"Gee!" she sometimes heard a voice say behind her. "Fancy owning a girl like that and not having the sense to keep her!"

Lily was flattered to the core at hearing her parents blamed; she felt inclined to rise and say, "'K you," with the great stage bow: her right hand on her heart, the other raising her dress, her body bent forward in a sweeping curtsey.

She took part in the conversations: she knew a little Spanish, which she had learned in Mexico, and a little German, which she had picked up in America from the Three Graces; and besides they all jabbered English, they were all "families," "misses," "the's," with impossible accents, suggesting some of those cosmopolitan towns beyond the "Rockies." In this medley, she was at her ease; but she did not at all like being called Lily, now that she was a lady:

"Call me Mrs. Trampy," she said.

After the show, she would sit in the restaurant with Trampy. There, amid clouds of tobacco-smoke, they all supped in a crowd. There were separate tables, at which silent little parties gobbled down their cutlets and compote in ten minutes and then slipped away quietly. Sometimes, a whole band of girls would swoop down at once, like a flight of thrushes, or exchange funny remarks over other people's heads and blow volleys of kisses in every direction.

Trampy, always full of good stuff, amused the company. He lorded it in the select corner, the corner of the stage-manager and the pretty girls. After supper, he cocked a cigar between his teeth and told thick stories in the midst of an admiring throng. Lily followed with her lips, so as not to lose a word, but, when the final point was at hand, she blushed in advance, turned away her head, as though tired of listening without understanding, and talked to her neighbor, like a lady who respects herself. Or, sometimes, it was more than she could help and Lily would laugh and laugh:

"Oh, dear! Oh, my!"

Then they would "talk shop" among pros, they passed one another the papers: Der Artist, The Era, Das Program, they discussed engagements, quoted personal anecdotes: the Ma who made her star go down to the kitchen, lest the landlady, when peeling the potatoes, should slip one into her pocket. Yes, her own daughter, a star who brought her in a hundred marks a day!

"That's just like it!" thought Lily.

They made fun of that prof who pinched his apprentices till the blood came, while pretending to smile, or clawed them like a monkey. And the company laughed and laughed, especially when Trampy put out his hand to Lily to show her how the monkeys ... Lily would jump back and the crowd roared with laughter. And the glasses of beer and Moselwein accumulated on the table; and round backs were bent over interminable games of cards....

And then, gradually, the room emptied; the girls went away and Lily, waiting for her husband, sank into her chair and yawned as though her jaws would drop. As they left, she reproached Trampy for his coarseness: those horrid stories which made her blush before everybody's eyes. Her Pa would never have permitted himself ... She was not accustomed ...

"That didn't keep you from splitting your sides with laughter," said Trampy.

"What an idea!" replied Lily, in a vexed tone. "Do you think I'm going to play the goody goody 'lalerperlooser'? One has to do as others do and not make one's self conspicuous."

"Quite right!" said Trampy.

But she turned crimson with rage when Trampy, some other night, forgot himself so far as to monkey-claw the girls. There were short violent scenes when they returned home, chairs upset, angry words. Trampy could not understand this jealousy. When he was confronted with these outbursts, he was greatly surprised, sought for a reason, muttered Jimmy's name—that was his sensitive point: he thought of it in spite of himself—ironically inquired of Lily if it was Jimmy who had put all that nonsense into her head. Lily was sorry to see the conversation take this turn. She flung her arms round her husband's neck, loved him, kissed him prettily, the great silly: he knew better; he knew she never thought of Jimmy:

"Kiss me, darling! I wish you would make me happy," said Lily, moved to pity for herself. "I want to be a good little wife!"

Thereupon they made it up. Lily did not feel, with her husband, that thrill which she had often noticed in other women: but she wanted to love him, stubbornly pursued the idea, fagged away at her love like a little school-girl only too anxious to learn. Trampy, on his side, could be amiable when he liked. He became the old Trampy again at times and treated Lily like a little playfellow. They would both run about in the Biergarten, in the morning, at practice-time, larking like children, hiding behind the tables, and their laughter enlivened the empty place, still soiled with the remnants of last night's meal and littered with programs and cigar-stumps.

And time passed like this for weeks ... it was months now ... an existence like another, with good in it and bad ... and monotonous and common....

"I should have been better off, perhaps, at home," she thought. "If this is marriage, it's not much."

For, she saw it quite clearly, that wasn't love; Trampy didn't understand her. A "girl" and a wife were all the same to Trampy: a mere pastime, both of them. He spoke of it lightly, through the smoke of his cigar. She learned to know him, heard him boast of his prowess, caught passing words:

"Girls, girls, my!"

She would have laughed, she would even have felt flattered at being chosen among so many, if he had put an end to his conquests. But he continued to prowl round the stage-girls, as he used to do before he was married. If even he had shone upon the stage, she would have understood that he had got "swelled head," that he was yielding to temptation; but his success was only middling. He had not made a hit at Hamburg. The manager of Ludwig's had told him flatly that he would do well to practise and practise a great deal. Trampy posed as a victim of jealousy, spoke of showing them—all of them, if once he put his back to it!—a new turn, a discovery that would show what he was made of! Meanwhile he had a new idea, as a sketch comedian, with a make-up of his own invention, the face painted white on one side and red on the other, with wrinkles cunningly drawn—a laughing Johnny and a crying Johnny, two men in one. He pestered Lily with his plans, made her cut out dresses for him, came back from the old-clothes shop laden with uniforms in rags, into which Lily had to put patches. And shoes, in particular, ran in his head; shoes of which the soles and the uppers yawned like lips; talking shoes, which said, "Papa!" and "Mamma!" This last suggestion made Lily laugh.

Trampy haunted the bazaars, bought children's toys, took the stomachs out of the cardboard dogs and rabbits to make his quackers, sought about for his right note, pursued inspiration to the bottom of the glasses.

Lily was sometimes driven to exasperation. This tramp-cyclist, this sketch-comedian was making her, Lily Clifton, patch up his dresses! And her husband rewarded her for it by making love to the girls, poor idiot! Oh, if Pa and Ma had not been so harsh with her! Lily always harked back to that, stiffened herself with the thought, remembered the Marjutti girl, in whom love of art produced wonders and whose Pa and Ma were so gentle and kind.

"They should have treated me like that," she concluded, "and I should have been at home still!"

She regretted her marriage. And there were some who pitied her for belonging to Trampy: they looked upon him as not worthy of her, blamed him for openly carrying on with girls. Others asked, as though it did not matter, was she really married or were they just "living together?"

"What? Am I married? Is that what they think about me?" she said, a little annoyed. "Of course I am! At the Kennington registry-office!"

And yet a doubt entered her mind too. Was she really married, after all? Lily did not know much about it. Had the banns been published? And those two witnesses picked up in the street ... a ceremony that took just five minutes ... like a conjuring trick. If it was true that they were "living together" without her knowing it, she would not stay with him. She would go back home at once. Marriage, certainly, was never intended for her. This she realized now. When she thought of the Gilson girl, mad on her man, and of others whom she sometimes caught in the dressing-rooms and passages eating each other up with kisses, she was at a loss to understand. How could they make so much fuss about it?

Poor little wife, with so little love for her husband and no admiration at all! As an artiste she thought him lamentable. Trampy, who had seemed so great to her in Mexico ... why, she had shot miles ahead of him since! She felt that he was getting second-rate. He himself was well aware of it, for that matter; blamed everybody: suspected a hoodoo somewhere: some son of a gun bringing him ill-luck. And he was always casting about for an easy means of success ... another new plan ... always something new ... a high-sounding title: "Rusty Bike," an old jigger which, at each turn of the wheel, would grate like a cart, "Crrrra! Crrrra!" and bring the house down with laughter, while Lily, in the wings, was to sound an accompaniment on a grating rattle:

"Crrrra! Crrrra!"

"All that set-out for nothing!" said Lily to herself. "It would be much simpler to have a little talent."

She felt herself overcome with contempt for her husband: what a sorry bread-winner he made! Why take a wife, when you had only that to keep her on? Lily did not know whether to laugh or to cry when she saw Trampy come down from his dressing-room, proud as a peacock, his chest swelling at the sight of so many girls at a time, a treat of which he never wearied. He was magnificent, was Trampy, against that background of shoulders, thighs and calves: in his element as a fish in water. Nor did he make any bones about smiling to them or monkey-clawing them as they came off the stage. The presence of his wife did not hinder him. He was sure of her love: he knew she must adore him, as all the others did. And, leaving Lily in a corner, in the shade of a pillar, with his eyes he devoured all that powdered flesh, all those coarse wigs.

Lily hated him at such times. She could have boxed his ears. She had enough of it, at last. One evening, she caught hold of his arm to take him away, furious that a gentleman could find a pleasure in making his wife look so ridiculous! And Trampy, more or less flattered at what he considered a fond wife's jealousy, was turning to go, when a lady with plumes on her head and a woolly dog under her arm greeted him with:

"Hullo, old boy! Glad to see you, Trampy!"

Lily—it was a distant memory, but no matter—recognized Poland, the Parisienne, with the painted face and the violent scent. Trampy took a step backward. He expected a scene, though he owed her nothing, after all; but she did not seem angry, no. On the contrary, she looked at him with a roguish eye. She knew of Trampy's marriage, no doubt, as she knew of his conquests, having been his victim herself.

"Hullo, old boy!" repeated Poland, sizing up Lily with an appraising glance and then fixing her eyes upon Trampy. "Still having your successes, old boy? Is this your number thirty? Thirty-six? Thirty-eight, eh?"

"What!" Lily broke in, astounded at these manners. "What number thirty-six, thirty-eight?"

"Ugh! A number in a lottery," said Trampy, looking quite vain between those two women in love with him. "Yes, a number ... with which I drew a prize!... Why, by Jove," he continued, addressing Poland, "this is my wife!... Lily Clifton! ... the New Zealander on Wheels."

"Oh, yes," said Poland to Lily. "I did hear that you ran away: tired of this, eh?"

