Pa had recovered his good humor and was grinning by the time they reached the theater. Merely by his way of taking the key of his dressing-room from the stage-doorkeeper one recognized the owner of a troupe, the man with a "permanent address," the manager, the boss, the prof, the Pa. On entering the lobby, he, with his six girls, took possession of the theater. He nodded to the staff; growled a "Lazybones!" as the Roofers passed out two by two, always two by two: a fair one with made-up eyes, a dark one with kiss-me-quick lips; sniffed their cheap perfumes amid the tarry smell of the packages marked Sidney, New York, Paris....



On reaching the stage, Pa first gave a glance to make sure that there were no elephants, or ponies, or Merry Wives, that they could practise at their ease, without having to burrow in a corner, like rats. The stage was almost empty. After the live street, it was a pallid light, in which ghosts moved. The New Zealanders, it need not be said, no longer fancied themselves in the cavern of Bluebeard or Puss-in-Boots; they had seen too many stages during the past two years. The slant of the floor, the roughness or smoothness of the boards was what interested them, for fear of falls and barked shins. Pa hurried them to their dressing-room to get into their knickers, while he took off his jacket and turned up his trousers, so as to run better. No more time to lose, with his Lily! He was still in a fever from seeing those Pawnees last night. As for the stage and the boards, a lot he cared, slanting or straight, rough or smooth! To work! to work! And he got ready the bikes, which Tom had brought down, without a glance around him.

To a poet, to a painter, that glance would have been worth the taking. The iron curtain was raised, the house loomed vaguely; the balconies, covered with cloth, stood out like cliffs; the pit, with its seats under a gray drugget, because of the dust, lifted toward the stage its rows of motionless waves. The stage itself was strange: a sort of huge cave, with strips of scenery hanging like stalactites; near the wall, a metal pedestal, with a red velvet platform, looked like a blood-stained scaffold; one suspected the presence of properties: wheels, iron implements, tangled ropes, like so many instruments of torture. At the New Zealanders' feet, half-naked bodies, suggesting the souls of the damned, were tumbling, practising falls; a woman in a white wrap hovered round; and, near the proscenium, a pack of trained seals, lying in their moist boxes, raised their frightened heads, as who should say corpses cast up on the shores of hell by the silent waves of the pit.

But three slender forms, spinning on their trapeze almost above Pa's head, sprang lightly to the stage, near an old fellow in spectacles.

"Why, Mr. Fuchs and the Three Graces! Here's a surprise!" said Pa, who had not seen them since the New York Olympians. "When did you get here? Yesterday?"

There was a general shaking of hands. Fuchs congratulated Pa on his success, said he had followed his progress in the papers. Pa owned a troupe now and had a name.

"So this is your Lily," said Fuchs, tapping her on the cheek as she joined the group. "A real lady! And good, eh?"

The Three Graces also congratulated Pa ... kissed Lily:

"How sweet you've grown! Why, Lily, how pretty you are!"

Lily was so surprised, so pleased; and her Pa was very proud. He thanked Mr. Fuchs, complimented the Three Graces in his turn, to their delight:

"What arms! What muscles!" Then, "Excuse us, eh? Lily must get ready. We shall meet again presently, after practice."

The Graces had gone back to it already. Pa tested the bikes; took a hurried turn at the pumps; and, when the apprentices and Lily returned:

"Yoop, up with you!"

The round began. Tom looked to the girls, constantly; ran after them; kept an eye on their falls. Pa, constantly, hung on to Lily. Nothing else existed when he was handling his star. His wish to do well, his love of art for art's sake worked him up, stimulated him, made him hit out but not in anger: it was the spark of enthusiasm, of which the apprentices caught the reflection.

"Hi, you there, Mary! I'll pull your ear! Birdie, if I take my belt to you!"

But his Lily above all; his Lily! his seven stone of flesh and bones! Pa was an artiste; he had thought of a thousand things since his trip to Brighton. New and astounding tricks; and easy at that ... if Lily only would! Oh, he'd soon make her graceful! But, for that, she would have to obey, to let go the handle-bar at a sign, instead of endlessly seeking her balance. For instance, Pa held her rein to prevent falls—there was nothing spiteful about Pa, he never let you fall on purpose—and Lily—"One! Two!—Count together, Lily!"—put one foot on the saddle, the other on the handle-bar: "Three!" That's where she had to let go her hands, smartly, and stand erect as she rode. The machine slipped under her. Lily, shaking with fear, stooped to seize the handle-bar.

"Stand up, Lily! Show pluck, Lily!" said Pa.

Lily, accustomed to obeying blindly, drew herself up again. But, sometimes, crash! The whole came tumbling down. Notwithstanding the rein, Lily fell to the ground; and the bike, in addition, caught her a kick in passing.

"Nothing broken? A tiny scratch; it's nothing. Tom, the white stuff!"

Tom left his Woolley-legs, brought a bottle of embrocation; a few drops of that on the skin, a bit of sticking-plaster; there, that was all right.

"You see, Lily, you're not dead yet! Nothing to be frightened about. Come, try again!"

The great thing was to hustle. Pa displayed so much enthusiasm—"Those Pawnees, damn it!"—that Lily, for all her fears, was smitten in her turn, ended by becoming exasperated against those Pawnees, felt a longing to wring their necks!

She obeyed her Pa like an automaton, in her anxiety to do well.

"More graceful! That's it! Not so stiff!" said Pa.

"But, Pa, I can't!" protested Lily, soaked in perspiration.

"But you've got to, my little lady!"

They passed from one practice to another, almost without resting. Lily was worn out, Pa seemed indefatigable.

Sometimes, practising was marked by interruptions. Maud's gouged eye remained the typical accident. Another time, a girl lay fainting for ten minutes after falling on her head; or else the stage was invaded by a ballet. There was no end to it. On this particular day, they had a visit from Harrasford himself, Harrasford the chief and master, who came along with Jimmy; a visit which was the more sensational for being quite rare. Pa, now that he was the owner of a troupe and sure of his position, would not have been sorry to be noticed by Harrasford, just to impress Mr. Fuchs and show him what they thought of Lily in London.

"Do your best, my Lily," said Pa. "He's watching us."

But bill-toppers, New Zealanders though they might be, were nobodies to "him;" Lily—one of a thousand, among all those of both sexes who performed in his theaters. There might have been ten cycling rhinoceroses on the boards; he might have seen Lily swallow her bike, and change into a butterfly: he would have paid no attention. Those were details that concerned the stage-manager. He hurried across the stage to the fly-ladder, made Jimmy explain things, took notes as he went, wanted to see for himself, pointed to the first batten, to the electric switches.

"How much for so many lamps? And that? What does that come to, roughly?"

And he stopped for a second in his course, his ear stretched toward Jimmy to catch his answer flying; then both of them went on again, quickly.

Jimmy was now following Harrasford along the bridges, with the whole stage below him, in the ruddy semi-darkness; at one side, the half-naked bodies fell with a heavy thud after their somersaults; or else it was the sharp sound of a bike skidding; and distant voices rose up to him:

"But, Pa, I can't!"

"But you've got to, my little lady!"

"Poor little thing!" thought Jimmy, disappearing in the flies, toward the side-rails, at Harrasford's heels. And Lily went on riding and Pa running after her, round and round and round. She seemed to be fleeing madly, pursued by a devil. Suddenly, Pa stopped, having exhausted his strength, and Lily fell rather than sat upon a hamper by the wall.

"Here, Lily, put this over your shoulders," said Pa, giving her his jacket. "You'll catch cold, darling. Oof, let's take breath a bit!"

But a glad voice burst through the silence: it came from the Three Graces, who always worked on stubbornly, even during the absence of Nunkie, who had been out for a smoke. Thea greeted his return with a cry of triumph:

"Ten pullings-up with one arm, Nunkie! Ten without stopping!"

"Well done! I'm very pleased with you," said Mr. Fuchs; and he crowned their excitement by declaring that, as a reward, he would that very day buy Thea the sleeve-links which he had promised her ever since last year.

"Dear Nunkie!"

A spasm of vanity made them rush back to their work; and soon the three of them formed, in mid-air, an involved group of ropes, bars and hardened limbs.

Lily, in spite of her fatigue, was amused at those mad girls. To take all that trouble for the sake of a pair of sleeve-links! Her shoulders shook with nervous laughter, in spite of Pa's presence. He quieted her with a gesture, scolded her under his breath, kindly:

"Shut up, Lily!... Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Lily?"

And he looked at Nunkie with an air of saying:

"You old rogue!"

As for the Three Graces, it was a pleasure to watch them: their pluck was infectious.

"To work!" said Pa. "Let's have a somersault, eh?"

And, at a sign from him, two of the apprentices, assisted by Tom, fixed a little steel-legged table in the middle of the stage, bore down upon it with all their weight. The bike, set at full speed, stopped short as it struck the table; and Lily, carried on by the impulse, continued her whirl, full on her back, and, carrying the machine with her, came to the ground on the other side of the table and went on riding. But that shook her, in her stomach, her heart, everywhere. Each time, she was nearly succeeding, but it wasn't quite right.

"I can see," said Pa, "you want to make me lose my temper!"

"But, Pa, it hurts!"

"Oh, those blasted little brats!" shouted Pa angrily. "Rickety machines, every one of them: no more energy than a sparrow and lazy into the bargain!"

Then, suddenly, Lily succeeded magnificently.

"You see you can do it when you like, you obstinate little wretch!" said Pa. "Now try not to miss it again, next time! That will do for to-day," he added, seeing Lily out of breath. "Go and get dressed, my Lily."

