a few moments before you dress?” observed the manager, in addition. “There’s a little matter I want to speak to you about.” “Certainly,” replied Carrie. In that latter place the manager produced a paper. “Now, of course,” he said, “we want to be fair with you in the matter of salary. Your contract here only calls for thirty dollars a week for the next three months. How would it do to make it, say, one hundred and fifty a week and extend it for twelve months?” “Oh, very well,” said Carrie, scarcely believing her ears. “Supposing, then, you just sign this.” Carrie looked and beheld a new contract made out like the other one, with the exception of the new figures of salary and time. With a hand trembling from excitement she affixed her name. “One hundred and fifty a week!” she murmured, when she was again alone. She found, after all—as what millionaire has not?—that there was no realising, in consciousness, the meaning of large sums. It was only a shimmering, glittering phrase in which lay a world of possibilities. Down in a third-rate Bleecker Street hotel, the brooding Hurstwood read the dramatic item covering Carrie’s success, without at first realising who was meant. Then suddenly it came to him and he read the whole thing over again. “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.