And, tapping the back of her left hand with the palm of her right, she made the professional gesture that denotes a whipping.

"Yes, I was a bit," said Lily, feeling rather proud than otherwise. "I've been through the mill, I have!"

"You've had your fair share, eh?" insisted Poland. "You're not the first that has left her family to escape being whipped. You did quite right," she concluded.

Trampy was dumfounded and utterly floored by the revelation. What! He! He! Lily had married him because of that! Because ... And people said it! And talked about it!

"Come along, Lily," said Trampy. "Let's go home."

And, giving no further heed to Poland, who followed him with a mocking smile, he took Lily by the arm and went out with her.

Lily felt her arm shake. Trampy was furious, evidently. She saw her mistake, too late. There would be a stormy scene when they got in. Well, who cared? She was resolved, under that obstinate forehead of hers, to face the facts. She had had enough of this husband. And she meant to know, that very moment, if she was married or not ... because with him one never knew. When she admitted that she had married him because of "that," Trampy, in his humiliation would put her out of doors at once; if the marriage wasn't valid, he would get rid of her. There was no doubt about it.

And she did not have to wait, for Trampy, even before they were out of the theater, in the passage, among the trunks and properties, Trampy, unable to restrain himself any longer, seized her by the wrists and looked her straight in the face:

"Is it true?" he asked, in a voice trembling with rage.

Lily, without replying, lowered her eyes as though to say yes, like a good little wife, oh, so sorry to offend her husband!

"And," said Trampy, choking with shame, "you married me for 'that:' me, Trampy!"

"Yes," said Lily confusedly.

"Damn you!" cried Trampy. "Oh, if we weren't married for good, wouldn't I just make you sleep out to-night!"



CHAPTER II

Poor Lily! She was Trampy's little wife, his little wife for ever! And life, monotonous and common, followed its usual course: a week here, a week there; and the theater every night at the fixed time, according to the scene-plot which they went and consulted on reaching the stage: "X, Corridor, 9.5; Z, Wood, 10.17; Y, Palace, 11.10," and so on. And for Trampy it was an everlasting grumbling at his ill-luck, a dull anger at "playing 'em in," so sure was he of seeing his name first, always—"Garden, 8.30, Trampy Wheel-Pad"—he who had had such a success in England with his red-hot stove. It was no use his saying to himself that it wouldn't last, that it would be better next week. It was just as though done on purpose. He played 'em in, always, from Bremen to Brunswick, from Leipzig to Madgeburg:

"I wish I knew the son of a gun who has his knife into me!" growled Trampy, persuaded that he was the victim of an agent's jealousy, or else the stage-managers didn't understand their business.

"If you had more talent," thought Lily to herself, "that sort of thing wouldn't happen. I'd like to see you with Pa: he'd show you, he'd make you stir your stumps, you rusty biker!"

However, she was careful not to say so to him, for fear of blows; and Lily knew that, if ever she received them once, twice, without returning them, it was all up with her, she would lapse under the yoke again, it would become a habit: there would be nothing for it but to leave her husband, if she wished to avoid slaps, just as she had left her family, to avoid whippings.

That would have been too grotesque. She did not want to give Pa and Ma the satisfaction of seeing her unhappily married. Lily armed herself with patience; and she needed it! Trampy was in a frightful temper, said that he would have been the ideal husband, if she had been the little wife he had dreamed of: but to think that she had married him for "that!"

Now it was the constant allusion to "that" which made him die with shame. Everywhere, on the stages of the different music-halls, people had for Lily that sort of sympathetic pity which they feel for a performing dog: they approved of her running away; everybody seemed to know about it. Poland, it must be said, scored a fine revenge against Trampy, without counting the artistes who had seen Lily practising and who knew what harsh treatment meant, the Munich Roofers, among others, real ones, with their blows of the hat, gee!

Among them, it became the fashion, when they saw Lily, to tap the back of their hands, and then to applaud with the tip of the nail, as though to approve her flight. Lily at first was annoyed at the reputation for cruelty which they were giving her Pa. He was right to hit her, she thought, sometimes. She was also annoyed on her own account. She was an artiste, damn it! It was not only a question of smackings! Why, if she hadn't had it in her...! It was a gift! But, on the other hand, to excuse the folly of her marriage, she let them talk, without protesting, like a poor little thing who would still be with her Pa and Ma if she had been treated "fair."

And there were always angry disputes between her and Trampy. They were seen to disappear through the stage-entrance, Lily with an arrogant air, Trampy drooping his head, his lips distorted with stinging replies. Lily, though she was not performing at the theater, sometimes received a letter there. When there was one for her in the heap of envelopes, bearing the stamps of all countries, which had been round the world prior to "waiting arrival" in the doorkeeper's pigeonholes, Trampy looked at her furiously, wanted to know. Lily refused. Forthwith, in the passages, or on the stage, endless disputes went on between them ... oh, not in the least tragic in appearance and interlarded with "Hullo, boys!" and "Hullo, girls!" to left and right, whenever they passed any acquaintances. And in a low voice, abruptly:

"Show it to me, you wench!"

"Shut up, you footy rotter!"

Trampy could not forgive Lily for marrying him on that account. He, who had only to choose among the crowd that walks the boards or flutters about in muslin skirts, suffered from Lily's scorn, looked upon himself as a sultan dethroned before the eyes of his harem. In order to infuriate Lily, though he did not feel in the least like laughing, he exaggerated his conquering ways. It ended by affecting his work. Only the night before, he had got drunk with two "sisters" out of ten: the fourth and seventh from the right. Result: he was still in bed when the matinee began. And his performance went so badly that they had to drop the curtain on him. That would pass for once: an illness was allowable; but it couldn't go on at that rate. He was becoming worse than the head-balancer who tumbled off his perch, without having his excuse of sorrow, the loss of a beloved wife, seeing that he, Trampy, had a dear little wife and very much alive, this one!

Lily, in her calmer moments, foresaw that they would soon have to face hard times, flat poverty. She felt her contempt for Trampy increase. Those sketch-comedians, those tramp cyclists, pooh, they were less than nothing, bluff, that's all, as old Martello said!

She saw her dreams flung to the ground. At first, it had been charming for her, so full of novelty, but, after all, she had only changed masters. She ended by considering herself more unhappy than she had been with Pa and Ma. To begin with, Pa always had money. She brought them in a lot. She lived much less comfortably with Trampy. She used to think that being a married woman would change everything, whereas—not a bit of it!—there was no change at all: potatoes, coal, all sorts of dirty, messy things; and no Maud to help her. And it was always as in the old days: damp sheets, dirty glasses, rickety tables, beds with worn-out mattresses; and the nights were dull as ditch-water. Trampy had hoped for something different, expected to find a whole harem in Lily, his thirty-six girls in one, including Ave Maria, with her body like a wildcat's. Alas, it was far from that!

Lily loathed those nights. Love, yes, but not that, not that! Sacred love, not profane love (Lily had seen paintings of it in museums and remembered the title). Love, that is to say, to lie ever so nicely on the breast of the dear one, yes, as with Glass-Eye, and dream of hats and diamonds. No doubt, it was ambitious to want so much. She, who had seen everything, had never come across that; but it was what she wanted, what she had been promised, damn it! Things were going from bad to worse. Memories of her childhood moved her almost to tears, when she thought of it: those happy times in Africa, on the straw beside the horses, the stars seen through the tent and the smell of the elephants. When she was there, perhaps that had seemed less sweet to her: the hard ground, the noise of the chains; but everything was made more poetic by remembrance: it was the past, what! Nights sweet as milk, far from a man reeking of tobacco. And not only her early childhood, but her life of yesterday returned to her: touring with the troupe, the oatmeal porridge and the cakes she made—bricks!—but Pa laughed at them, took them good-humoredly, whereas Trampy lost his temper. In those days, it is true, she wasn't a lady, she used to work; but they had good fun, all the same, in the dressing-rooms; they had tea at the theater, romps in the passages, or else did crochet-work, to pass the time; and all those practical jokes, intensified by distance: hustling Glass-Eye into the hamper; coaxing the black cat into the dressing-room, for luck; or making the pantomime lady speak her tag; or going in to the Roofers, on some pretext, and giving a whistle which made them all rush out, dressed or undressed or half-dressed, never mind, and spin round three times to ward off the ill omen: all those memories touched her till she felt inclined to cry. Oh, if she had been with her Pa now, she would have sat down on his knee and begged his pardon!

At such times, if Trampy became affectionate and tried to kiss his little wife, Lily would simply turn her back on him. Poor Trampy! And he could not play the master! For, call on the agents as he might and write as many fine letters as he pleased—an art in which he excelled—work was becoming scarce. He no longer had any money. One pay-day, Trampy was obliged to confess that he had had his salary in advance and spent it; a money-lender held his contract and kept back three-quarters of his pay. Trampy, tormented by urgent needs, had let himself in with a Brixton "financier," a specialist in "loans from five pounds upward, music-hall artistes treated with the strictest confidence," who pocketed nearly the whole. Now Lily just happened to want a new dress, a new petticoat and a tiny mother-of-pearl lucky charm. Trampy had to own that he couldn't afford these fancies and Lily had a fit of temper! But then why promise so many things to a poor little wife who deserved better than that?

"A poor little wife," said Trampy, "should marry her husband for love and not to escape whippings! There are ups and downs in the profession. It was your own lookout; you shouldn't have married a star!"

"A star!" cried Lily, with a nervous laugh. "You a star! A damned comedian! A nice sort of star, indeed! A music-hall could have twenty black cats in it and you'd turn them into a white elephant!"

In other words, Trampy, according to her, was a Jonah, good only for playing the people in, if that!

"A wife has no right to speak to her husband as you do!" exclaimed Trampy, leaping up under the insult. "You deserve a good thrashing!"

"None of that!" said Lily angrily, ready to fly at his throat.

"A wife," resumed Trampy, with great dignity, "helps her husband, instead of insulting him."