The Three Graces were finishing also. Good old Nunkie wiped the perspiration from their foreheads with his big checked handkerchief, invited Clifton to come with Lily and choose the sleeve-links and suggested that they could have a chat at the restaurant.

"Would you like to, Lily?" asked Pa.

"Yes, Pa."

"Very well, then."

The girls would go back alone. Tom, having carried up the bikes, was told to run home and fetch Miss Lily's new dress and boots, Mrs. Clifton's brooch and big hat. And, half an hour later, Lily, who had crawled up to her dressing-room stiff-legged, exhausted, feeling sixty, came tripping down the stairs all freshly dressed, wearing the great hat of her mother, and a pair of creaking boots. She soon recovered when she was dressed out. She drew up her dainty figure, so as to be level with the imposing group of Pa, Nunkie and the Three Graces.

Lily, very proud of herself, spun out the pleasure of drawing on her gloves to go shopping with those big girls, who had had love stories. Then they discussed what restaurant.... Nunkie, long ago—"Zaeo's year at the Aquarium:—that doesn't make me any younger, eh?"—had discovered a little German place....

Lily would have liked to propose the Horse Shoe, to walk in there with her big hat and creaking boots as though the place belonged to her. But they decided upon a "Lyons" in Wardour Street. At the table, it was touching to watch the attentions which the Three Graces lavished upon their Nunkie, the respect they showed him. Pa was not sorry that Lily should see that, but Lily took no notice at all: she just removed her gloves, held her knife and fork with the tips of her fingers, let Pa help her, thanked him with a pretty "'K you." From the corner of her eye, she watched other groups, to pick up good manners. She seemed to have frequented smart restaurants all her life: beside her, Nunkie and the Three Graces, who cut their bread with their knives and made a noise when eating, looked like a family of small farmers on a visit to London town. Pa was greatly amused, enjoyed his daughter's aristocratic ways, admired her refined air. When they went out, in obedience to a look from Lily, he bought her a bunch of violets, which he pinned to her bodice himself:

"Well, Lily, are you happy? Do you love your Pa? Tell me you love your Pa," and he looked at her gently as if in regret at having been so harsh at practice.

"It's for your good, my Lily, you'll thank me one of these days. I'll give you lovely dresses, I'll cover you with diamonds!"

"Why not to-day?" asked Lily, with a comic pout.

Then both of them laughed and Lily forgot everything, even the blow with the fist, at being treated so like a lady.

"If I was married," she said to the Three Graces, "I should like to go shopping all day long and have fine dresses, a gold watch and no bike!"

The Three Graces, with their heroic strength, had no thought of such luxuries. Thea told Lily of her successes in America:

"Five pullings-up with one arm at Boston. Six at 'Frisco. Eight when we got back to New York! Eight, Lily! And to-day...."

"And your lover in America, tell me about your lover ..." interrupted Lily, pressing Thea's arm.

"Talk low," said Thea, looking back at Nunkie, who was walking behind with Pa. "Nunkie is furious with him. If he ever meets him! He says it's disgraceful, not writing to me, after asking leave to. It's an insult that ought to disgust me with men for good and all, Nunkie says."

She told Lily everything, her unhappiness at first, for she loved him. Lily, with her little nose in the air, sniffed those love stories, gulped them down, so to speak, with an instinctive movement of the lips.

"And did you write to him?"

"I wrote to him, but he never answered. Oh, if Nunkie knew! He forbids us to write, because writing, you know, Lily, puts out the muscles of the arms, interferes with the pullings-up, Nunkie says...."



But they turned into Regent Street: to Lily it was the entrance to the paradise of shops. The huge curve displayed its window fronts; and ladies and gentlemen and little girls: not dressed in their Ma's leavings, these last, but a superior branch of mankind, similar to that in the front boxes.

Nunkie blinked his eyes behind his spectacles: all this luxury terrified him; he had almost forgotten the sleeve-links, talking with Clifton of people they had known:

"The boy-violinist? Not up to much. Ave Maria? A disgrace: married, deserted, I don't know what. Poland, the Parisienne? A scandal!" As for him, he had but one wish, after getting his girls married: to retire to his home, grow his roses, look after his pigeons; simple joys, the only ones....

"Look, Thea!" Lily broke in, pointing through the plate-glass to a heap of imitation jewelry, lying, among watches, on red and black velvet.

"Come on!" said Mr. Fuchs.

But, when Thea saw the prices—ten shillings, twelve shilling's—she refused to go in, saying she could have it just as pretty in Wardour Street and ever so much cheaper.

"Just as you please, my darling. I'll do whatever you like. I don't know anything about it!"

Clifton felt something rise in revolt within him, he was unable to resist it; a case of showing that old curmudgeon what a Pa was and that his little girl, too, did pullings-up in her way and that he knew how to treat her as a Pa should:

"Your watch, Lily," he said, opening the door and pushing her in. "Now's the chance to get it. Come, choose for yourself!"

"Oh, Pa! Do you really mean it, Pa?" she said incredulously.

"Now look here, I'll smack you, Lily! When your Pa tells you a thing!"

Lily seemed a princess, with her way of saying, "'K you," of touching the ornaments, the watches, like a little creature thirsting for luxury and yielding to her inclination at the first opportunity. There was so great a look of happiness in her eyes; and Clifton was so proud of his Lily, that he offered her a chain as well, to go with the watch. Lily refused at first, for form's sake, and then took courage—like a poor little martyr who did not like to disoblige her Pa—and chose a very pretty watch-chain, to the great wonderment of the Three Graces and of Nunkie, who thought, as they left the shop, that the children of to-day ... upon his word ... the parents of to-day ... it was all very different in his time....

Clifton laughed to himself at that old curmudgeon as he left him to go home, with his star. Lily hung heavily on her father's arm, passed the draper's shops with a serious air.

"No, another time!" said Pa, who felt what she was after.

And he hurried his daughter off, for he might have yielded, she was so nice.

Lily set her watch in Piccadilly, as they passed; then at the Cafe de l'Europe, by the big clock at the back; and again, twenty steps farther, at the bar of the Crown. Lily looked at the time and Pa showed his Lily off. He was proud to be seen with her in the neighborhood of Lisle Street, where everybody knew him. True, he seemed to have the name of being hard with Lily. But, come, was he hard? Did she look like a martyr? It was preposterous, all those stories. And he redoubled his attentions to his daughter, who talked a heap of nonsense, asked funny questions:

"Why should writing a letter interfere with the trapeze, when a girl has arms harder than a horse's hocks?"

"What? What?" asked Pa, taken aback, and when he understood, he would have held his sides for laughing, if he had been at home:

"Oh, the old rogue!" he said admiringly. "He loves his dear girls, does Nunkie!"

He was still laughing when they reached Tottenham Court Road; and, as they passed the Horse Shoe, a voice, which Lily seemed to remember, called to them from behind:

"Hullo, Clifton!"

Pa turned his head in surprise:

"Hullo, Trampy!"

For he recognized him at once, though he was much changed. Besides, he knew him to be in London. But it was a prosperous and gorgeous Trampy, quite unlike the old days; and forthwith Trampy explained: a champagne supper last night, just come from the bar; glass of Vichy water, you know. Huge success in London. Girls, by Jove! And then, pretending not to know Lily:

"I congratulate you, Clifton; what a dear little wife!"

Pa, greatly amused, protested: not his wife, no, his Lily! Then Trampy went into ecstasies: how pretty she had grown, one of the handsomest girls in London, sure! And in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland! And in all the British dominions beyond the seas, by Jove! And what a change since Mexico! She was a woman now, a peach, a regular peach!

Lily seemed fascinated by Trampy, examined him, his shiny hat, his gold rings, his patent-leather shoes. A swell, Trampy, a toff, a gentleman like those in the front boxes.

"Yes, Lily," said Trampy, guessing her thoughts, "yes, that's the way it is; one's not always hard up. I've struck oil since leaving America. Heaps of money! Eh, what!" he continued, offering Clifton an expensive cigar. "You wouldn't have thought it, would you, when you left me stranded in Mexico? That was a nice dirty trick you played me! Come and have a drain, old man, to drink Miss Lily's health and show there's no ill feeling!"

"No, another time," said Clifton, vexed at this recollection of Mexico, now that he was the established owner of a troupe, a man whose word was as good as gold. "I'm in a hurry to get home: a very nice home, Trampy, a real good one. Come and see us some day. Au revoir."

But Trampy was so pleased at meeting them, he never stopped shaking them by the hand. Lily had to accept a bag of cakes to share with the troupe when they had their tea. Then, at last:

"Au revoir, old man; au revoir, my love, my little peach!"

Lily's head was quite turned by this jolly day: it made her forget six months of worries. To think that, for some people, every day was like that! However, she mustn't complain: a watch, a chain as well, the somersault pulled off, compliments from Trampy....

Ma's reception of them, when they got home, was icy. Pa looked a little like a school-boy caught at fault; and Lily, none too easy in her mind, put the cakes on the sideboard, and hastened to take off her mother's big hat. Ma grumbled, under her breath: it was nothing but going out, now. Old Cinderella could stay at home, bareheaded, while my lady went shopping! A fine thing, my word, for a great sensible girl to abuse her Pa's weakness! There was nothing to do at home, of course! Well, if it pleased Mr. Clifton, she had no more to say!... And, while she grumbled, Ma prepared the tea and shot glances at Lily, a Lily with red cheeks and bright eyes and looking so pretty that Ma, full of mixed pride and anxiety, felt sudden longings to eat her up with kisses, "ugly" that she was!

Pa did his best to calm Mrs. Clifton, tried to amuse her with the story of the sleeve-links, of the horse's hocks, and Pa laughed, my!

