True, the glamour of the stage no longer deceived her. All the gilt edge of her dreams had vanished at rehearsal. She no longer believed the theatre to be a paradise on earth. It was a somewhat gloomy, business-like, and sordid arena of which the excitements were purely personal, and concerned chiefly with individual success and achievement. These she had now experienced and found them unsatisfying. A morbid craving for something she could not express or define remained her legacy. The "Etta" in her had not been blotted out by triumph. Had she known it, she would have understood that nothing but tragedy would efface it. This, naturally, she did not know. Believing her time to be brief, she desired to see as much of Bohemia as the numbered weeks would permit; and she refused no invitation, however imprudent it seemed, nor denied herself any experience by which her knowledge might profit. A perfect mistress of herself, she did not fear whatever adventure might bring her. Her desire had been to do exactly what the ordinary stage girl did--to live in lodgings, to tramp about the London streets, to spend little sums of money as though they had been riches, to give a girlish vanity free rein. Sometimes she almost wished that a man would make love to her. The homage of men, she had read, always attended success upon the stage. Etta would have been delighted to evade her pursuers, to see their flowers upon her table, to read their ridiculous letters. For the moment, however, her dramatic experiences appeared likely to be somewhat prosaic. She had answered Mr. Charles Izard with the intimation that she would give him a definite reply within a week, and with that, perforce, he had to be content. The early promise of success for "Haddon Hall" was amply justified. The business done at the Carlton Theatre proved beyond experience. There were two matinées a week, and splendid houses to boot. Etta delighted in the triumphs of these more than words could tell. The thunderous applause, the ringing cheers, the frequent calls, animated her whole being and awoke in her the finest instincts of her inheritance. She knew that she had been born an actress, and that nothing would change her destiny. All the frivolous life of the theatre could show her made their instant appeal to her senses and were enjoyed with a child's zest. Her gestures were quick and excited, and, as little Dulcie Holmes would say, "so French." She could behave like a schoolgirl sometimes--a schoolgirl freed from bondage and ready for any tomboy's play.