"We're in for it, I suppose!" said Lily.

"Certainly, we're in for it! I have no engagement now, but that's no reason why you shouldn't find one. Look for one and work!"

Lily was in for it, knee-deep, as she said. She was not excessively astonished: it was the inevitable end! Not that she disliked to work: her idleness, on the contrary, was beginning to pall upon her; but it was the humiliation of going back to it after putting on so much side and posing as the lady. She had worked for Pa; now she would work for Trampy; it was natural and proper. There were exceptions—the wife at home, as Jimmy said, that josser!—but they were rare.

"Take up your bike again," said Trampy, after a pause. "Be a good little wife, help me out of this. I have something in my mind, a scheme which will make us rich; you'll see later on."

"But," said Lily, "I haven't a stage bike, and yours is really too ugly."

"I know of one for sale."

"Very well, I'll work," said Lily. "I'll make them give me this tour which they promised you and didn't sign for; and to-morrow you shall see!"

At heart, Lily was not sorry to show her husband how people got out of a scrape, when they had talent; and, the next day, she went to an agent, accompanied by Trampy, looking very dignified. Her cheeky feather was made to dance attendance for a moment; and then she was shown into the office. Lily Clifton? The New Zealander on Wheels? Straight away a contract, signed in duplicate! A week in each town; later on, perhaps, a month in Berlin, at the Kolossal. Lily displayed wonderful tact, did not triumph too openly over Trampy. She acted to perfection the part of the little lady who takes up the bike again just for fun—as in the time of her "French governess"—or rather of a dear little thing wholly wrapped up now in her wifely duty: her poor husband ill, she herself needing exercise, just for fun, you know.

On leaving the agent's, she bought some material, then ran home, cut out stage dresses. In the evening, Lily was still hemming and stitching, indefatigably, seized once more with professional pride after her excursions into private life. And, all night, under the lamp, she contrived, cut out and sewed. Then came practice, without Pa. In an hour, in spite of the new machine, which put her out, she had picked up her "times" again. She felt as if she had been spinning round the night before, under Pa's eye, so absolutely at her ease was she, with her head on the saddle or twirling on the back-wheel.

And, on the following Monday, her first appearance, her name on the walls: "Miss Lily" in big letters, right at the top of the posters, "Miss Lily," not "Mrs." or "Madame." Had she had ten children, two husbands and three divorces, she would still have been "Miss," everywhere and always, as a further attraction for the swells in the front boxes and as a certificate of youth. Mighty few husbands, on the continent especially; not more men of any kind than could be helped, on the stage, except a few noted "profs," standing by the perches of velvet and steel or under the trapezes, displaying, beside the pink-silk tights, against the "palace" back-drop, the faultless correctness of their full-dress suits. But, for the rest, people preferred to ignore husbands, brothers and "friends;" Lily had known some who never showed themselves at all, who remained squatting at home, so as not to stand in their wives' way.

Trampy, for that matter, knew better than to parade himself with Lily. And he preferred it so. He could have wished one thing to the exclusion of all others: that people should not know of his marriage, that they should cease to speak of it. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The story of the whippings was enlivening Lisle Street, exaggerated, as usual. The Bill and Boom tour, the Harrasford tour were beginning to spread it on every stage in England; before six months were over, it would have made the round of the world from the Klondike to Calcutta. What a disgrace for Trampy! Yet no sooner had he put his New Zealander on her wheels again than Trampy blossomed out once more. After all, who cared if people were seen to smack the back of their hands? He wasn't to be put out by a little thing like that:

"Just so," he seemed to say. "We are married, whippings or no whippings, and I am the master; I have set her to work again; and there you are!"

Trampy's reputation, so far from suffering, increased; all his compeers now envied him from the bottom of their hearts; the bosses, the profs, the managers, the Pas, the Mas treated him, in their own minds, as a lucky dog, all the more inasmuch as Trampy was not uppish and gladly stood drinks, while his wife, "Miss Lily," made money for him with her breakneck tricks. It was much smarter than doing it for one's self: the great thing was to have a "girl" like that! Trampy was having his revenge: he had been laughed at; he now had the laugh on them! and Trampy knew glorious times, in the Biergarten, or lounging at street-corners, near the stage-door, chaffing the girls, hat cocked back, hands deep in his pockets, a cigar stuck between his teeth. He told the story of his life, not without pride; said that he must write it one day, sell it to The New York Standard for a thousand dollars. The girls he'd had: whew! His love adventures: all over the world, by Jove! And his marriage with Lily Clifton, the New Zealander on Wheels, a dear little wife, so gentle, so obedient. No, he had no reason to complain of his life. He would write it, mark his words! To say nothing of a scheme he had in mind:

"Just you wait and see! It's a trick to make a millionaire of you or break your neck."

"Will you make Miss Lily do it?"

"I'll see, I'll think it over," said Trampy, in a lordly tone.

The directors, the stage-managers took no notice of him; but, among the artistes, Trampy Wheel-Pad was some one, he enjoyed his leisure, recovered his self-assurance: if, in addition, he could have destroyed the legend of the whippings, he would have been perfectly happy. He would turn the conversation on the subject of smackings in the music-hall generally, in the hope of hearing them contradicted or made little of; but it was no use; every one believed in them: all, boys and girls, even the most spoiled, quoted facts: blows which they had received! my! blows hard enough to split the front of a music-hall from top to bottom! The nation with the painted faces, the blue-chins seemed to vie with one another as to who had been most through the mill.

"You're exaggerating," said Trampy. "It may be true, to a certain extent, in your case. But, Miss Lily, for instance: do you mean to say you believe all she tells?"

"Oh, quite!" said two Roofer girls who were there.

They had seen Lily practising. And they knew what it meant. They had had their share, too: old Roofer, gee! And Lily had done quite right to run away from her whippings.

"There you go again!" said Trampy. "Can't you see she's humbugging you?"



But he pulled himself up suddenly, if Lily arrived, for, in spite of his big airs, he was all submission in her presence.

"Oh, really! Glass-Eye caught it instead of me, I suppose," said Lily, drawing back her shoulder as though threatening to smack him, "when Pa went for me with his leather belt. And I have witnesses. I've been through the mill, if anybody has: that much I can say!"

Lily, after this burst of pride, would lower her head, a trifle embarrassed, like a dear little thing, all wrapped up in her duties as a wife, a wife whom her husband would cause to break her back one of these days, perhaps.

This created a circle of admirers around her: all, besides, agreed in saying that you had to have the business "rubbed into your skin" to be as clever as she was.

"'K you!" said Lily, with a stage bow.

It was certain that she made a hit. They wanted her everywhere. She was asked to appear in tights. The engagements grew better and better. "Miss Lily" was more and more talked about. It was no longer a Trampy Wheel-Pad on a rusty bike: it was grace, youth ... and stage-smiles fit to turn the heads in the front boxes. When Lily appeared on the stage, she transfixed every white shirt-front, every opera-glass. She took a real delight in it all. Her beauty captivated the audience. In her pink tights, Lily turned and turned and turned, to the hum of the orchestra, against the "wood" back-drop of purple and gold. Then she returned to the wings, all excited by her show, received bouquets, chatted freely with the comrades. She met old friends: the green-eyed female-impersonator, for instance, pressed her closely. He, too, was touring Germany: a week here, a week there. Chance brought them together again. He was enraptured by Lily: how lovely she had grown! He would have liked to adopt her.... Lily threw her head back, laughed and repelled him with a thump in the ribs when he tried to kiss her.

Another time, she saw the Bambinis, who were playing, by a lucky accident, at matinees only and by special permission, because of their age. She larked with them like a child. Elsewhere, it was Nunkie Fuchs, on his way to Vienna, where he was going to see to the building of his pigeon-house, leaving the Three Graces for a few weeks on the Harrasford tour. He had seen Lily's name on the posters and had come to say, "How do you do?" to her.

And, amid the thunder of the band or the lull of the entr'actes, Lily received tidings of her Pa and Ma and details of what happened after her flight, as reported by Glass-Eye Maud. After Lily's departure, they had hunted everywhere. Then Ma thought of looking in the trunk: the pretty dress was gone. Then they had rushed to the theater: no Lily. Then they had guessed: Lily had run away. Ma fell on her knees and cried and cried. Pa seized his revolver and spoke of going to shoot the man who had robbed him of his child! His little Lily gone! And the contracts had to be canceled and Pa did not go out for a week and the house remained still and silent for a month. Pa, thoroughly upset, cried whenever Lily's name was mentioned and was near dying of shame when he felt himself blamed, even by those who used to congratulate him on his way of turning out an artiste. And Nunkie himself maintained that one must know how to handle young girls: gentleness above all.

Lily bit her lips when she heard that. Her little nose tingled. She hardened her features, wrinkled her obstinate forehead, lest she also should cry:

"If I had to do it again, I would!" she said quickly, just like that, without reflecting, in the way one says a thing to one's self which one knows to be untrue.

They also told her things that made her laugh. Glass-Eye Maud no longer left her hole, cried like a tap, so much so that one day, Ma, noticing an insipid taste in the porridge, threatened her with the sack if that sort of thing went on.

As for business, people did not know exactly. Pa, they said, had written to a Hauptmann's "fat freak" to take Lily's place. The reply ran:

"No, thanks, I'm all right where I am.

"Fat Freak."

The signature was underlined, for people had ended by knowing about Pa's disrespectful remarks. Lily laughed when she heard this: my!

"I will come ... when you take to wearing braces!" another had answered.

This was an allusion to the blows with the belt; and Lily, with head thrown back, full-throated, her hand on her heart, laughed ... laughed ... laughed:

"Bravo, girls!" she said, applauding with her thumbnail.

And Tom? Tom had had the boot, with a bang on the nose, for carrying letters to Lily. For Pa ended by learning all: some one had told him.

"Jimmy, that son of a gun!" said Lily.