"He laughs best who laughs last," growled Ma.

"Just think, Ma," said Lily, taking courage from Pa's merriment. "That old rogue forbids his daughter to write, he pretends that...."

"And quite right too!" said Ma. "What do girls want with writing? And who do you mean? What old rogue? You don't mean Mr. Fuchs, I suppose?"

"Why, yes, Ma, old Fuchs."

"Old Fuchs! You chit, to talk like that of respectable people! Go to your room, impudence! Dry bread for you!"

"But, Ma...!" said Lily rebelliously.

"That's what comes of it," said Mrs. Clifton, addressing her husband, "when a mother no longer has the right to correct her daughter."

And she pointed to Lily, who persisted in remaining, who was even beginning an explanation:

"But, Pa ... but...."

"Obey your mother first," said Clifton.

"Yes, Pa."

And Lily went out, very anxious at the turn which things had taken.

Clifton realized that he had perhaps been wrong that morning to blame Mrs. Clifton in Lily's presence. He was wrong also to laugh at old Fuchs before Lily. But, all the same, that old rogue ... and they had believed it, those Graces! That wouldn't go down with Lily!

"It's an example you ought to follow, instead of laughing at it, Mr. Clifton!"

"Upon my word, I'm very proud of my Lily; she works well, she really does," said Pa, stretching himself in the easy-chair. "I'm pleased with her; you know as well as I do, a girl is not a boy. She can do with a little spoiling. And only just now I made Lily a present of a gold watch and chain."

"Then I give up!" said Ma, in a voice of exasperation. "Then I give up! Why should I take all this trouble bringing up your daughter? A little spendthrift who will bring us all to the workhouse! And a good thing when she does!"

But Pa wanted peace in his own house. That was enough of it! Peace was what he wanted, damn it, and not a monkey-and-parrot life!

And, jumping up from his chair, he opened the door and shouted up the staircase:

"Come down, my Lily! Your Ma says you may! The cakes are on the table."



CHAPTER IV

Pa would have covered his Lily with diamonds, if he had the money ... and if Ma had allowed it! But, on this special point, she ventured to oppose him. She had been Lily's age herself, had Ma, and she enlarged upon the necessity of keeping a tight rein on Lily.

Ma enumerated the fugitives: Ave Maria, and this one, and that one, and ever so many others who had bolted; and troupes ruined by the flight,—or the marriage,—of the star....

"Lily has changed a good deal lately, dear, are you sure she hasn't a man in her mind?"

"There we are again!" said Pa. "Always the same old story! But just tell me, who does she see? Who does she know? Jimmy? You don't mean him, I suppose? Very well! Trampy, then? A married man, divorced, married again, goodness knows what! and then ... and then ... Oh, well, let's have peace at home, at any rate! Damn it, Lily may be a bit of a flirt: why shouldn't she be, a pretty girl like that? Beauty, in the profession, is half the battle."

And Pa entered into details, comforted Ma with good news: a fresh contract signed with Bill and Boom, after that, the Harrasford tour: big salaries now....

"No, dear, this isn't the time to worry Lily about trifles. And I don't want her to be bothered with useless work, either."

"Call home work useless! A woman's greatest charm!" exclaimed Ma.

Lily was a subject of friendly discussion to them. Both adored her equally: both were proud of her at heart. For Lily was growing very beautiful; everybody said so at the theater: the stage-manager; the acting manager, down to Jimmy, who stammered things. It was an endless series of compliments; Harrasford's friend, the architect, who had not seen her for a long time, fell into raptures when he met her on the stage:

"Magneeficent!" he exclaimed, in his Franco-Belgian accent. "How old is she: sixteen? seventeen?"

"Fourteen," said Ma, with a mincing air, for to that damned "parley-voo" she was as anxious to make Lily out a child now, in order to keep a firmer hold of her, as she had been to increase her age in America, so as to make her work.

"What, fourteen, Ma!" protested Lily.

"Yes, fourteen, of course; do you think you know better than your mother, you little fool? Can't you see everybody's laughing at you?"

Ma dreaded those irresponsible jossers, who filled Lily's head with a pack of false notions, and kept a good watch, in her growing anxiety.

Ma, in the early days of their arrival in London, had been terribly obsessed by the dread of being left without means in the huge city. Lily had got them out of that difficulty. And now she was earning such a lot of money: one day, who knows, they would have made enough to assure their independence for good and all! When she thought of this possibility, Ma's eyes lit up with yellow gleams; she felt like catching hold of Lily and locking her up in a safe.

Pa was less eager for gain, less ant-like in his economies; he was an artiste, above all; he knew how to make allowances; there was a time for work and a time for play. He often treated himself to the pleasure of taking Lily out; and, each time, as usual, she got a nice little present—he liked to pass for a Pa who spoiled his daughter, loved to hear himself so described, and took a wicked delight in repeating it all to Mrs. Clifton.

Lily was the gainer by the difference in opinion; she felt herself a little freer. When she went out in the morning, she considered herself at liberty to walk less fast, and no longer trembled on returning. She loved to loiter in the Tottenham Court Road; her little person assumed an air of importance; if, after practice, some artiste passed her in the street and gave her a smile, she believed that he was waiting for her; a "comic quartet," the Out-of-Tune Musicals, happening to come out of a bar and blow a kiss to her, were there on her account, she thought—four lovers at a swoop!

It was almost impossible that she should not meet Trampy, who was always prowling about from bar to bar, between Oxford Street and Leicester Square. She did meet him, in fact. Trampy, that day, wore a felt hat, a blue suit, a red tie, with a sixpenny Murias cocked in the corner of his mouth, and he greeted her with a triumphant "Hullo, peach!" as she passed. Lily was quite excited, stopped just long enough to refuse a drink and then left him very quickly. She was afraid it showed on her face, when she got home, and his words still rang in her ears, that she was awfully pretty, the prettiest girl on the stage, a peach, a duck, a pearl, a daisy, a bird.

All that she had seen and heard in her jostled existence, now came back to her, grew and sprouted in her ... now that Lily was being made love to by gentlemen, not the monkey-faces or the blue-chins, but men like Trampy, her craving for admiration oozed out of her at every pore....

Trampy! Lily did not care for Trampy; but she thought him amiable, polite with the girls.... She was grateful to him for being there to say pretty things to her when she passed. She preferred that type to men like Jimmy, for instance, savages who always seemed on the point of speaking and never opened their mouths; with them, she thought, a wife would be bored to death. Besides, Jimmy, pooh, a common workman, a josser! While Trampy was an artiste, a bill-topper and rich, no doubt. You had only to listen to Trampy to see that he was very well off! Chocolates, sweets, jewelry, ostrich-feathers, patent-leather boots, everything! He would have loaded her with presents, if she had let him, but she had never accepted anything except a little gold ring, which she hid in her pocket when she came in, for, if Ma had caught sight of it, gee, what a smacking!

Trampy often met her; he seemed almost to do so on purpose; he found pretty speeches, compliments which he had already uttered a score of times to ever so many girls, on ever so many stages, like a real Don Juan who had been all over the world and everywhere picked up love-speeches and jokes to "fetch" the ladies with. He tickled her vanity, told her that a dear little girl like her was cut out for dress, that a big hat with ostrich feathers would go well with her fair hair and that men, by Jove, ought to go on their knees whenever they spoke to her!

All this hummed and buzzed in her head. At night, when she fell asleep in Maud's arms, she dreamed of big hats and fine dresses and referred to it during the day. Pa hardly knew what to think; if she did as well as last night—three encores—Lily could have half a sovereign, to buy a new hat in the Tottenham Court Road with, said Pa.

"Oh, Pa, I shall do all right, you'll see. Will you be very nice? Then get me that one at two guineas, you know, in Regent Street."

"But you're mad, Lily!" said Pa, without attaching too much importance to it, for he had other cares: agents to see, letters to write, business, damn it!

That took down Lily's cheek a bit; but her luxurious ideas returned, nevertheless. For instance, from admiring the Three Graces or the Gilson girl, who looked like Venuses in their silk tights and whose entrance on the stage caused every opera-glass to glint upon them, the wish to appear in tights began to grow on Lily. Oh, not the plain tights of living statues; no, but with flowers and leaves embroidered here and there and jet braid laced about the right arm. She was tired of bloomers and told Pa so, straight out, when the apprentices had left the room and Pa, stretched in his easy-chair, seemed in a good temper. Pa thought this notion about tights, silly:

"They're very nice, those bloomers; those little shirts. Ask your mother."

"Oh, yes," said Ma sarcastically, "but bloomers are made at home, in the afternoon; you have to stitch them yourself, dear. Tights, which you buy ready-made and which cost just ten times as much and last only half as long, are much more convenient, aren't they, Lily? To say nothing of the absurdity of an ugly girl like you showing yourself in tights!"

"And the troupe," said Pa. "What would the troupe look like? Might as well not have a troupe; there'd be no one but you!"

"Well, what harm would that do? I am the troupe!" said Lily, tossing her obstinate forehead. "And all the money you give them you could give me!"

"Lily," said Pa, alarmed, "you deserve to be smacked for that!"

"Oh, Pa, what an idea!" said Lily, who was just arranging her fringe before the glass. "A Pa to beat his Lily for a little thing like that, away from work!" And, darting a bright smile at Pa, "You never would, Pa, would you?" she ventured.

Clifton, taken aback, looked at his Lily, as if to say that she was right, damn it! But Ma, in her fury, cried:

"Wait a bit! You shall see if I would!"

Bang! A box on the ears, followed by an order to go to her room, on dry bread and water, impudence! And practise her banjo till the evening!