And Jimmy himself, what had become of that josser? Jimmy was no longer stage-manager. He had left everything after Lily's flight. He, too, had flown into a terrible rage when he heard about it ... spoke of Trampy as a thief in the night ... would have killed him, if he had met him ... and he was going to star in his turn.

"Singing?" asked Lily.

"No, something to do with the bike."

"What a fool!" thought Lily. "Fancies himself an artiste because he used to mend my bike for me!"

Jimmy, it seemed, had hired a huge shed and there, all alone, fitted up some apparatus of a complicated kind. He never went out by day. He worked and worked. A trick to break your neck at, it appeared, or make your fortune.

"Those jossers!" exclaimed Lily scornfully.

And what was he going to do on his bike? Nobody knew. There was something published in the papers, they said. It was something on the back-wheel.

"What rot!"

Lily laughed open-mouthed, laughed with all her muscles, twisting her hips, splitting her sides, smacking her thighs. What! Jimmy on the back-wheel! He! He! He cutting twirls, that josser!

"And the troupe?"

The troupe nobody knew about: dispersed, most likely; the troupe, after all, was Lily. When she went, everything was bound to fall to pieces. Pa didn't care either; told any one who would listen to him that he was going to retire to Kennington, that he was well off now ... thousands of pounds in the bank ... made his fortune ... meant to live on his dividends.

"I knew it," said Lily; "I knew I had made his fortune! Thousands of pounds, damn it!"

"Lily, don't swear like that!" said Nunkie Fuchs. "It's not right!"

Lily lowered her head, taken aback; excused herself, like a lady who knows her manners:

"And yet," she said to herself, "if he had had my troubles, that old rogue, perhaps he would have sworn, too!"

For Trampy was becoming terrible: life was impossible with him. All the money which Lily earned went on champagne ... and on girls, probably; and the more she earned the greedier he grew. He wanted money, heaps of money; Lily had nothing left for herself. Trampy sought out new tricks, invented balancing-feats, made her practise them, in the morning, on the stage, with his sleeves turned back and his trousers turned up, absolutely like a Pa. Lily, accustomed to yield obedience, relapsed under the yoke. Bike in the morning, bike at the matinee, bike in the evening; and, with that, the cooking, the washing-up ... and not a farthing in her pocket, though she had made a fortune for her Pa, damn it! Pa living on his income at Kennington, while she continued her life of slavery! Wasn't it enough to make her send everybody to the devil, and Nunkie, that old rogue, with the rest? A pack of nigger drivers, that's what they were, every one of them! And what an idiot she was, to keep on barking her shins for other people! Would she go on doing it until she was fifty? And if she didn't begin now to put money by, who would do it for her later? Not that worthless husband, surely! He, who, that very morning, had dared, the loafer, to tell her of a scheme—a sort of a risky trick which she was to perform, a thing calculated to break your head or make a millionaire of you—for him, of course, just as for Pa! It had come to this, that her turn wasn't good enough, that it had to be more sensational; and she was expected to make it so for a man she didn't love! Oh, she had put him nicely in his place! Rather! Thank you for nothing: none of that for her! In the evening Lily was still trembling, with her two elbows on the table, as she sat facing her glass in her dressing-room; angrily she crushed the grease-paint on to her cheeks, which were pale with rage.

Ting! Straight on to the stage, turning round and round, fifty rounds from habit, mechanically, without any "go" in them: an indolent performance, which would have earned her a good smacking in Pa's time.

"You were shockingly bad!" said Trampy, who was waiting for her in the bar, after watching her from the front. "What's the matter with you? Are you ill?"

Lily did not even answer.

"I'm speaking to you," said Trampy crossly. "You did nothing right to-night."

"Yes, I know; that'll do," said Lily.

"It's not a question of 'Yes, I know,' but of doing better next time," said Trampy.

"I'm not taking any orders to-night," said Lily.

"No, darling, but there was an agent in the house. He must have thought you bad."

"That's none of your business!"

"And, if you don't get engagements, what's to become of us?"

"I don't care a hang," said Lily. "I can always manage."

"You ... you ... and what about me? We're married, aren't we?"

"But the money I earn's mine," said Lily. "I mean to buy dresses and whatever I want to, with my money. You'll be wanting to come on the stage next, in evening-dress, to stand over me while I do my turn, and getting out your belt. Do you take me for your daughter, tell me?"

"What I'm saying," said Trampy, aghast, "is for your good, from the point of view of the business, the salary."

"My business, my salary, damn it!" cried Lily. "Mine, mine, do you understand? And it concerns nobody but myself!"



CHAPTER III

It came as a smack in the jaw to Trampy.

"My pay, my work, mine!"

It meant no more pocket-money with which to lord it at the bar. It meant a cheap cigarette instead of his glorious cigar. It was the end of a beautiful dream; and the awakening was a hard one. At first, he hoped to make Lily jealous by going about openly with the stage-girls; but she no longer paid any attention, seemed to suggest that he had better amuse himself on his side and she on hers:

"What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," she said.

Lily would no longer take his orders; and, because he felt his wife escape him, it was he, Trampy, who now became jealous. When, from a distance, among the tables, he saw Lily ride round the stage and all those heads raised toward her, those opera-glasses pointed at her, he followed her with an anxious eye. "Miss Lily!" "Miss Lily" was his wife, after all! Those rounded arms, that lissom figure, those twinkling legs were all his, every bit of them! He was the husband, by Jove! It was not a marriage for fun, as with Ave Maria: it was a marriage for good and all, which had cost him two pounds—"Yes, siree!"—at the Kennington registry-office. And it wasn't only her flightiness, her smiles at the front boxes, but "my work, my salary, mine" into the bargain! She was acting like a bad wife, forgetting her most sacred duties!

Lily stood on no ceremony with him, took her title of "Miss" seriously: very flattering for him, very flattering, he must say! He no longer knew himself: he who, in the old days, used to answer: "My lord, rely on me!" when a half-tipsy swell invited him to come and drink champagne with some stage-girls, now became furious if men in the audience, not knowing who he was, sized up "Miss Lily" before him—her shoulders, arms and the rest—with reflections such as "I could do with a bit of that!" or, "A nice little supper ..." He felt inclined to shout in their faces that she was no "miss," but his wife, by Jove!

He became more and more jealous. The thought of Jimmy, especially, kept running in his head. He felt a twinge whenever he heard him mentioned. And Jimmy was often mentioned just at present, for he was said to be preparing a new turn, a turn which would make him famous, unless it killed him.

"If only it would!" Trampy hoped.

Jimmy was Trampy's bugbear. He had flattered himself that he had snatched Lily from Jimmy by sheer prowess; and not a bit of it! The recollection of that drove him mad, the sense of his powerlessness exasperated him, he had but one idea left: to show Lily ... and Jimmy ... the sort of man he was; to take his revenge. That great scheme of his, that discovery that would show what he was made of, the invention which he had patented in America with Poland's money—oh, she had revenged herself finely, had that Parisienne!—well, the time to apply himself to that trick had come. Lily had refused to do it. All right, he would do it himself!

But, if he was to succeed, it was necessary that Lily should supply him with money, more money, lots of money. The apparatus was incomplete and had probably got damaged in the London warehouse; it would need repairs, improvements. Now Lily seemed intractable. She was vexed at having to earn money for two, pretended to have none too much for herself; it was her costumes now: six sets of tights, one for each evening, pink, green, red, blue, gray, white and assorted ornaments, silk ribbons....

She didn't want to kill herself with work for nothing, as she had been doing up to now:

"A lady isn't a performing dog!" she said.

Trampy swallowed his bitterness when he heard that. Lily was escaping him altogether. Sometimes, he would go on the stage, sit down in a corner and, from there, see Lily, a shawl over her shoulders, her throat wrapped in a scarf, walk up and down, behind the back-drop, like a passenger on the deck of a ship, at one time with a monkey-faced, red-whiskered sketch-comedian; at others, according to the chances of the week, with the female-impersonator, the boy with the green eyes. There was no harm in that: they were at home, among themselves, Lily was no damned lalerperlooser, he wouldn't have had her so. And Trampy did not dare say anything, for fear of being made a laughing stock and also lest he should offend "Miss Lily." But he was tormented with jealousy nevertheless, merely at seeing her talk pleasantly with her acquaintances. And yet it was innocent enough, a mere "Hullo, Lily!" "Hullo, old boy!" by way of keeping herself in touch with the news, for Lily hardly ever looked into The Era or Das Program; all those names, all that competition frightened her!



She had learned nothing new about Pa, except that the troupe still existed, but in quite a small way, of course. Her Pa was in favor of soft treatment, now, so they said; he had changed his manner. "Too late!" murmured Lily thoughtfully; but she was much amused when she heard that Tom, in addition to keeping up his trade as a shoeblack, was learning boxing, with bulldog obstinacy, in order to give Pa back his blow on the nose and beat him in a square fight. And didn't some one say that Tom was stage-struck, too? Tom, that dwarf, with his short arms, on the stage! Crazy! every one of them!

And then they were always talking of Jimmy: Jimmy here, Jimmy there. It was becoming serious, Lily couldn't get over it. She wondered what old Martello would say if he heard that: Jimmy an artiste! Pooh! Nonsense! And it was true, mind you! It was repeated from mouth to mouth, his fame was spreading, his fame, that is to say, in the bars, in the wings, among pros; you heard his name mentioned together with a hundred others; but that already was a great deal, that one could say, Butt Snyders, Laurence, Jimmy, Marjutti, all mixed up, as though he were their equal, he who had done nothing! But he would "do," it was in the air: some stroke of luck, who could tell? And Lily knew him to be ambitious. Lady or no lady, she was an artiste first and foremost and hated competition. She had been whipped for her rivals, Lillian, Edith and Polly, had caught it for Laurence and for the fat freaks, too, and she depended on her work for her bread. When she saw a new troupe come to the front it made her anxious: even children "that high," who played bike in between the pillars of the stage, she felt inclined to stamp upon; and if people ever asked her advice, she did not hesitate to tell them wrong. Men especially were disastrous competitors, even the ignorant ones. You never knew where you were with them, they dared do anything! She could not help getting mad when she thought of it. One more to take the bread out of her mouth! For it was all very well to treat him as a simpleton, to talk of his crotchets—he had views concerning a stage-apprentices' fund, a home of rest for superannuated artistes and so on—Lily considered him dangerous. He was not a silly Glass-Eye or a stage-struck Tom; he was an ambitious Jimmy. But all the same, how absurd! A hypocrite like that was fit to write to Pa and get a poor girl in trouble, but was not the man to risk his skin! She laughed, not a stage smile, no, a real laugh, head thrown back, full-throated. An artiste, O Lord! Yes, like a heap of bluffers who were to do this and that, all sorts of wonderful things! and who ended by making a laughing stock of themselves, the whole business was so childish, faked up with ropes and weights, nursery-toys, Punch-and-Judy rubbish. It would be just like that with Jimmy, sure: lots of noise and then ... nothing! And he would have lost his place as manager and he would starve, the josser: that would teach him to be spiteful! And where was Jimmy? He might be very clever, in his shed in London, swinging from his rope, like a monkey on a string, but to do that before an audience was different. There would be no Jimmy left!

She liked to talk to herself like that. Miss Lily avoided thinking of a possible stroke of luck, she who had taken such pains to attain so little, just to become Mrs. Trampy, to have the honor of working for Trampy and feeding Trampy. Oh, she was tired of it, did all she could to find him work, to spur him on! She even wanted him to practise. And she mentioned Tom and Jimmy to him, all those beginners, all the others who were coming on.

"She thinks more of him than of me," he said to himself.

And time passed and passed. It was now eight months that they had been traveling through Germany: and then, at last, came Berlin, the center of the agencies, like the plunge into Chicago, after the Western Tour, or New York, after the Eastern, or Paris, or London. Lily asked herself for what part of the world she would sign contracts. She would have liked Australia, South Africa, the States, so as to leave her husband in Europe, sitting up on his hind-quarters, like a trained dog, waiting for his "missis" to come back:

"If I could have the Kolossal in the meantime," Lily thought. "A month there would do me nicely! I'd like to beat the fat freaks in their own country and show Pa that I don't need his old troupe to star with!"

And Lily had some hope: an agent had given her to understand that she would be engaged, without a doubt, at that famous music-hall. But no! She learned that the Kolossal was not wanting cyclists, it had an attraction for next month, something sensational, it was said. And, in fact, suddenly, in the space of a night, the walls of the capital were covered with huge posters—"Bridging the Abyss!"—at the Kolossal!

"What's that?" Lily asked herself.

And she was thunderstruck when she learned that this was Jimmy's new trick! She had no doubt left when, looking into a bookseller's window, she saw Jimmy's portrait in Die Illustrirte Zeitung, the popular illustrated paper in Berlin.

Her arms fell to her sides! What, she thought, already? All this advertisement for that Jimmy? She had lost the Kolossal because of him. Already Jimmy was taking the bread out of her mouth! She could have wrung his neck!

Never had the New Zealanders, or the Hauptmanns, or the Pawnees, or any one, or anybody known such advertising as that, except the great breakneck performers, Laurence, the Loopers, the Motor Girl; and even then the girl was packed up in her machine like a sausage. But "Bridging the Abyss," the papers said, required art: everything depended on the exact impetus, the faultless balance. The press was filled with clever puffs, biographies, descriptions of the apparatus, the cool daring which it needed to try that without a rope, to risk the performer's life six times in six seconds. London and Paris were both said to have wanted the attraction; and Berlin was to have it first; and hoch for the Kolossal!

Trampy also was flabbergasted, when he read about this:

"But ... but ... but it's my apparatus and nothing else! Why, I patented it in America! Do you understand now," he asked, without, however, entering into technical explanations, "do you understand now, when I wanted you to help me? It wasn't a question of the rusty bike! You've made me miss fame and fortune! And to think that I have an apparatus rotting away in London, in a warehouse, and that, if you'd listened to me, I should have been at the Kolossal now ... and covering you with diamonds!"

"I like your style!" said Lily. "You'd have made me break my back in your stead! I know you!"

"Oh, but I shan't swallow that," said Trampy, in his exasperation. "We shall see! I have my rights. I shall enforce them!"

"Don't make a fool of yourself," said Lily. "When a thing has to be done, it gets done without all that talk: look at Jimmy!"

"Hang your Jimmy!"

"It's not a question of my Jimmy," retorted Lily, "but of my money. I should simply have flung it away! You, do a thing like that! You risk your skin! Rot!"

Trampy, in his rage, would have boxed Lily's ears, had it not been for her nails, which she held ready to scratch his face, and he went out fuming. He ran off to the agents, but there was nothing for him. And yet Trampy knew or, at least, supposed that they must want an opposition show to "Bridging the Abyss." They must, surely! Why, everywhere, in all the great centers, every music-hall had its rival opposite or beside it: everywhere, each establishment strove to inflict empty houses upon its rival by offering more sensational or more breakneck tricks. At the Kaiserin, the rival of the Kolossal, they were, without a doubt, looking for something to set against "Bridging the Abyss" and they had nothing, or else Trampy would have known it: among pros such matters were always known long beforehand. Oh, Trampy was prepared to do anything to escape his wife's sarcasm!

And, one evening, behold Trampy returning in triumph to the cafe where Lily awaited him:

"I knew it!" he cried. "I knew it wouldn't go like that!"

"Well, what?" asked Lily. "Have you got a number thirty-seven? Thirty-eight? A fresh conquest? Something quite out of the common?"

"Laugh away, Lily! That son of a gun shall hear me talked about yet, by Jove! And everybody else will, too. You must be prepared for anything, Lily, when you marry an artiste!"

"Why, what's happened?" asked Lily, much surprised.

This had happened: the two music-halls had fought. Jimmy, who was unable, it seemed, to get London or Paris, had offered his "Bridging the Abyss" to the Kaiserin, but his price was considered too high. From there he went to the Kolossal and made the same proposal. Now, times were hard for the music-halls, sucked dry by the enormous salaries that had to be paid. The managers were standing shoulder to shoulder, in the presence of the common enemy, the artiste and, more particularly, the originator of sensations, who is indispensable and who makes you an offer with a pistol at your head, like a highwayman demanding your money or your life.

But a turn like that meant an assured success; and the Kolossal offered Jimmy five hundred marks a night, so as to spike the Kaiserin's guns by getting hold of a unique turn and one not easy to replace; a piece of underhand work involving two months' empty houses at the Kaiserin, which, as it was, had only a second-rate troupe by way of "sisters," while at the Kolossal they had Roofers engaged by the year, real ones, the complete dozen, words and music guaranteed. And now the Kolossal would make huge money with "Bridging the Abyss" and sink its rival; it was a master-stroke. But they knew everything at the Kaiserin. The Kaiserin also wanted a "Bridging the Abyss." It would have one, a better one, with a finer title: "Arching the Gulf!" And they would get it for three hundred marks! And they must be ready, quick, quick, before the Kolossal, and it was just possible: they had twenty days yet; the apparatus would be made; they knew the plans, the dimensions; the house would be fixed up accordingly; they must succeed at all costs and not let themselves be strangled without defense! It was a struggle to the death! They would fight with corpses, if need be! Other people had broken their backs for them before now; there would be no difficulty in finding one more to risk his life six times in six seconds for three hundred marks a night.

And it was at that moment that Trampy offered himself. They had heard his name:

"Trampy Wheel-Pad, the tramp cyclist with the red-hot stove?"

"That's me," said Trampy.

And, full of self-assurance, he explained the object of his visit:

"I was the first to construct it; I patented it myself at Washington; I will produce the documents!"

It will be understood why Trampy wore his air of conquest when he returned home that day. He had his engagement in his pocket! He displayed it victoriously to Lily, passed it over her face, reveled in his revenge. At last he was going to show Lily whether he was able to keep a wife or not; and champagne suppers every evening, by Jove, with girls—no damned lalerperloosers—just to show her!

That same evening, he left for London, with an advance from the management, and came back to Berlin with the apparatus, the whole set up and repaired in a week, a gang of men working night and day. Followed practice with the rope, on a movable pulley, from early dawn, like a man determined to accomplish his breakneck feat, alive or dead; for Trampy would have done, no matter what, for Lily to cease being "Miss" Lily, to admit herself married and married for love and not to escape whippings, to cease being ashamed of him, to show herself proud of him, on the contrary, especially before Jimmy!

Trampy, in his less enthusiastic moments, felt a certain uneasiness: Jimmy's proximity, his own patents far away, in America. But he assumed a bold face, declared himself the inventor, practised unrelentingly, with hatred of his rival in his heart. This hatred seemed to increase his powers of work. He practised, practised. He had a lively intelligence, if his heart was a trifle flabby. And he was very skilful, besides, when he condescended to take the trouble. He was a quick worker: in less than twenty days everything was ready, and "Arching the Gulf" sprawled over the hoardings of Berlin, side by side with "Bridging the Abyss." One saw nothing else; and the Kaiserin opened its doors forty-eight hours before Jimmy. It was a huge success. Trampy received an ovation when, after the release of the terrible springs which flung the bike from one pedestal to another, in five seconds he fell on the mattresses outspread to receive him, behind a cloth.