The blow itself was nothing, but what an humiliation for Lily, who, only yesterday, had been told that she had the sweetest nose in the world, cheeks to cover with kisses, eyes, lovely eyes: there wasn't a girl in a hundred with eyes like that, by Jove! And those lovely eyes were only fit to cry with! And those pretty cheeks Ma had covered with smacks! When she thought of it, she felt inclined to kick over the traces. Did they think her such a kid, then, her Pa and Ma? She'd show Ma if she was fourteen! She'd be off like the others. Lily, at this idea, felt her heart come into her mouth: no, no; she would never dare; she never would. She swore it to herself; took the great oath of the stage: three fingers of her right hand uplifted, the left hand on her lucky charm. And yet, one day, she would marry. She didn't lack chances, if she wanted them. And a gentleman, too! And her Pa and Ma, to disgust her, of course, pretended that he was married! They must take her for an idiot: how could Trampy be married, considering that he had suggested ... suggested different things to her?...

Lily brooded like this, reviewing the tiny events of which her life was made up. Then a gleam of sunshine came to change her thoughts. She amused herself by breathing on the window-pane, making a circle ... wrote a name with her finger and quickly licked it out with her tongue ... and Lily brooded ... brooded....

But Ma's voice made her jump:

"What are you doing there, you good-for-nothing? I told you to take your banjo!"

"Yes, Ma," Lily replied mechanically, with her nose glued to the window.

"Do you hear, Mr. Clifton?" said Ma furiously. "That's the way she obeys!"

Mrs. Clifton had no doubt whatever that there was a man at the bottom of it ... a flirtation ... something or other. It was useless for Ma to provide for everything, to do her best to oppose Mr. Clifton's weakness. There was Lily now, taking up an independent attitude. She thought herself pretty, no doubt; some booby must have been stuffing her up, making love to her, to laugh at her later on! If she, Mrs. Clifton, had been a man, she would certainly never look at that ill-mannered baggage; but the London jossers liked that brazen type! And to think that time was passing ... passing!... Oh, Ma would have liked to get hold of the man who invented the law about girls coming of age ... and love ... and marriage! A fierce jealousy seized upon her at the thought. Lily would have bouquets, champagne suppers; Lily would be loved by gentlemen! Tell Lily that she was pretty and, in less than six months the little hussy would think herself a fine lady! And, on that day, Mrs. Clifton would wash her hands of her!

These continued attacks ended by shaking Pa. He didn't quite know what to say; there was a certain amount of truth in it:

"But," he persisted, "why should she go? She has everything she wants here?"

But he was more and more annoyed; yes, he admitted, he was wrong to laugh at Mr. Fuchs: you must never set children a bad example. And, from that moment, once his attention had been called to the matter, he daily discovered fresh causes for uneasiness: where the devil did she get that love of dress from? And who sent her that bouquet behind the scenes the other night? Why, Lily wanted to have it handed to her across the footlights, like a singer!

And Pa and Ma watched Lily like a bag of money on which one keeps one's hand, for fear of pickpockets. Ma doubled her precautions.

The gentlemen in the front boxes, especially, alarmed her, even more than the Jim Crows: creatures apart, devilish creatures, the gentlemen in the front boxes! She fancied she saw a reflection of hell in the eye-glass of every one of them. If ever Lily dared to smile to them, she knew what awaited her! Ma would get angry for nothing at all; she even scolded Lily for allowing herself to be approached on the stage by a contributor to The Piccadilly Magazine, which was publishing articles on The Little Favorites of the Public.

"I am sure you only told him a lot of nonsense," said Ma. "A girl should call her mother in a case like that. What have you to do with the public? Aren't you ashamed?"

No, Lily was not ashamed. She was exasperated rather. And she had not told the journalist any lies: just the plain truth, in her own little way. Sweat and blood! Broken legs! Broken arms! And here, there, there, all over her body, scars deep enough to put your finger in! That would revenge her a bit for the way in which she was treated. She knew that, when the article appeared, she would catch it at Pa's hands; but never mind! She had told everything, everything, in revenge; just as she might have flung her bike at their heads in a fit of anger!



CHAPTER V

There had been a terrible scene at home that day. Ma had searched Lily's trunk and had not, it is true, discovered the love letters which she believed to be hidden there, but she had found a ring! It was Trampy's ring, which Lily, who usually concealed it about her person, had left by accident in the trunk among her things. Ma's face was a sight, when she came down to the dining-room. She was so upset that Pa asked her:

"Are you ill, dear?"

Ma, without answering the question, pushed the ring under his nose and screamed that she had told him so:

"An engagement ring, dear; an engagement ring! Perhaps you'll believe me now!"

Pa and Ma, when they had recovered from their surprise, had time to lay their heads together and replace the ring, pretending to know nothing, to be watching more closely than ever ... and then Pa had gone out; for, if Lily, who was walking with the apprentices, had come home just then, he could not have resisted the temptation to smack her face. It was better to go out and postpone the explanation until later. He had, indeed, resolved never to beat his daughter again ... but still! And he clenched his fists and ground his teeth when he reached the theater.

On the stage, he looked round for Tom, who should have been there to mend a tire. He saw nothing at first: only a few electric lamps studding the darkness; a faint glimmer lighting up a number of properties; farther on, the dull gleam of stacked-up bikes; and, lastly, Tom, with his cap cocked back and trousers turned up, trying—brrr!—to do a clog-dance!

"Bravo, Tom!" shouted Clifton, the moment he saw him. "Just you wait a bit. I'll teach you to dance: with the clogs on your hands and your head downwards, damn it! Here, take this to go on with!" continued Pa, fetching him a clout on the shoulder. "And get to the bikes and hurry up, or I'll smash your jaw in!"

Meanwhile, Jimmy had also come, unseen by Pa. And the great batten lit up: the stage came to life again. Right up above, in the galleries from which the ropes were worked, mysterious forms moved to and fro. The iron curtain rose ... there was a clash of orchestra ... Jimmy, with his back against the drop-scene and his face to the stage, gave sharp orders....

Pa watched the scene vaguely from the wings. He gnawed his mustache: the apprentices would be there soon, with his Lily. And he had something to say to the stage-manager; something of a delicate character.

But Clifton was surprised to see Jimmy instead of the usual stage-manager:

"Hullo! So it's you now," he couldn't help saying.

"Why, yes, Mr. Clifton; since this morning. The other chap's ill, you know. Harrasford asked me to take his place ... for a few days, I suppose ... or perhaps longer. Do you want to speak to me, Mr. Clifton?" added Jimmy, observing Pa's look of embarrassment. "Just a minute and I am yours."

Two tall footmen, caparisoned in velvet and gold, disappeared behind the curtain with the number of the next turn. They came back in a few seconds. Jimmy pressed a button. The stage filled with light and noise, the turn marked on the program entered and, suddenly, under the dazzling light, it was a series of somersaults, of flights from shoulder to shoulder, and the muffled fall of feet on the thick carpet.

"There will be eight minutes of this," said Jimmy, taking out his watch. "What have you to say to me, Mr. Clifton?"

Oh, what he had to say was very simple; he wouldn't have mentioned it himself, but Mrs. Clifton had asked him to. To cut a long story short, wasn't it a shame that gentlemen should throw bouquets on the stage when Lily was giving her show? Like last night, for instance: why, it was making game of a child, putting ideas into her head! Lily, of course, paid no attention to it. However, was it or was it not allowed to throw or send bouquets on the stage?

"Why, you know it is!" said Jimmy. "How would you have me prevent it?"

If he could have prevented it, he would. To begin with, Jimmy realized the bothers which it brought down upon Lily. Moreover, Jimmy, who was vaguely uneasy himself, wondered who that ardent admirer could be. Some of Roofer's girls thought they had recognized Trampy, from the stage, in the front seats. What Jimmy had heard of Trampy did not inspire him with confidence. And Trampy, it appeared, was making love to Lily. Mr. Fuchs had met them at the corner of Oxford Street and Newman Street. The story was quite definite.

Jimmy was astonished at the audacity of a Trampy: what could he say to her? he asked himself, what could he propose to her? Marriage? He was married, they said, in America. To run away with him? His scandalous life, his habit of easy conquest made this very likely. Jimmy had seen plenty of others, big ones who topped the bill and who did not despise a girl's companionship—on the contrary—and six months later, a year, two years later, left the girl in a hole, stranded, undone; mustard and game for Jim Crow. And he grew more and more anxious on Lily's behalf: not that Lily would come to that! Yet he had seen plenty of them, since he had frequented the stage, plenty of Lilies who had taken to flight for injuries often less serious than hers. He could have mentioned names: his head was full of those who let their anger, or their folly, get the better of them and escaped at random, and who went back to every-day life—through the door of scandal—sometimes to meet with worse: martyrdom of the heart, base exploitation in the name of love. Oh, he pitied them from the bottom of his soul! No, Lily shouldn't run away: it was impossible! But what a pity, all the same, that he could think of it! And what chance, what meeting would settle her fate and make her—who could say?—the companion of a loving heart, or a prey to some footy rotter? Oh, how he would have liked to go for Trampy, to break his jaw for him, to teach him to mind his business and leave Lily alone! And what Jimmy wanted to do he was never far from doing! And, then, oh, if he could procure a good position for Clifton, as an equivalent for his star and make Lily love him, marry him: that would be better still!

This idea, perhaps, without his knowing it, dominated his present life, doubled his power of work: to invent something! To get himself talked about! To make money, plenty of money, become somebody! Others before him had risen from nothing. Harrasford, to go no farther ... a chap who had climbed every rung of the ladder: a small music-hall first; then two; then a big one; then two; then ten. And a whole army now toiling and moiling for him every night, for him the chief and master.

"Oh!" thought Jimmy. "If I could only climb the ladder too!"

First of all, he must choose his line, for his efforts to tell. And, since chance had given him a start at the theater, why not go on? Here his scientific luggage would be of use to him. It was only a question of adding pluck to it. He was the man to do so and now more than ever. Things which used to seem impossible to him, such as his invention published in Engineering, appeared quite feasible, now that he had watched Lily do her wonderful feats of balancing on the stage. It was only a question of courage and hard practice. Another line suggested itself: to find capital and start a theater. As regards the stage itself, by this time he understood the management of it from grid to cellar. He seemed to take in at a glance that huge entirety, from the flies with their windlasses, their bridges, the labyrinth of stairs, the maze of passages, down to the dressing-rooms and the painted faces that filled them: here, a Lily; there, a buck nigger; farther on, a living-picture girl. He felt all this rustle round him, carried it all in his head: he knew it all, from the porter's box at the stage-door to the glittering front of the house, with its palm-trees and its liveried chuckers-out. Jimmy knew what to think of the enchantments of the stage, those luminous visions which the audience admired to the tune of the orchestra: jealousies, vanities, hatreds to knock up against and calm down; recruits to put through their paces; and the whole day of it—and the whole night, too—for a few pounds a week, including the tips received from the artistes, twenty-five to forty shillings a month.

But Jimmy had his idea: he was determined to obtain a thorough grasp of the business; he had already taken possession of the stage-manager's room and of his desk with the many compartments: photographs, programs, contracts, electric light, staff, scenery. A whole small people depended upon him, and asked his advice, bragged of its successes or told him of its misfortunes. And here again was Clifton continuing his jeremiads: they would drive his daughter silly by making game of her, pretending to be in love with her, at her age! Jimmy listened attentively, with one eye on the stage and the other on his watch:

"Tut!" he said, trying to arrange things. "There's no great harm in receiving bouquets on the stage. However, as you object, if any more of them come, they shall be handed to you, to dispose of as you please. That's all that I can do."

It was gradually filling up behind Clifton and Jimmy; the iron door was constantly slamming upon the passage; knowing-looking Roofer girls passed, two by two, always two by two, joked for a moment with the scene shifters, shook hands here and there, disappeared up the dressing-room staircase. There was life, swarming life, everywhere, in the corners, behind the back-cloth. The New Zealanders arrived, with Lily and her Ma, for Ma never left her now, for fear of the gentlemen who prowled around like famished hyenas: villains who did not hesitate to throw bouquets on the stage to make ugly girls think they were pretty!

Lily seemed sad. She stopped for a moment. A haunting serenade droned across the stage, a Spanish melody sung by soft tremolo voices, with tapping of tambourines. It reminded her of Mexico: everything reminded her of that time now. She compared herself with Ave Maria. Oh, she would have liked to tell the whole world how she was treated, just the plain truth!—in her own little way. But no one cared, not even that rotten josser of a journalist, with his article published in The Piccadilly Magazine. It made her out a spoiled child, who had learned to ride in the country-lanes, with her French governess, and who had surprised her father and mother by coming home one day with her head on the saddle of her bicycle and her feet in the air, thereby causing an unparalleled scandal in that old Yorkshire family. Since then, they had been obliged to yield to her fancies and allow her to go on the stage with her little troupe of friends. Her salary? Ten pounds a night. Her recreation? The banjo....

"Rotten josser of a journalist!" thought Lily.

Nevertheless, she was flattered at heart because of the ten pounds a night and the governess.

But things happened to distract her thoughts: the Three Graces entered in their turn, followed by Nunkie; they stood talking for a few moments, while the apprentices went and dressed; and Lily soon followed them, after a last glance at a little woman and her "partner," who were getting things ready for their performance—-some little hoops, two cardboard bottles, gilt balls—and then waited humbly in the shadow.

Lily recognized Para, who used to exhibit a troupe of parrots; somebody had put her "in his show," no doubt, the Para-Paras, a new turn.

"How poor she looks!" Lily could not help whispering to Ma.

"You'll be worse off yourself, some day," said Ma, "if you go on as you're doing! Don't laugh at other people."

Lily had dressed quickly and had come down to the stage with the Three Graces and they had ten minutes of joking behind the scenes, while Ma was still up-stairs, busy with the girls. Thea walked on tip-toe to restore the circulation to her legs; Kala practised back-bendings: Lily applauded with the tip of her thumbnail, flung back her head and laughed and, from time to time, looked round over her shoulder to see if Ma was coming down.

She amused herself also by feeling Thea's arms, all those little muscles which stood out, man's arms: she would have liked to nestle in them, to feel herself squeezed till she cried out. And everything around them savored of love: there were lots of Roofers; little intrigues were embarked upon; there were stifled fits of laughter and cries of "Hands off!" and "Stop!" Amorous speeches and stories of romantic adventures were exchanged in whispers; the flight of the Gilson girl, the other day, at Liverpool, was told in full detail; a Roofer, it seemed, giving a high kick the day before, had sent her slipper flying into the audience; it was returned to her filled with chocolate creams; and to-day there was a boquet with a letter in it.

Ting! The curtain, the light; and, on the stage, the Roofers were glittering with gold and silver and their boyish voices came in gusts, punctuated by the jerky flights of their short skirts.

"Your old sweetheart, eh, Lily?" said Thea, pointing to the boy-violinist, who had just arrived.

Lily had only a careless glance for the boy-violinist, who was wiping his eye-glasses and pulling at his cuffs, while a call-boy was adjusting the false seat into which two bulldogs would presently dig their teeth. All the fascination was gone for Lily: it was no longer the child prodigy; a grotesque Orpheus, in a laurel and parsley crown, he now introduced his music-hating dogs, who interrupted his performance with plaintive and angry howls and ended by leaping at the seat of his trousers in a mad rush across the stage.

Lily, who had "gone through the mill," looked upon him as a mere josser, had for him the instinctive contempt entertained by the real artiste for those fiddlers, those singers, those dancers and other drones brought up with blows of the hat.

"Pooh! I have some one better than that," exclaimed Lily, excited by the proximity of the Roofers.

"If you have any one better than that and he loves you," said Thea, in a dreamy voice, "love him, Lily, keep him; as for me, I no longer risk having to do with men."

"I do!" Lily whispered, with a frightened glance around her. "As much as I can! I love talking to men! Why, Thea, and don't you like love letters and p.-c.'s?"

Ting! Ting! Orpheus left the stage, with his bulldogs hanging to him.

Ting! It was dark again; ropes, plated rings were let down from the flies; the Three Graces, like quivering marble statues, took one another by the hand to make their entrance.

Ting! From their perches on either side, two electricians sent the lime-light beating down on an involved group of ropes, bars and hardened limbs.

Ting! A crescendo in the orchestra and, bowing to the audience across the footlights, the Three Graces made their exit, their smiles suddenly hollowed out into tired wrinkles, but cheerful nevertheless. And Nunkie wiped their foreheads with his checked handkerchief, helped them on with their big cloaks; and the three goddesses were now just a wrapped-up group, limping off to the staircase, like gouty patients at a spa.

Ting! A forest scene is let down, the wings are shifted. A click of chains, a flash of steel. The bikes in the shadow, the apprentices mounted, Lily leading.

"And try to do your best, my Lily."

"Yes, Pa."

"And try to behave."

"Yes, Ma."

Ting!

Lily gave a nervous smile. She always felt a little thrill before going on. Then, quick, in Indian file, two and two, three and three, the New Zealanders whirled round in the light, to the roar of a triumphal air.

Pa ground his teeth and clenched his fists the moment he heard his music: at the mere sight of his Lily, his seven stone of flesh and bones adapted to the machine, unerring and exact, an immense intoxication exalted his pride, gladness dilated his heart. At last! He was there now: German discipline! English gracefulness! Everything! He, too, would have his London home, with a lawn behind the house and a plot of rose-trees. He would learn the meaning of family joys, as Nunkie understood them, with texts along the staircase: "Welcome!" and "God bless our home!" And, more and more excited, he built up his dream; his imagination gave itself scope amid the unreal scenery, the forest depths, the green and gold sky and his Lily, his faultless Lily, haloed in light! Every hope was permissible when he looked at his Lily, his joy, his handiwork! His New Zealander on Wheels! That india-rubber suppleness, those little nerves of iron, his Lily, his glory, his star, his own star! He romanced about her, dreamed of an imperial tour, a steamer of his own, a floating Barnum's show, with Roofers, elephants, rhinoceroses, Ave Marias, dogs, monkeys, the whole boiling; and Lily starring on her bike, stopping in every port, from Liverpool to Suez, from Suez to Yokohama: down to the desert, damn it, to show the whole world what an artiste he, Clifton, he, the father, had made of his Lily! And he looked at her with loving eyes, applauded her with a smile, restored her self-possession with a twitch of the eyebrow and counted her twirls on the back-wheel—O pride unspeakable!—a dozen!



Ma, standing by him, interested herself less in the show and, neglecting the artiste, watched the daughter and the faces she made at the gentlemen: the brazen flapper, whose sole attraction lay in the wickedness in her blood! She never lost sight of Lily and watched her closely, for Ma seemed always to catch her throwing an appealing glance to the seducers in the front boxes, to some St. George in full dress who would dart across the footlights to carry off her daughter.