It goes without saying that Jimmy was present at the show. He was smashed before he had even begun! There, before his eyes, was his own invention worked by another! He had expected competition, of course; it was impossible, he knew, to discover anything that wasn't copied at once; snatchers of ideas, who prowl around artistes, plagiarists, pirates, swarmed as thick as any other sort of thieves. And, as ill luck would have it, though his turn was difficult to perform, the apparatus, at least, was simple to construct: four powerful springs, screwed down with a jack, which the weight of the leaping cyclist, as he fell upon each pedestal, released one after the other, causing him to take enormous jumps forward. It was an ideal breakneck machine, easy to carry about; only the calculations had been difficult. They had cost him a lot of trouble to establish; and now another was profiting by them! Perhaps some one had patented the invention before him! For he, too, before showing it in public, had patented it in England and Germany; and his anger knew no bounds, his energy was increased fourfold when he learned the name of the plagiarist: Trampy again! Trampy, who had stolen his love, who had stolen his Lily ... and who was now stealing his idea ... robbing him of the fruit of his labor! Jimmy, in spite of his fury, resolved to keep calm: the law first. He was protected by the law, unless—and that was impossible—unless Trampy had had the same idea as himself before him and taken out his patents before the publication in Engineering. Jimmy showed a prompt decision, a feverish activity. First of all, he must put the law in motion, bring an action against Trampy, telegraph to the patent office at Washington to ascertain the date. Meanwhile, he made his first appearance on the day fixed for it. His success was even greater than Trampy's; his leaps were twice as wide, more in accordance with his courage. The way in which he "bridged the abyss," in the huge hall where he gave his show, was enough to prove that he was the inventor, the creator, the great, typical, daring performer, who, disclaiming death, marches to glory and fortune even as heroes, flag in hand, rush to the assault under fire.

It was a bolt from the blue for the Kaiserin when the little paper arrived, the injunction against "Arching the Gulf." A steamer caught in a cyclone would undergo much the same disablement, under a sea sweeping her from stem to stern, swamping the saloons, drowning the very rats in the hold. Jimmy's active inquiries had not taken long: telegram followed upon telegram; the British consul woke up. The law at Washington was formal and precise: nothing could be patented that had been known, or used, or published before the patent was applied for. Now the article in Engineering, of course, appeared prior to the step taken by Trampy. And in Germany, also, Jimmy won his case; the court found in favor of the absolute novelty of the invention. The Kaiserin could not give its performance short of paying five hundred marks a night to its rival, the Kolossal. This meant the wreck of "Arching the Gulf;" and Trampy came down with it. For a few days, he led a terrible life, a desperate struggle, made efforts in every direction; but, at last, worried, hustled, driven to bay, Trampy disappeared into the darkness, while Jimmy, freed from this enervating opposition and feeling sure of himself henceforward, gained fresh courage, added another arch to "Bridging the Abyss."

It was done, he had made his start, he had a name, he was the man who draws crowds; he received brilliant proposals from all sides, from the Western Trust, among others. He felt himself somebody; and money also was coming in. He could at last realize what he had in his head ... in the absence of love there would be fame ... oh, something a thousand times more sensational than "Bridging the Abyss," more modern, more scientific, something which he confided to nobody, which he kept locked up in his brain, in his heart, like a love passion, a thing which would be his alone, this time, which no one could take from him! For it would not be a question of a spring and a click, only. The thing moved in his breast, lived in his brain. When he thought of it, his cheeks became hollow with ambition, his eyes lit up. He seemed to tower over immense perspectives; and, from that height, Trampy appeared to him so small, so small, so really small that he felt his anger decrease. And then there was Lily! To send Trampy to his wife with a black eye or a bloody nose, to turn the husband into an object of ridicule to his wife, that was impossible for him; it would have shown lack of respect for Lily, poor darling; he would not humiliate her in her man! She loved him, perhaps, in the illusion of her seventeen years! Hurt her? Never! Jimmy wiped the episode from the slate; hard as it was, he forgave that highway robber, in the name of his dead love.

Ah, if he could have seen Lily when Trampy was driven to confess his discomfiture to her! He would have been revenged offhand! Lily seethed with rage against her husband, that footy rotter! What! Was that his great scheme? Did he call that an idea? How often had not Jimmy spoken to her about it! It was pinned on the wall, it lay about in the Gresse Street workshop for months. She remembered seeing the plans, the diagrams, the drawings in the papers. Jimmy had explained everything to her at the time when he was still a josser. And Trampy had stolen it from him, stolen it, stolen it! Oh, he would make her die of shame!

It was a terrible dispute, a real "playing humanity," with threats, clenched fists, broken crockery strewing the floor.

"To humiliate me like that before Jimmy!" said Lily, furious.

"Drop that about Jimmy!" snarled Trampy, green with jealousy. "I won't have you mention him!"

"I shall mention him if I like! Jimmy is a son of a gun! Very well! But he's a man! He's worth two of you."

Trampy strode up to her with his fist raised.

"If you touch me," cried Lily, seizing the lamp, "if you touch me, I'll smash it over your head!"



CHAPTER IV

When Trampy received the visit of the Gerichtsdiener, with the bill of costs to pay—for the Kolossal sued the Kaiserin for damages and the Kaiserin came down upon Trampy—when Trampy learned that, he became a limp rag. Already he saw himself dragged before the courts, his whole past laid bare: two wives on his hands, for all he knew; Lily crushing him with her scorn; Jimmy triumphant.

Trampy had a moment of real despair. Lily preferred him like that, humbled at her feet. She seemed to understand her husband, a man spoiled by easy conquests, a boozer, a rake, who had taken too much upon himself when he wedded a wife. Trampy was certainly not made for marriage: having a wife was a different thing from having thirty-six girls. His heart, weakened with premature enjoyment, was no longer made for real love. All this he too now perceived; and, in spite of himself, realizing his unworthiness, he felt overcome by an ever-increasing jealousy.

Those were melancholy weeks in the small room. He sat for hours brooding over his disgrace. Lily silently turned this time of rest to account and mended her costumes, sewed spangles on her bodices, beside the earthenware stove, on which the stew was bubbling; and then came the meal, on the table hastily cleared of the mass of ribbons, thread and needles, to make room for the plates. Trampy choked as he swallowed that dinner which he had not earned, sighed sadly for the good cheer of his dreams, the champagne suppers with girls. He gulped down his meagre fare in silence, he who had known the gay junketings, the noisy laughter and the "Roman nights!" To go from there and drown his sorrows in the bar next door was but a step. And Trampy had sorrows outside his recent defeat: sorrows which were even more bitter. He felt that, this time, he was losing Lily.

Lily was surrounded with sympathy. When she went the round of the agencies, the pros courted her. They looked upon Lily in the light of a wife tired of her husband. They prowled round that possible prey. A Lily was worth the having, meant an assured income for whoever succeeded in winning her affections and managing her properly: not with brutality, no, rather not; home joys, like Mr. Fuchs! Who was destined one day to own those full-blown seventeen years, those twinkling legs, that lissom body, trained to spin round and round, unerring and exact? What lucky dog would have her for himself, would succeed in making her love him? They pitied Lily openly, to disgust her with her husband and hasten on the catastrophe. Trampy? He was no husband for her! They, ah, yes, now that was a different matter! And they talked of the dangers attendant upon Trampy's mode of life; the impersonator told her of the terrible diseases brought on by constant tippling; they exaggerated it all on purpose, amused themselves by frightening her; until Lily, sometimes, would look upon herself as a pretty little gazelle chained to a mangy bear.

Trampy suspected all this, having himself, in the old days, in the time of his glory, been one of those who hovered round wives ready for divorce, helping them, if need be. He could have smashed the face of that green-eyed impersonator. There was also that architect, that theater-builder, Harrasford's friend: he was passing through Berlin and Lily had taken his fancy the other evening, at the cafe; he had patted her cheek gaily:

"I knew you when you were 'that high.' You used to sit on my knee. How beautiful you've grown!"

There appeared to be an infinity of people who had known Lily when she was "that high." They paid her more and more attention ... and then they believed her to be looked after by Jimmy. That again was a friendship dating back to her childhood, they said: Jimmy, the bill-topper. He, too, had known her when she was "that high."

The greater part of this talk reached Trampy's ears. Oh, he could have killed that Jimmy! But he was obliged to hold his tongue. Jimmy had him under his heel, with that crushing lawsuit.

They did not even dare speak of it, so painful was the subject. The little table by the earthenware stove separated them like a wall; and there was one thing always between them: Jimmy. Trampy never mentioned his name now. He would have had too much to say.... And there were continual summonses, always; and lawyers, always; and costs, always. Money melted away, like butter in the sun. Lily was tired of it; and an agony overcame her at the thought of leading a life like that for the rest of her days:

"Oh," she said, "he's taking the very bread from our mouths, with his lawsuit! And I haven't a decent hat to wear."

"He'll drive us to the workhouse," grumbled Trampy, staring before him, with folded arms.

"It's your fault!" Lily began, but soon stopped: the subject led to a surfeit of quarreling.

But, in her own mind:

"That son of a gun of a Jimmy!" she thought. "All the same, who would ever have believed it of him? Can he guess that all of this falls upon me?"

"Suppose you were to go and see him," said Trampy, at his wits' end, one day when he had exhausted himself in stormy explanations with the manager of the Kaiserin.

"I go and see Jimmy?" exclaimed Lily. "What for?"

"To try and arrange things," replied Trampy, dropping his head. "No one but you could ..."

"I'll think about it, I'll see," said Lily.

But she had to get used by degrees to the idea of going and seeing that Jimmy who was now ruining her. A strange curiosity, nevertheless, drove her toward that conqueror, once a bike-cleaning workman, who was now topping the bill at Berlin and making as much money by himself as a whole program put together. He would receive her kindly, she was sure of that. Oh and then she wanted to tell him that she had had nothing to do with that business of the patents ... that she did not approve of Trampy's conduct ...! And then he could give her news of Pa and Ma, as he had come from London, where he must have seen them! And she was dying to know! The idea was increasing with her that life with Trampy had become impossible. And, in case she should leave him, she dreaded finding herself alone. Already there were all those offers being made to her, a married woman, driving her mad! She, Lily Clifton, was treated like a "Parisienne": she hated that sort! To walk about the stage, two by two, might pass; but it was possible to go too far, like the conductor of the orchestra, who, the other day, tried to kiss her in her dressing-room, married woman though she was! Then what would it be when she traveled alone! On the continent, too! Oh, she would have liked to be a good little wife! But, as that could not be, better go back to her Pa and Ma and have a home, a real one, with a servant in it. She was yearning for a home. But how would she be received in that case? Would they put the blame on her? Had they forgiven her? Had she a Pa and Ma still? That was what she wanted to know.

Lily would have liked to look handsome and elegant on the day when she went to Jimmy, so as to show him that he was not the only one who made a lot of money; but she felt very small and terribly excited. The hotel itself, the great clock, the waiters, everything made an impression on her, so different from her boarding-house in the Akerstrasse. She felt like running away after knocking at his door; and Jimmy opened it with the preoccupied air of a man who is disturbed at an inconvenient moment. But suddenly he put out his hand in hearty greeting:

"Hullo, Lily! Come in."

Lily entered a bright sitting-room, neatly furnished with a sofa and comfortable chairs; no bed; a room which served only for that. She at once felt more at her ease. Jimmy motioned her to a seat near a table covered with papers, full of marks and signs which she did not understand, and books, rulers and compasses. She tried to be simple and dignified; apologized for interrupting him:

"Brain-work, I see," she said, pointing to the papers. "That's hard, too, I suppose," she added, to say something, for a start, like talking about the weather.

"A matter of habit, like the bike," said Jimmy, in a tone of conviction. "Sit down, Lily, there in that big arm-chair; you're not disturbing me."

"'K you," said Lily, sitting down, feeling reassured by his cordial welcome and thinking that, at least, he was polite.

"I am glad to see you again, Lily," Jimmy went on, taking a chair himself. "Always glad to see you. And how are you? Keeping well?"

"'K you," said Lily.

"I'm very glad to hear it," said Jimmy, scrutinizing Lily with great kindness and trying not to see her preoccupied expression. "I know what brings you here, Lily. You're a dear little thing, a kid, eh? A real kid at heart, aren't you? I bet you I guess. I've come from London. You want to hear the latest news of your Pa and Ma, eh? You're not angry with them, I hope? Oh, it would be wrong of you to be angry with them still! They're very fond of you, you know. They cried when you went away, Lily. Your ... going away," Jimmy insisted, with a quaver in his voice, "was ... a great blow ... to them ... too."

"How do they get on without me?" asked Lily eagerly, not wishing to break down and cry before Jimmy. "Poor Pa! Yes, he was fond of me. He never let me fall on purpose. He did not force me to work when I was ill."

"Your Pa!" Jimmy broke in, glad of the chance to give a fresh turn to the conversation. "Why, there's no harm in him! Your Pa's an artiste in love with his art, that's all! I shouldn't be surprised if the troupe made a hit yet. It's had a success of a sort already—in the small halls—at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells. Your Pa just does without you as well as he can. He runs after his pupils all day long, damn it!" said Jimmy, with a laugh. "Your cousin stars."



"Who stars?" asked Lily.

"Your cousin Daisy. She came as soon as you ... as you went away and offered to take your place. Pa Clifton sent her to the right-about, treated her like a ... like an I don't know what, but she returned to the charge. She's doing very well now. She tries to be like you."

"No! Impossible!" exclaimed Lily. "What, that fat freak?"

"And your Pa will succeed," Jimmy hastened to add. "You'll see. You ought to be proud of having a Pa like that."

"Yes, in a sense," said Lily, who felt a certain satisfaction at being the daughter of her Pa.

He was a bit harsh at times; but a man like her Pa, or like Jimmy, was much better than her loafer of a tramp cyclist!

"And ... Ma?" asked Lily.

"Your Ma," said Jimmy, in a lower voice, "cried ... oh, how she cried when she found that you had gone! No doubt, she exaggerated any wrong she had done you. It seems she fell upon her knees and prayed and asked for forgiveness."

"Forgiveness? What for? Of whom?" Lily inquired.

"Why," said Jimmy, in a serious tone, "of whom do you think people ask forgiveness, when they are alone, on their knees?"

"Oh," said Lily, greatly touched, "I understand! So they didn't put the blame on me?"

"What blame?"

"For my marriage," said Lily, lowering her eyes.

"No ... if you had gone off to live with him ... oh, not you, not you, I know!" protested Jimmy, seeing a gesture of Lily's. "But marriage is different, I suppose. You had the right, you were old enough to go away with the man you loved."

Jimmy turned pale as he said this; but Lily, hanging her head and red with shame, did not notice it.

"What!" said Jimmy. "You're blushing! Do you regret it?"

Lily did not reply.

"Then," continued Jimmy slowly, "what they said—I wouldn't believe it, but you know they say a lot of things—is it true?"

She nodded yes and raised her eyes to him with a sad, weary smile.

"He doesn't love you? And ... and ... you, Lily," asked Jimmy, taking her hand in his, "don't you love him?"

"Certainly not!" said Lily, with such an accent of conviction and such a look of disgust that Jimmy was, at one and the same time, delighted to the bottom of his heart and pained to the verge of tears.

Poor Lily! He now noticed her pallor, the dark rims round her eyes, that exquisite face refined by inmost grief. Lily, upon whom, since her visit to the shop in Gresse Street, he had built his hopes of happiness! It seemed to him like yesterday and already it was the distant past. Was that what her rebellion, her bid for freedom had ended in? Was that the crowning point of her hard life? Lily, fashioned to be the companion of a loving heart, was the prey of a footy rotter! Oh, if Jimmy had not controlled himself, if he had not clenched his teeth, for fear of talking! If he had listened to his anger, let loose the storm that raged within him, shouted out what he felt! But what would be the good of telling her his love? Why add to Lily's sorrows by letting her know what might have been and thus cause trouble in her household, when he wished for one thing only, Lily's happiness? Suppose she did not love her husband: Trampy, alas, unworthy though he was, remained her husband, nevertheless! And there was no hope of breaking the chain. The letters from Denver and Houston were anything but encouraging. No proofs, no recollections of Trampy's marriage over there. So there seemed no way out.

Nor did he wish to incense Trampy's jealousy. Lily would have had to bear the brunt of it ... as in the old days, with Ma's temper. Oh, there was no doubt about it: Jimmy, to hold his tongue now, needed more courage than when risking his life six times in six seconds! But what was the use of fighting against fate? Better submit, when there was no remedy, and strive for peace!

"Everything gets straight sooner or later," Jimmy went on. "Many lives that once seemed spoiled have become quite endurable. Time is the great healer. Trampy, no doubt, will get over his faults. He will learn to appreciate you. Have patience. Don't exaggerate your bothers, Lily. There are others unhappier than yourself. You have a claim to happiness. You will know it yet. Just think. You're so young, you have all your life before you."

"The simpleton!" thought Lily. "It's easy for him to talk. But then ... why was he so jealous? Why did he tell Pa about me? But for him, I should be at home now!"

It was certain that, notwithstanding his kindly reception, Jimmy now seemed to be taking Trampy's part, as formerly he had sided with Pa and Ma. And he was lalerperlooser enough to ask Lily if her husband knew that she had come to see him:

"I hope he knows, Lily. We must have no secrets: did you tell him?"

"He sent me," she said, resolving to tell everything frankly, since that was what she had come for and not, after all, to talk about love ... money, only, and business ... it was a question of bread and butter to her.

"Ah! He did!" said Jimmy, a little surprised.

"Yes," said Lily, "it's about that lawsuit."

"Speak quite frankly, Lily. Tell me everything," said Jimmy, very calm.

"Well," said Lily, yielding before his air of candor, "Trampy is at the end of his tether; he has no money"—she colored up to the eyes—"no money, no work; the law-costs ..."

"And whose fault is that?" interrupted Jimmy, rising and picking up a cigarette, so as to have something to fumble at with his fingers. "Whose fault is it, Lily, if not that ... well, if not Trampy's? Isn't it fair that he should pay for it? It would really become too easy, else, to steal other people's ideas! You know quite well, Lily—you saw it at my place, on the wall—is it my invention or is it not? And here comes Trampy," he continued, crunching up his cigarette with a nervous gesture, "and patents it ... as if it were his own. It's a bit too much, you know!"

"Jimmy," cried Lily, starting up from her chair, "I swear to you that I had nothing to do with it! If I had known, Jimmy, I would have stopped it! I call it stealing, as you do."

"Oh, I'm quite sure of that, Lily! I never thought it was you! Calm yourself; sit down, do," said Jimmy, relieved at the sight of Lily's indignation, as she stood before him with blazing eyes and her face crimson with shame.

"Important tricks like that!" went on Lily, sitting down again. "No, those have no right to be copied. It's brain-work. You designed it yourself."

"Yes, but about the present," said Jimmy, with a serious air. "I can't give in to Trampy. I'm bound to defend myself. You came to see me about my action, Lily. I can't say anything on the subject. It's ... Trampy's business, I suppose! Why, what would you do in my place, Lily?"

"I should do as you're doing, Jimmy, you're perfectly right," said Lily, very low, without raising her head. "But couldn't one come to terms ... avoid a lawsuit ... and not waste all that money on jossers? What do you gain by it yourself? We can't pay up, Jimmy: those costs are breaking us."

"What do you mean by 'us'?"

"Trampy isn't working," continued Lily. "He hasn't done anything for a long time."

"But then," asked Jimmy, stopping in front of her, "how does he live?"

"I ... I'm earning money," explained Lily, blushing, ashamed to own her distress.

Oh, it was hard for her, Lily Clifton, to have no money and to confess it to Jimmy, that josser, who was making his five hundred marks a day! Jimmy saw her before him, huddled in her chair ... her faded hat, her mean gown. He took in everything at a glance. Poor Lily, who used to dream of dresses, to be reduced to that! Then he understood. Pity moved him at the sight of that poor Lily. It was all very well for him to say, just now, "Business is business," and to ask, "What would you do in my place?" He knew what he would do. A lawsuit was not a question of sentiment, everybody knew that; but still, it was no longer between men....