Thus caught between Pa and Ma, Lily's situation was hard indeed. As for the audience, she never troubled about it, from custom, like a true professional, who gives her performance mechanically, without minding about the rest. The audience, to Lily, was, behind a streak of flame, in the semi-darkness, a confused mass of black and gray. All this had no existence for Lily or the apprentices. The audience didn't pay them! The audience wouldn't give her a whacking if the show went badly! Pa, in the wings, frightened her much more than all the audiences in the world; and Ma was worse still, when a gentleman smiled at her from a box. Then Lily would stare at her Ma with the terrified eye of a parrot contemplating Para's whip. She even exaggerated, pinched her lips, like a school-girl applying herself to her book for fear of the ferule. Ma did not ask so much as that. Sometimes, when Lily, after a successful trick, threw out her chest to draw breath more easily and rode round the stage with a pretty smile on her lips, Ma saw no harm in it, even rejoiced within herself at her daughter's beauty. Ma knew how to be just and not to be angry for nothing. But what she could not forgive, what exasperated her was, just that very evening, with her own eyes, to see Lily smile at some person unknown and shoot fiery glances at the front boxes, the little devil, who would bring them to the grave with shame!

For Lily, it must be confessed, flung prudence to the winds that night. Her head was turned with all those love stories. They sang in her ears, they distended her nostrils. Oppressed on every side, she escaped in imagination toward that spacious house, toward the confused mass in which her lover sat hidden. And, in spite of Pa and in spite of Ma, who stood watching her in the wings, Lily searched the audience with her eyes. Was it really Trampy? Had he come back? She had not met him for some time. She wanted to know and he would surely reveal himself. Ma might say what she pleased. Even in the final pyramid, she looked, while, with one apprentice on her shoulders, another forked before her, another standing behind, two others on either side, she twice went round the stage, with flags waving, to the hurricane of the orchestra. And then ting! And darkness anew, the stage suddenly invaded by scene-shifters dragging heavy sets along; and Lily, passing out, was seized by her Ma, who said:

"Who were you laughing at?"

"I wasn't laughing, Ma!"

"I'll teach you to make eyes at gentlemen, you baggage you! I saw you this time! I saw you!" grumbled Ma, who had the engagement ring still upon her mind. "You shall pay for this, Lily; we'll see if I can drive the devil out of you or not!"

And Ma squeezed Lily's arm as if she meant to break it, but all this noiselessly, in the shadow, behind the scenery, for fear of the stage manager. Besides, it was nobody's business what a mother thought fit to say to her daughter, and Lily, when people passed, pluckily tried to smile, so as to put them off, not to let them know that she was being beaten, a big girl like her; but, as soon as they were gone, she resumed her rebellious face.

"I wasn't laughing, I wasn't laughing, Ma!"

"That's to teach you to lie!" said Ma, catching her a blow in the back of the neck.

The door of the staircase had swung to behind them; and, in the empty passage, the thumps continued all the way to the dressing-room, which the apprentices had not yet reached. Then, once inside, Ma pushed the bolt and made a rush at Lily. And Lily raised her elbow in vain: accompanied by a furious series of grunts—"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!"—Ma's diligent fist "signed a contract on her back":

"And don't you dare to cry out, or I'll give it you twice as hard!"

Lily, bruised all over, felt inclined to scratch her mother, like a wildcat; but the apprentices were coming. So she cooled her head in a basin of cold water and dressed with all speed, assisted by Ma, who perhaps regretted having been so hasty; but you had to be, with devils like that! And Ma's anger returned when, on reaching the stage again, she was herself, in accordance with Jimmy's orders, handed a bouquet intended for Miss Lily. What, another! Lily, following her down the stairs with the New Zealanders, saw Ma take the bouquet and toss it through the open door.

"Come along," said Ma. "Give me your arm, Lily."

And the New Zealanders walked away from the brightly lit-up music-hall, plunged through the drifting crowd, crossed the eddy of cabs, motors, 'buses and, on the pavements, through the windows, had visions of elegant couples at sumptuous tables. Then they all went through the dark streets; and Lily, escorted by Pa and Ma, followed the herd of girls. Her face was hard and, from an angry brow, she shot glances askance at flight.



CHAPTER VI

Now Trampy—even if he had to marry her for it, by Jove!—had set his mind on having Lily, at any cost; and that not only because of her prettiness, but also that he might play Clifton a damned good trick and teach him that he must smart for treating a gentleman as he had treated him in Mexico. It would be paying him out with interest to take his Lily from him. Besides, think of the credit it would give Trampy in the profession to have for his wife the prettiest, the cleverest girl on the boards, each of whose shows, when she performed alone, would be worth at least three pounds, as much as a whole troupe! He suspected in her the ripe fruit that was bound to drop; and he shook the tree to hasten the fall. He considered his reputation at stake: he, the man with the thirty-six girls, as he was called at the music-hall. He got caught in his own toils and wanted Lily madly, out of revenge and pride ... and jealousy too, for he suspected that Jimmy was courting her; and the idea that he had a rival inflamed his ardor.

In the evening, pen in hand, in his dressing-room, or else at a table in a cafe, after a second and a third glass of old port, he prepared his batteries: letters, post-cards, he excelled in everything, was careful about his phrases, with the vanity of an author whose writings are widely quoted. Lily was "fascinating" and "bewildering;" he compared her to "those strange Indian poppies whose scent intoxicates a man and sometimes gives him death." Gee, but that set Lily dreaming! Fancy having all that in her! Who on earth would have thought it? Never mind, it was very nice.

And the way in which she received her correspondence amused her as much as the rest. Trampy, it goes without saying, did not write direct: a few pence to Tom, who hated Clifton, and Lily received the cards in secret, devoured them when she was alone and then quickly tore them into little pieces and sent them flying through the window.

Her trouble was how to answer. She really did not know what to say:

"Pa was so angry with the girls yesterday. I got a kick of the pedal on my shin. Otherwise I am quite well. Excuse more for the present. I must now conclude.

"Lily."

By return of post, she received "a thousand kisses on her rosy cheeks, on her fair tresses, everywhere," kisses without end.

"He's mad," thought Lily.

But she was greatly flattered by Trampy's attentions. He treated her as a woman, not as a child, as Pa and Ma went out of their way to do. Her life, after all, would be more agreeable if she was Trampy's wife; and he was delivering the attack in person, since his return from Lancashire, where he had traveled about with his property red-hot stove. He overwhelmed her with bouquets, even as a general bombards a bastion before the final assault, and he managed to meet her now. He dazzled Lily with his big gold watch-chain and the diamond in his tie. When he was able to whisper a word to her, it was always the same thing—"Motor-cars! Paris gowns! Jewels! Flowers!"—until Lily thought she saw all the shop-windows in Regent Street poured out at her feet.

Jimmy made but a sorry lover, compared with Trampy. He never promised anything, silk dresses, diamonds or jewels. "The husband at work, the wife at home." Gee, there were no ostrich-feathers in that! But he adored her all the same, as Lily was well able to see; and she had many occasions to talk to both of them. Not that Lily was less closely watched. She never went out alone, but it was not always Ma who was at her heels: it was sometimes Glass-Eye. With faithful Glass-Eye, things took their own course and the interviews with Trampy became easy. As for Jimmy, he saw her every day at practice and he took that opportunity to tell her of his ideas, his plans for the future.

"I shall succeed, you will see, Lily," he said. "I shall do something some day. I'm a bit of a mechanic, a bit of an electrician, that is to say, a bit of a wizard. Others have started lower down and climbed very high."

"Yes," replied Lily, "I know. It's like Pa. He wasn't much before he got me into shape; and look at him now!"

This was said with an artless candor that enraptured Jimmy.

"What a dear little girlie you are!" he said. "What an adorable kid!"

"That's right," retorted Lily. "Why not a baby, while you're about it, a school-girl in the biking-class and so on? Some people treat me as a woman, Jimmy, and propose to marry me!"

"What's that?"

"What I say, Jimmy."

"And this man making up to you is worthy of you, I suppose? And do you love him?" asked Jimmy, greatly upset.

"Pooh!" said Lily. "I'm not quite sure."

"But you wouldn't marry him unless you loved him?"

"I should marry him to change my life."

"A change, Lily," said Jimmy, with feeling, "is not always a change for the better! And your life is a little pleasanter now, you told me so yourself. Your mother is sorry. You're getting pocket-money; ten shillings a week, eh? Why, Lily, that's splendid!"

"Well; and I earn it, I suppose," said Lily. "And Ma isn't a bit sorry. Pa said he wouldn't have it, that's all. They were afraid of my running away if it went on. I am no longer a child!"

"No," said Jimmy, taking her hands, "an adorable girl; that's what you are. Oh, a man whom you would love should do great things! He would love you with all his heart! And your life would be different then! No, you would not be a performing dog, as you call it; you would be a darling little wife. It's all very well to rove about the world, from theater to theater, riding round and round on your bike...."

"I adore the stage, for all that!" interrupted Lily.

"But that can't go on for ever," continued Jimmy. "You're entitled to have a nicer life: a home of your own, Lily; you have the making of a lady in you, if you were taught. In a year or two, Lily, you would be the equal of any lady in the land."

"Learning, more learning, always learning! I've had enough of it in my life!" muttered Lily, affected, nevertheless, by Jimmy's intense excitement, and lowering her eyes under his glance.

"Why, yes, Lily, always learning, that's life!" said Jimmy. "But the other chap, of course, promises you the earth! Some millionaire, I suppose: an admirer in the front boxes?"

"He's an artiste," said Lily.

"Why," said Jimmy, stepping back, without letting go of her. "But, no, it's impossible; you're not thinking of Trampy!"

"Why not?" said Lily angrily, trying to release herself from Jimmy's passionate grasp.

"Why, because ... because he's a drunkard ... a ... The other day I saw him at the bar of the Crown, as I was passing. He was blind-drunk."

"What's the good of talking?" said Lily. "He's miserable. He worships me. He drinks to forget. He told me so himself!"

"But they say he's married," said Jimmy. "Why ..."

"It's mean and jealous of you to say that," said Lily, suddenly withdrawing her hands. "You deserve a smacking! How can he be married, when he wants to marry me?"

And with that she left him and went up to the dressing-room.

Jimmy was heartbroken.

"It's a joke of Lily's ... as in my shop, some months ago, when she pretended to have a sweetheart, though she hadn't!"

But, argue as he would, Jimmy thought with terror of Trampy's habits of conquest, of his reputation in the profession as a Don Juan. He bitterly regretted waiting so long to speak to Lily. He had thought that he was pleasing her by keeping in the background, for fear of causing her annoyance at home: was his sole offense now that of coming too late?

Oh, if he had only had evidence to hand! But Trampy's marriage was one of those vague rumors. One could say nothing for certain. However, the danger, no doubt, was not yet imminent. And Jimmy had a friend who was doing America in the theaters of the Eastern and Western Trust: he resolved to write to him; the friend would receive his letter at the Majestic, Houston, Texas, or at the Denver Orpheum. The thing had happened over there; they would probably remember it in the theaters he passed through; he could make inquiries, perhaps even obtain proofs. That exquisite Lily, that masterpiece of grace: what a darling wife she would make! And all for Trampy! Jimmy was determined to do everything to prevent it.

He did not despair of supplying Lily, before long, with the proof that Trampy was married; he would give the name, the date; he would compel Trampy to admit it. But he was not sure enough yet to accuse him openly: Lily would have seen nothing in it but a ridiculous jealousy and would never have forgiven him.

Then Jimmy was worried: people came to him for this, for that, for the thousand details of the stage.

Lily, on her side, left the theater. That day, she was accompanied by Maud, who fixed her with her glass eye, while the other was engaged in watching the flies. Of course, Trampy was prowling round the theater to see her part of the way home; for he, too, had decided to carry things with a high hand. And he set to work at a quicker pace than ever.

He had none of Jimmy's scruples; he was not afraid of exaggerating: far from it. Lily always left him under the impression of a glimpse of paradise. This time, however, she failed to smile when Trampy vowed that she was "the sweetest little thing that one could lay eyes on, by Jove!" For a long time, but especially since that morning, she had been burning to put a question to him. Possibly she had no intention of marrying him, but she wouldn't allow him to make a fool of her; and she interrupted him in his compliments to ask if what they said was true.

"Who says so? It's a lie!" Trampy hastened to answer.

"I mean your marriage," replied Lily.

"I thought as much," said Trampy.

"Tell me the truth," persisted Lily innocently, looking him straight in the eyes.

"If I was married, Lily, would I want to marry you?"

"Of course not," said Lily, already shaken.

"Who's been talking to you about that?" asked Trampy. "Your Pa, eh? And Jimmy: I'll bet that Jimmy ...?"

"Jimmy too."

"If I don't box that fellow's ears!" shouted Trampy. "Can't you see that he's jealous? Why? He didn't even give you my bouquets! He handed them to your Ma! And so I've been married, eh? Whereabouts? In America, I'll wager?"

"Yes, somewhere on the Western Tour."

"Of course," said Trampy. "That's what I've heard myself. Still, it seems to me that, if I had a wife, I ought to be the first to know it; don't you think so, Lily?"

This was proof positive. Lily could find nothing to answer.

"Come and have a drink, Lily?"

"They're waiting for me at home," said Lily.

Trampy went into the bar alone, in a desperate state of love which made him call for a port and another, by Jove! Then he sat down at a table in a corner, lit a cigar and examined his glass, as though truth lay at the bottom. For he could not tell for certain. Was he married or was he not? That's what he himself would like to know! According to him, upon his soul and conscience, he was not a married man; he did himself that justice. Opportunities, certainly, had not been wanting ... with all the girls he had known ... enough to fill a dozen beauty-shows. Sometimes even he had had a narrow escape, as in that damned town in the West, in one of those states where you can't so much as take a girl to supper without finding yourself married to her in the morning, all for entering yourself in the hotel book as "Mr. and Mrs. Trampy," in other words, as man and wife. And yet he couldn't ask the girl who adored him to sleep on the mat! Yes, a poor girl who had found glowing words in which to tell him her love, one night in Mexico, words which had set Trampy quivering with longing compassion: was he to be reproached with that? He had made her happy, after all; and, on the whole, this lark was one of his pleasantest memories; it hadn't lasted too long: a matter of a few weeks at most. He had left Mexico, taking the girl with him, and played Trampy Wheel-Pad in the Western States, with any amount of success, by Jove! Encores, packets of tobacco, a new suit of clothes! And, by way of entr'acte, the girl—"Tramp Wheel-Pad's Jumping Flea," as she was called—turned somersaults and flip-flaps. But she would have killed him, this dark girl with great dark eyes,—this girl with a boy's figure, all muscle and sinew, keeping him awake all night and talking of nothing but smackings, as though she had never learned anything else. And so much in love that she would bite and scratch: a very tigress. Any one but himself would have wearied of it. And then, one fine morning, for coupling their names in the visitors' book, they found themselves married, in the name of the law! And that was what people called a marriage! So little married were they, according to him, that he had given her the slip then and there, leaving her all the money he possessed, however: he was not the man to look at fifteen dollars, when honor demanded it. Trampy had had more stories of this kind in his life; they left as much impression on his mind as the recollection of a "schooner" swallowed at a bar on a summer night.

It was dishonest, he considered, to pretend that he was married. Not that he was perfect: far from it! He did not set up as a model. He had had scandals in his life: he admitted it humbly; and, if some jealous person, some Jimmy, for instance, wanted to do him harm, all he had to do was to dig in the heap, instead of hawking round that story of an imaginary marriage.

His differences with Poland, the Parisienne, for instance: a regular Mrs. Potiphar, that one. He had found it a hard job to get away from her. And ever and ever so many others! He couldn't remember. People were always talking ill of him. There was more than that, however: he, too, was capable of manly ambition; he, too, had taken a breakneck risk. He had perfected and patented at Washington an invention of which he had seen a drawing, by accident, in a scientific journal—Engineering, or another—a purely theoretical invention. The inventor himself, a young London electrician, declared it to be unrealizable. Well, he, Trampy—Poland had helped him with her purse; she was very nice about it—he, Trampy, had had the thing made. He had deposited the models at the Patent Office; and the apparatus itself was now in a London storage. He would get it out, some day, and show them all what he was capable of.

Now he was wrong, perhaps, in abandoning Poland, after accepting her services; but, after all, those were matters which concerned nobody but himself. It was not fair play to tell Lily about them: she, he felt, would always be the girl of his heart, the thirty-seventh and last, and it would take a better man than Jimmy to snatch her from him!

Already, it was much to have pacified Lily on that incident of the marriage: Lily believed him. One thing, however, disquieted Trampy: bigamy, all the same, meant doing time. Now, if some jealous person produced the proof of that marriage, contracted under the Western law ... suppose it were valid ... really valid? H'm! Was he going to lose Lily for that? And his liberty into the bargain? That Lily who was worth her weight in gold, love and fortune in one!

Trampy resolved to broach this delicate subject:

"Suppose I was married," he hinted, one day, "that wouldn't matter. Couldn't we ... live together ... eh?"

"I like your style!" said Lily, feeling slightly indignant at such a proposal. "What do you take me for?"

"I was only joking," Trampy hastened to say. "If you want to be married, I'm quite agreeable."

"I insist upon it!"

"So then you prefer to take strangers into our confidence?"

"What strangers?" asked Lily, in surprise.

"Why, the quill-drivers at Somerset House and those damned fire-escapes."

Lily had enough religion to know that the fire-escape was the clergyman:

"As for that," she said, "we shall see later; but I want the registrar's office. If I'm to be your little wife, I want to be so for good and all: marriage or nothing!"

"I shall be delighted, Lily!"

"And I'm determined!"

Lily was the more bent upon it, because marriage made her free: that was the essential point. If she were not married, her parents could make her come back, she thought ... keep her with them ... gee! It gave her cold shivers down the back! Once married, she was protected by law; Pa and Ma had nothing to say; and so she was very keen upon marriage.

"What a dear little wife she'll make!" thought Trampy. "And how she loves me!"

That, however, did not advance matters. It was all very well for him to put his arm round her waist, to talk softly to her, to whisper those words which had already won him so many conquests:—one day, even, he had kissed her on the lips,—Lily thought that very nice; it was all very well for him to cut a dash at the bar, to stand her a claret and a biscuit; it was all very well for him to sing his love-litany: all this did not help him; at the rate at which he was going, he wouldn't get anywhere in six months.

Lily, between those two jossers, amused herself immensely. How lucky she was! Two men, at her age! They irritated her, sometimes; when they went too far—Trampy, especially, who got excited at the game—anyhow, it was a homage paid to her beauty. Between that and going away with him there was all the difference in the world! To leave home was quite another matter. Why, goodness, if things went on as they were, she could do without marriage at all!



CHAPTER VII

"Lily, come down!" Pa's voice thundered from below.

Lily was out of bed in a bound. She could hardly tie her skirt-strings for trembling. Why was Pa in such a rage?

The moment Lily entered her parents' room, she realized what it was. Pa was holding a letter in his hand and scowling at her.

"These are nice stories I hear!" he cried. "You let men kiss you? You've got a love affair? Come, Lily, is this true?"

"It's Jimmy's doing," thought Lily. "The mean cur! He's given me away!"

Pa went on hotly:

"And you're going to marry, are you? To marry Trampy? Here, read that!"