"Listen, Lily," he said, putting his hand kindly on her shoulder, "if all this is to fall upon you, we must see how we can arrange matters. Sorry you didn't come sooner; I don't want to add to your burdens, Lily, heaven knows I don't! I never thought of that. I ought to have suspected, perhaps. However, I will withdraw the case. I'll manage. And the costs ... well, I'll pay them myself, if necessary, for you, Lily, for you; because I knew you when you were 'that high' ... no, not quite so small; how old were you? Thirteen ... and such a little thing, such a dear little wee thing. Do you remember when I made night and day in your cabin, by just touching my levers? And then it seems to me that I always knew you: in Mexico, in India, in South Africa, at the time of the elephants and the tiny birds. And then later, that other Lily, the London one: the one of only a few months ago. The one for whom ..." continued Jimmy, in a voice smothered with emotion. "The Lily of Rathbone Place. The Lily of Gresse Street. That little toque, which suited you so well and which you complained of ... you poor little Lily!... You poor silly little thing! There, go home now and make your mind easy, as far as I'm concerned, Lily. None of your troubles shall come from me. Besides, as they say, a bad settlement is better than the best lawsuit. I'm doing it for your sake. Well, is that all right?"

"Oh, how kind you are!" she said, raising her eyes to him, with a tear in them. "Why, Jimmy, you're not so bad, after all!"

"Pooh!" said Jimmy, lighting a cigarette. "I'm no better than most, Lily, and no worse. Flesh and blood, like the rest. And, besides, for you, Lily ... If ever you need me, Lily, if I can be of any use to you ..."

* * * * *

"For me," thought Lily, as she returned home, "for me. Ah, if I had known! Ah, when I think that he, too, wanted to marry me, what a fool I was!" she said, with a sigh.

She still felt in her own palm the gentle, manly pressure of Jimmy's hand. She still heard the kind words with which he had comforted her on the threshold. Goodness, how happy she would have been with a man like him! Her ill-will disappeared. He was no longer a cur, that josser, but a gentleman, rather, a brother, a friend.... And she was proud, also, that Jimmy, who was so busy and making such a lot of money, had promised to come and applaud her, one of these evenings, at her theater, at Kleim's Garden, before his own turn at the Kolossal. Oh, wouldn't she work hard that night! She would do all her tricks! She was bent on pleasing him. And how vulgar and common Trampy appeared in comparison. However, there was no help for it now; and Lily hastened home to bring him the good news.... In any case, Trampy would be grateful to her for what she had done for him. As a matter of fact, it had cost her an effort to go and pay this visit.

She happened to run up against Trampy coming out of the bar, where, according to his custom, he had been drowning his cares. He had a moment of delight on learning the result of the visit, but, mad with jealousy, at once adopted a lofty tone, so as not to have to thank her:

"I knew he would knuckle under!" he said, without looking at Lily. "The braggart! He prefers a settlement, eh? And quite right too! He knows he's in the wrong. He's retreating, he's afraid."

"Afraid of what?" asked Lily, bewildered.

"Afraid of me. He knows it won't pay to try my patience too far!"

"Afraid? Jimmy?" said Lily, indignant at all that foolery. "Do you think he's done that because he's afraid?"

"And for what other reason would he have given in so soon?"

"He did it to please me, he did it for me, damn it, for me!" said Lily. "You're rid of your lawsuit: you ought to talk differently and thank me!"

"And why should he do it to please you? What is there between you?" asked Trampy, looking her in the face.

"You're drunk!" said Lily furiously, with her hand ready to scratch.

"No scenes in the street!" said Trampy. "We'll go into this at home ..."

"Then I shan't come in!" said Lily, abruptly turning her back on him. "I'm going to the theater!"

She had nothing to do on the stage; only the idea of being alone in the room with Trampy seemed intolerable to her. At the least discussion, Lily felt it, she would have thrown the lamp at his head, so great was her indignation at his insolence!

She was boiling over with anger when she reached the theater. There were people practising; it was the time for it. Lily went up to her dressing-room, shifted things in her trunk, anyhow, for something to do. The idea that her husband thought her capable of anything wrong made her angry. Oh, to get a divorce, to part from him! As this could not go on for ever, it might as well be done at once; but it would be better if there were no fault on her part. A divorce, yes; but with the honors on her side; a divorce in her favor! Patience, the opportunity would come! It ought to be quite easy, with the girls whom Trampy beguiled, the love letters which he received, to catch him in the act, cover him with ridicule, get the best of him. Oh, if she only could! To be a poor little victim, how touching! A dear little outraged wife!

"You fool, if I catch you!" she said.

Then another idea passed through her brain. Oh, if it were true! She would have danced for joy! Trampy's marriage in America.

"Is it true? Is it true? God above, grant that it be true!"

It was possible. Already, a few days before, the Jim Crows who hovered round her had talked about it, in covert words, in the hope of making things worse. There must be some truth in it. There was so much news going from mouth to mouth: Lillian, Edith and Polly were the rage in Chicago.... That poor boy-violinist: at Budapest, the stuffed seat to his trousers had slipped from its place and allowed the dog's teeth to reach the living flesh; he had had to spend a week in bed with poultices.... Harrasford was contemplating a theatrical trust on the Continent, planning a model music-hall in Paris.... There were Jimmy's successes, his ambitions.... Amid all this news, to which Lily listened, sometimes absent-mindedly, sometimes with interest, among these adventures dating from everywhere—names which she greeted like old acquaintances, with a little nod: "Denver? Yes, I know; a big flat stage. Mexico? I remember!"—among all those tales, Lily pricked her ears when she heard the name of Ave Maria coupled with Trampy's. She had a vague recollection of Ave Maria's flight, after her departure from Mexico; was it with Trampy? Were they really married then? Oh, if it were only true! God above, grant that it were true!

Lily, haunted by this idea of a divorce which would set her free, had rummaged in Trampy's trunk, among his programs and posters. It was full of letters, photographs of girls in outrageous hats, in tucked-up skirts, in tights, with inscriptions. All this dated back to before the marriage, a collection of treasures which he had not had the courage to destroy. She had hoped to find some proof, some clue; but no, there was nothing serious in it. Lily did not give up, for all that; on the contrary. After the visit to Jimmy, which made Trampy so meanly jealous, she lost no opportunity of inquiring. But Martello himself, the father, never had news of his daughter. He hadn't heard for ever so long; and it was to no avail that Lily asked about Ave Maria, the one who ran away with a man, a great artiste; she always received the same reply:

"Ave Maria? Don't know the name. Ave Maria? Haven't seen her since ..."

But Jimmy, always; Jimmy here, Jimmy there; they talked about him all the time: his ideas; something new he had invented; something no one had ever seen: much cleverer than "Bridging the Abyss," it seemed; but nobody knew what.

"I know!" said Lily, with a well-informed air and very proud of knowing Jimmy and of letting people think ...

"Do you know Jimmy?"

"Ever since I was that high," answered Lily. "He used to hold me on his knees."

"And what is his new trick?"

"I'm not allowed to tell. He asked me not to say."

Everybody praised her for her discretion. The sympathy with which she was surrounded increased.

"Jimmy," they hinted. "Now there's a fellow you ought to have married, instead of your ..."

"Not a word against my husband," she said, like a good and devoted little wife. "I won't have him insulted."

That did not prevent her from laughing with her friends. She felt a need of forgetting, or she would have died of boredom, with a husband like that. She was heavy at heart, sometimes. She was a woman, not an icicle. She felt herself made for love. She was flesh and blood, like Jimmy. She would have liked some one to console her, to talk softly to her, as Glass-Eye Maud used to do. There were plenty willing to play the part of Glass-Eye Maud, no doubt: the female-impersonator, for instance, with the green eyes. Oh, she would have liked to be hugged, kissed full on the mouth, or else stroked and petted gently! No home, no happiness; marriage without love; that was her life henceforth. These stage friendships were a relief.

The Bambinis romped with her. She loved their gaiety, liked to touch their sturdy little limbs. That evening, Lily, who was ready for her performance early, was having fun with them. Dressed in her pink tights, she looked like a blithe nymph playing with rollicking cupids.

"What a charming group!" said a voice behind her. "If I were a painter, Lily, I would do you like that!"

It was Jimmy, who had come to see her on the stage, as he had promised.

"Am I spoiling your game?" he asked. "It's so pretty! It makes me want to kiss the lot of you!"

"Well, booby!" said Lily, all excited and laughing. "Why don't you? You daren't!"

"I daren't! I'll show you whether I dare ... and ... I'm stronger than I look!"

And thereupon he caught hold of Lily and lifted her like a feather—Lily, all taken aback, had not time to say "Oof!" so great was her surprise—and Jimmy crossed the whole stage with Lily in his arms, shouting to the manager:

"Look what a dear little baby I've found! Isn't she sweet, eh?"

And then, in the wings, he gave her a good big kiss on the cheek before putting her down.

The people around them laughed, applauded that stage joke:

"Jimmy, her old friend," they said, "knew her when she was that high."

Lily was very proud of it. And, a few minutes after, when he had left her to take a seat in front, Lily jumped into the saddle and rode round and round, without a hitch, smiling to the audience, smiling to Jimmy in a front box, Jimmy to whom she was grateful for coming to see her: a famous bill-topper putting himself out for her ... before everybody! She was faultless that evening, did a dozen twirls on the back-wheel, made a record, was grand.

Trampy, meanwhile, was waiting for Lily outside, in the passage leading to the stage-door. He had not seen Jimmy kiss Lily, but he saw him carry her across the stage, just as he was coming on himself, so he had turned and hurried out to avoid scandal ... giving way to his wife, who worked while he did not. He had gone out at once, time to run to the bar and drown two or three sorrows, and he was waiting for her now, without paying any attention to the girls passing. As soon as he saw Lily, he seized her by the arm:

"I've had enough of this," he said. "I saw you, you and your Jimmy! You can't deny it this time!"

"Oh, Trampy, don't insult me like that!" protested Lily. "Why do you always say 'my' Jimmy? One can have a laugh and a joke on the stage without meaning wrong, you know one can. Besides, if you didn't like to see him carry me in his arms, you ought to have smashed his face, without so much talk."