Lily felt hopeless. She took the letter, but did not attempt to read it. White with fear, could she have sprung through the window and fled, she would have done so.

"Well," Pa went on apace, growing more and more excited, "is all this true? All that they tell me: about your receiving letters, post-cards, jewelry ... and that ring! I've seen it! You're going to marry Trampy, are you? Oh, the man who writes to me knows all about it, saw you with him at the corner of Oxford Street and Newman Street. Is that true, miss? What did you have to tell him, pray? Speak out!"

Lily, terror-stricken, could only droop her head.

"It's true then that you want to get married, you baggage!"

"Pa!" cried Lily.

But he, with an "Ah!" of rage, sprang upon her, clutched her mass of hair, banged her head against the wall:

"On your knees! Say, 'I—beg—your—par—don—'"

And, Bang! Bang! Bang! The phrase was punctuated with thumps.

"Oh, Clifton," implored Ma, "stop! Not so hard!"

"Beg—par—don! Beg—par—don!" continued Pa, without relenting.

Lily was half-stunned, the world throbbed before her eyes, and, delirious with wrath, she hissed:

"Never!"

"But I say, I say you shall not marry him! I'll kill you first!"

"Yes, I will marry him, yes, yes, I will marry him! kill me, if you like! God is my witness that I had not thought of getting married, but, as you say so, I will!"

His fist closed her mouth. She clasped her arms about her head, to protect herself as best she could, but soon sank to the floor, fainting....

For three days she was in bed, broken, dazed—then, no sooner on her feet, than off to the theater, guarded by Pa and Ma. If they could, they would have padlocked a chain to her ankle and a collar about her neck. Ma chilled Lily with her scornful pity, or racked her with repeated insults:

"A disgrace to the family! You'll be the death of us!"

She would shower cuffs upon Lily, throw books at her head, or whatever came readiest to hand. Lily hid the books, the umbrellas, shrank into corners, longing to cry; but the tears refused to come. She was too angry. And, with head down, but eyes alert, she crouched like a dog rebelling under blows, with lips drawn back above her teeth, ready to bite.

"I'm going out, or I'll kill her!" growled Pa, slamming the door behind him.

Pa was thoroughly upset: for Lily to leave him! Just when Hauptmann was starting a fifth troupe; when Pawnee was drawing full houses with his three stars; when competition was increasing and threatening: it meant disaster, certain ruin, the disbanding of his troupe, his contracts canceled. He seethed with indignation; or else, in despair, felt like taking Lily in his arms, seating her on his knee, begging her to tell him that it was all a nightmare, that she would never marry, never marry that Trampy: his good little Lily ... whom her Pa would cover with diamonds! She should have all she wished, and everything, if only she would assure him that it was not true that Trampy, that ungrateful cur, whom he, Pa, had picked out of the gutter, was going to steal his Lily! That damned Jim Crow! Pa, in his fury, bought a revolver to scatter the footy rotter's brains with, but Trampy received the tip from Tom and vanished, hey, presto, leaving no trace, allowing no sign of himself to crop up anywhere. Pa's rage was vented on his daughter.

Happily for her, Lily now was a model of conduct. She felt thoroughly calm. Peace seemed to reign in the house. Lily was such a gentle little thing! One day—the very day on which Tom passed her a note from Trampy and she made a package of her new dress and of her photographs, and souvenirs—that evening, as she kissed her father and mother, tears came to her eyes. Then, instead of going to the kitchen, she fetched her bundle, stealthily opened the street-door and ran to the corner, where Trampy was waiting in a hansom, and hi, off for the holidays, the champagne, the long-dreamed-of Paradise!



PLAYING 'EM IN

I

They were seated on the basket trunk marked, "Trampy Wheel-Pad," in big black letters. The steamer had left Harwich and was making for Holland. The English coast was disappearing in the mist. On the deck, a heap of luggage and parcels made a sort of nest for them. Trampy, with his dear little wife by his side, was thinking of the future ... so many things which he had flashed before Lily's eyes and which he could not give her ... not directly, at least ... but, pooh, she'd get used to it by degrees. The great thing, to Trampy, was that he had his Lily! He was going to stuff himself to the throat with love and, first of all, to seek a shelter for his sweet wife and himself. England was no place for them. Pa was prowling round and Jimmy, too. Once their anger was over and they found themselves face to face with the irreparable, everything would calm down; meantime, the wisest thing for Trampy and Lily was to be prudent and run away as fast as they could. Trampy had his plan, he had seen the agents: Holland and Belgium first; then a performance at Ludwig's Concert House, in Hamburg, and a brilliant first appearance before a hall filled with managers. Already he saw himself in the famous little room of the Cafe Grueber, where so many contracts were signed during the few days that the hearing-season lasted, and then he would have the whole continent, from St. Petersburg to Lisbon, make heaps of money, treat Lily like the little peach she was and cover her with diamonds, by Jove! Trampy, meanwhile, was none too easy in his mind: funds were low; the two pounds paid at the registrar's office had lightened his purse still more. Fortunately, the fire-escape had not had his seven-and-six-pence: that was so much saved.

"A poor consolation," thought Trampy. "The price of a dog-license."

But he was gay, nevertheless, in his wife's company. He forgot his thirty-six girls. He told Lily stories, made her squirm with laughter, played with her, dazzled her with the champagne suppers ... which they would have later on. Or else, like the consummate mummer that he was, he put on the gloomy countenance of a man about to reveal the secret of his heart:

"I'm a wretch," he muttered, while Lily, in her innocence—Lily, who had been living on tenter-hooks since her flight from home a few days before—turned her frightened eyes upon him. "A miserable wretch ... married. Yes, it's true; I'm married, Lily."

"It's true what they said? You're married?"

"Yes, I am."

"Oh, I knew it!" said Lily, in despair. "But then ... if you are ... I'm not!"

"You silly little thing!" said Trampy, kissing her and taking her on his knee. "Yes, I'm married; yes; and no one shall separate us. Haven't I the prettiest little wife—here, on my knee—my little Lily?"

"Oh, how you frightened me!" said Lily, nestling against him. "Oh, don't ever let us part!"

With a wife like that, said Trampy to himself, a little discomfort more or less made no difference. As long as she had her dear husband, she would be happy. She would have eyes for nothing but him and would not care a fig for all the rest.

Now she loved him: there was no doubt about that. She had left everything for him! He could even have had her without marriage, by Jove, and saved two pounds, if he had insisted! So he thought, at least, and he put a conquering arm round Lily's waist, while she, with her head on his shoulder, dreamed and dreamed, her eyes fixed upon the horizon. She was married! She had dared! She would be, at last, the little lady she had always been by instinct! And Lily went on building her castles in Spain until, after the smooth crossing, arriving at the Hook of Holland, she would not have been surprised to find her own motor-car and servants waiting for her on the quay. But no, she had to carry her bag herself, under the fine drizzle, upon the slippery pavement, to the train ... and third-class to Rotterdam. It was all very well for Trampy to adopt a triumphant air, but Lily was greatly vexed at the idea of going with her husband to a little hotel frequented by artistes, bill-toppers though they were. She would have liked something different.

Trampy observed that, with her Pa....

"With Pa," said Lily, "it was not the same thing ... and I'm not with Pa now."

Trampy showed himself accommodating. That evening, Lily had the proud satisfaction of walking into a smart hotel, with waiters in the hall, as at the Horse Shoe. She carried her head high, conscious of being looked at. She would have liked always to shine like that—to sit down to meals amid the rustling of silk dresses ... but she felt uneasy in her modest attire. Trampy would be only too pleased to give her a new outfit, later on, yes; but as he explained to Lily, he had had so many expenses recently, wouldn't it be better to take rooms somewhere, in a sort of place like Lisle Street, or St. Pauli, at Hamburg? Lily yielded to these arguments, she had to; but it was a bitter grief for her to leave that fine hotel, where everybody saw her as a lady ... perhaps because of her big hat, on which a bird, flat-spread, opened wide its wings and held in its beak a diamond the size of an egg.

And, thenceforth, the mean life returned: Lily relapsed among the potatoes and the wash-hand-basin salads. There were occasional revolts, tart words, sudden disputes, which, at times, wrinkled her forehead with anger....

Nevertheless, she had her good moments: she enjoyed the sensation of being a lady who does no work, of wearing gloves and a big hat and of looking at the time on her fine gold watch while her husband is on the stage. It seemed pleasant to her no longer to appear before the audience doing her performing-dog tricks, with Pa scrutinizing her from the wings. It was her turn now to make one of the small nation: pas, mas, profs, bosses, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, all watching their bread-winners on the boards. She mingled with them, or else sat down prettily in a corner, talked to the artistes: other Martellos, other Nunkies; new faces every week, according to the theaters they were at: owners of troupes; sketch comedians, serio-comics; dancers of the Roofer class; laced-up, glittering "Mdlles.;" or else, from time to time, some josser, a friend of the manager's or an agent, prowling around among the flesh-colored tights. Lily had seen all this a hundred times, a thousand times before, when she was with her parents; and the mere thought of Ma made her talk nicely, from bravado, to all of them, though she was married now. Lily bore Pa no malice, in spite of the buckled belt. Pa was a man, with hair on his chest and harsh like all of them ... no, not all ... and not so bad, perhaps ... not always ... no; however, a man.... But her Ma, a lady, ought to have stood up for her! If Ma could see her now, gee! Lily felt a lump in her throat at the notion. And it was their fault that she had run away! It served them right! She was much happier, now, when she was a lady in her turn. Her talent and her beauty received the homage due to them. Lily Clifton, the New Zealander, what ho! A famous name in the profession! She was one of those whom the stage people point out to one another: