"I've only done half. I've still got this and that to do."

And the audience itself seemed to act as her confederate. When she missed one of her tricks, Lily would lay her bike on the stage, step down to the footlights, bow with a confused air, beg pardon with a smile and receive a reassuring round of applause. Lily loved these refined audiences: her audiences, as she said; not the matinee audiences, with seats at reduced prices: to see your grocer or your butcher in the front boxes was rotten; and those people gave themselves such airs. A cheap way of doing the grand!

And the landladies spoiled her, too; those worthy souls who treated her as their own daughter.

"And a jolly sight better!" thought Lily.

Others pitied her for the profession she followed, feared she would break something, one fine day. Lily thought that very sweet of them, would have liked to stay with them for ever; but there was the constant rent at parting, a bit of herself which Lily left behind her every week. And the bothers that Maud caused her! Her stupidity drove Lily mad: tickets lost, bags mislaid, disputes with the tradesmen, battles with the bike, scratches on the shins, on the hands, everywhere. Lily lost patience, threatened her with the leather belt, damn it!

Sometimes, Lily became incensed with herself and everybody. Her divorce kept running in her head. And her three years' book, with its last pages unsoiled by engagements, also gave her cause for uneasiness; and yet the acting managers must have sung her praises, in their weekly reports,—the ones who came and made love to her on the stage!

After different music-halls, she had done the Harrasford tour, but without any great success. People who had known her with the troupe thought that she had gone off. Lily was furious: if, on those evenings, she missed a trick, she would knock Glass-Eye about when she returned to the wings, storm at the stage—"Slippery as ice, damn it!"—fling her bike, which was not to blame, against the wall. Lily, in her pink tights, under the pendants of false pearls on her forehead, looked like an angry savage, ready to fly at your throat.

That was her life. No adventures, really; theaters in which she caught on, theaters in which she didn't go down so well; more or less prolonged applause; an encore or two; and, here and there, a bouquet large enough to fill a cab: those were the great events. And it was always the same show, on the same stage, from one end of England to the other; theaters and theaters; so many theaters that, in her memory, they ended, like the towns, by making only one. It was always herds of Roofers, swaying in unison, with flaxen wigs, scarlet legs, boyish voices; and "families," "sisters," "brothers," all different, but all alike, going up the staircase to their dressing-rooms in wraps, like gouty people at a spa, and serios, serios, with choruses emphasized by dances. Sometimes, a new attraction, a Venus without tights, or a bare-breasted Salome, would draw whole groups, boys and girls mixed, to the wings, with their necks stretched toward the stage. And there were exotic features, too: conjurers from Malabar; boomerang-throwing bush-men; the Light of Asia, a Chinese girl without arms, an artificial product, like those beggar-monsters whom they cultivate in pots in the mountains of Navarre. She saw the boy-violinist again. Since that bite in the seat of his trousers, at Budapest, he had abandoned all hope of fame and was looking for an engagement in the orchestra. She saw the female-impersonator with the green eyes. She saw numbers and numbers. She ended by seeing them all again, in the various greenrooms. She heard names mentioned. People were coming on all round: Tom, singing-girls, dancing-girls. She would have to do something, too, after all, to get herself talked about! She had received a shock on opening The Era: they had not taken out her name! There was still a Miss Lily at Rathbone Place: her cousin Daisy, it appeared, a stranger, was there in her stead, under her name! And they were stealing her idea! The New Zealanders were now called the New Trickers; no doubt the turn which she had described to Pa. Something new, something new was essential. She must manage to hit upon something! She turned it all over in her head. There were too many Lilies, Lilians, Lillians; you saw nothing but Lillians on the posters. But what about a Lilia Godiva, quite naked on her bike, like the other on her horse? She would mimic the scene, love and despair, and she would think of something to raise a laugh! Peeping Tom, for instance, stretching out his neck and stealing a kiss as she passed. Oh, she would find a way—trust her!—of showing them what she had in her! And Jimmy and Trampy pursued her incessantly with their hateful memory. Trampy, she was told, was still the darling of the fair.

Lily was greatly astonished that he had not tried to obtain a divorce, on his side:

"He's afraid," she said to herself.

More than ever, she busied herself with collecting her witnesses; she would soon be rid of her tramp cyclist.

People also talked about Jimmy, whose reputation was still increasing. After a triumphant season at the Hippodrome, he had left for America. Jimmy was becoming a national champion. An article in The Era spoke of "our Jimmy."

"He's a friend of yours, Lily," people said. "You ought to know all about him."

Lily tossed her head, like one who could say a great deal if she would....

Oh, how she longed for revenge when she thought of that! Oh, if she could only have served them out somehow! If she could get The Performer Annual to send her those questions to answer: "Q. Your favorite town? Your favorite audience? Your idea of marriage? Your pet aversion?" wouldn't she give it them hot, just! She thought of having her biography written, the real one. She herself sometimes jotted down things she remembered, on bits of paper, on the backs of envelopes, in her dressing-room; arranged her picture post-cards in order; called that writing her memoirs. She would crush them with her successes, give names and dates: that lord who wanted to travel with her, the fifty-pound diamond brooch he had given her. And bouquets, chocolates, sweets ... by the cart-load! That stage-manager who cried when she went away! All, all in love with her: yes, those and ever so many more!

She had so much to say that she did not know where to begin. She knocked up against too many people, men and women, without counting monkeys, parrots, dogs, cats, ponies, elephants; it all ended by getting mixed up in her head, like the theaters and the towns. She grew quite bewildered, among so many different things. She had seen everything and done everything. Once, during a week when she was "resting," she had helped her landlady, who kept a public-house, to draw the beer and had waited on the customers, with her fifty-pound diamond brooch at her throat.

At a benefit performance, one night, when they were drinking champagne on the stage, actors, singers, artistes, all together, her pink tights had excited the dress-coats. Lily had been "pressed in company," that is to say, surrounded till she did not know which way to turn, while her time was pretty well taken up with saying, "Paws off!" before, behind, on every side. She had triumphed at galas, above a tumult of heads and parasols: at Roundhay Park, among other places, beneath the motto, "Let Leeds flourish!" Feeling anxious about her future, she had consulted a "Zanzig" at Earl's Court. Each week brought its surprises, its fresh knowledge. Lily learned something every day: "If you see a lamb in the fields with its head turned toward you, that's lucky; if you see its tail first, it's a sign of bad luck," and the way of holding your hands, of placing your fingers, of whispering certain words in certain circumstances.

She collected halfpennies with holes in them. In Ireland, she had kissed the Blarney stone and picked shamrock in the ruins. She had lost her little mother-of-pearl hunchback in the labyrinth of underground passages at the Blackpool Tower Circus. The loss of this lucky charm had damped her spirits for a week. And her profits were small and her "exes" constantly increasing: tips to the call-boy, who cleaned her bike; tips to the stage-manager; half-crowns and five shillings in every direction. As soon as she had put a trifle by, a week without an engagement made her hard-up again. Though she traveled at reduced fares and contented herself with a ham sandwich or a slice of pork-pie on the road, she would never, never be able to repay Jimmy that money: she had not even paid Glass-Eye yet! Her dresses for on and off the stage swallowed up everything. And yet she couldn't go about naked, like Lady Godiva!

And time passed and passed. Lily was growing old: she was eighteen! There were girls of her age who were already beyond work, used up, like that girl contortionist who had just been cut open for a tumor; and Lily had as yet achieved nothing! Oh, she ought to have signed for America or Australia, or else for Russia, of which she had heard wonders—Poland, the Parisienne, had just returned from there covered with diamonds—theaters that played all night and did not close till dawn, to the clicking of champagne-glasses. Lily dreamed of it, ecstatically: England was no good to her now. The New Trickers, with their own cheap Lily, were working her idea on the Bill and Boom Tour! If only she could have the continent! They were talking of a new music-hall which Harrasford was to open in Paris. He meant to make a palace of it, they said, and he was also stretching out his arm toward Antwerp, Cologne, Lyons, Marseilles, a continental trust....

"That's what I ought to have," thought Lily.

Her present life seemed empty, notwithstanding its excitement: it was like the sound of a band; nothing remained of it. Departures, constant departures from one town to another, always leaving, never staying. But for Glass-Eye's company she would have cried, sometimes, for sheer melancholy, as at the sight of those really loving couples in the boarding-houses, on the stage itself; those babies in the arms of their Mas; it made her heart ache; the thought of it pursued her like the call of distant bells, while the train rushed into the darkness.



CHAPTER III

"May joy and pleasure be your lot As through this world you trot, trot, trot.

"X."

"In the golden chain of friendship, regard me as a link.

"Loving Pal (Palace, Sheffield)."

There were pages and pages like this in Lily's autograph book. The last entry was that of a couple of friends, the dark one and the fair one:

"May success always follow you, and eventually a good fellow collar you, is the sincere wish of the

"Sisters Arriett and Nancy—The ideal pair (of legs!)"

Since Miss Lily's arrival in Paris, her collection had been increased by the addition of a fervent declaration from her friend, the architect. This had been her welcome in Paris, the good fellow, no doubt, prophesied by the ideal pair of legs; yes, she had hardly reached Paris and already there were people dying of love around her, already a man at her feet.

Lily was delighted to meet this sincere friend again, a friend of her childhood, who, she said, had known her when she was "that high": one poor devil the more ready to leave wife and children for her sake. The evening before, in her dressing-room, at the Bijou Theater, she had told him the story of her life since leaving her parents. It made her forget to ask about Harrasford and the new theater which he was to open: was it ready? The architect ought to know better than anybody. She would ask him to-night. And Lily lay turning this over, in the morning, in bed, notwithstanding her other cares, for she must get clear somehow, must see the agents that afternoon. She had plenty to do beside her turn. She had to busy herself with those thousand and one details.... She would never have believed that it was so hard to fill her three years' book. Lily felt half-dead with fatigue before she started:

"Let me sleep!" said Lily, stretching herself in the big double bed which Glass-Eye had just left; "clear out! Let me sleep!"

But Glass-Eye made a rush at Lily, tickled her in the neck, stifled her laughter under the pillow: it was a necessity for them in the morning, those few minutes of horse-play, of thumps and smacks, which rang out on every side. Lily, at last, full-throated, with fluttering nostrils, cried out for mercy. The maid went off, Lily, now quite awake, remained alone, and her worries returned: no more love, no more music, as at the theater, no more purple rays, nothing but gloomy hours, a long day stretching out before her like a gray corridor. It was real life now: letters to write, costumes to mend, last night's tights to wash in the basin.... Lily, sitting on the edge of her bed, took her purse from where she had hidden it under the bolster—a habit she had acquired in marriage, because of Trampy's nightly ferretings—and emptied it on the sheets: one blue banknote; one, two, three gold coins. How much did that make in pounds, shillings and pence? Hardly seven pounds. It was all in vain for her to economize, like that Ma of a star, who counted the potatoes. It was all in vain for her to stint in every way, to keep back Glass-Eye's wages for over a year, saying that she would pay her in a lump: she would have almost nothing left after the purchases which she had to make. It was true that, to-morrow, she would receive her fortnight's pay; and she hoped for a renewal. She felt sure of it, if only because of the way in which the manager had taken her by the chin. Then a fortnight at the Brussels Alhambra—1 November, Flora, Amsterdam—10 January, Copenhagen—and, for the rest, her three years' book was empty and each empty page represented months without work—all her profits would be swallowed up by her enforced idleness. She would never clear herself, never be able to pay Jimmy. Oh, she was furious with him because she could not discharge her debt to him once and for all, fling his money in his face, show him if people remained penniless long when they had her talent! That idea comforted Lily. And it was important that she should look nice to-day, to go the round of the agents. Lily dressed quickly, cunningly puffed out her bows, a trick she had learned as a child, and then, before putting on her dress, cooked the food with Glass-Eye, who had just come in with her parcels.

Then a dash of scent on the handkerchief, a touch of rouge on the lips and, leaving the room all untidy, she went out, followed by Glass-Eye, rigged out in a pair of thread mittens and carrying the sunshade and the wrist-bag. Quick, quick! For Lily knew by experience that it is well to be the first at the agent's or else there's nothing for you.

She did not dislike those walks through the Paris streets:

"Let's have some fun," she said to Glass-Eye.

By this, Lily meant laughing at those "tiny Frenchies"; and, if they ventured to accost her, crushing them with a "Vous hettes oun cochon!" Although, among the people she mixed with, agents, artistes, stage-hands, everybody spoke English, Lily had not come to Paris without learning a few words, "Oui ... Non ... Vous hettes oun cochon!" and so on, which were indispensable, she thought, to a girl who wanted to make herself respected on the continent, a girl alone, especially. And she loved to snub those damned parley-voos who dared to accost ladies. It seemed to lighten those days of visits to the agents, the very prospect of which gave her a headache in advance, because one had to think of everything, lithos, photographs, programs; and, if the agent wasn't in, ruin one's self in correspondence; and puff one's self in every way, rub it into them that one was the cleverest person on earth....

"If you're too modest," said Lily, "they'll take you at your word!"

And the pay would drop, in consequence.

"Never tell your salary!" was another of Lily's favorite maxims.

She gave out that she made heaps, that a little star like her, the Marie Loyd of the bike, was only to be obtained for untold gold. But, at the agent's, she had to cut her prices: there was no hiding anything from them; it was like going to the doctor.

"And, when you're in work, everybody wants you; and, when you're out of work, they have nothing for you: it's help yourself as best you may!" she said.

She had to help herself now; and it was delicate business dealing with people who have only one idea in their heads, to swindle you, in order to curry favor with the managers by getting them cheap turns. They would have skinned you alive:

"Two pounds a week. Do you accept?"

"Go to Halifax!" Lily would reply in such cases, looking them straight in the face. It took courage to do that: the agent might grow bigger, become an enemy. She didn't care! She wasn't going to lower her price for anybody! And the commission she had to pay them was a torment to Lily; calculating the percentage made her head split—not to speak of the complicated nature of the contracts, worse than insurance policies. The poor artiste was bound down on every side, at the mercy of the manager; everything was foreseen, down to the prohibition of black tights, which concealed one's poverty. And it was bad enough in England; but in the Dago countries, on the continent, it was worse.

"Can you understand a word of it, Glass-Eye?" asked Lily, explaining to her maid the tricks which the artiste had to fight against. "I don't know how the small turns manage," she concluded, in the tone of a woman who towers above all that.

Lily's prettiness made the people in the street turn round to look at her. They would gaze at her cheeky feather, whisper, "You pretty, pretty darling!" in her ear. Lily, secretly delighted, held herself ready to crush the saucy rascal with a "How dare you?" like a lady who knows how to appreciate a compliment, without permitting the least familiarity. And when she approached the agency, she insisted on Glass-Eye's keeping by her side, asked for things: her wrist-bag, her embroidered handkerchief. And her way of walking in! Lily pretended to be short-sighted, so as to see no one in the rotten lot. She sent in her card, sat down in the waiting-room. It reminded her of the dentist's, with those pale people sitting on benches; those serio-comics, all over-fat; loud-voiced topical singers, who took the place of the real artistes, just like the bioscopes and cinematographs! There were also little families—small turns that had struggled hard to learn a few tricks—nobody wanted them, because they had no "chic" costumes, sometimes, or no lithos....

Those were received like dogs: a wretched couple was just coming out, a man and a woman, sad with a humility accustomed to rebuffs; and the agent drove them toward the door, with his voice:

"Eccentric mashers? No opening for you. Call again."

Lily got a good reception, in the agent's room; but there was nothing for her. And the agent saw her to the door, with a satisfied air and a knowing wink, as though to make the others believe ... Lily didn't like that kind—her short-sightedness did not prevent her noticing it and blushing at it—but she was very pleased, all the same, to be seen to the door, before those small turns who were received like dogs....

On the pavement outside, the wretched couple came up to her shyly:

"Don't you know us, Miss Lily? The Para-Paras."

She had to listen to a pitiful tale. She heard nothing but that, when she went on her rounds of visits to the agents. Oh, the distress which she beheld there! It made Lily feel quite ill at night. A little more and she would have said her prayers, before getting into bed, to thank God that she hadn't come to that. Poor Paras! Starving, no doubt, remaining for weeks in their garret, pretending that they had been performing in the provinces ... abroad.... Lily pictured them passing the stage-doorkeepers to whom they had sold their parrots and being greeted with a "What's for breakfast, Polly?"

"Miss Lily," they confessed, in a whisper, "you know such a lot of people: if ever you hear of anything for us, never mind where ..."

"Poor beggars!" thought Lily.

And her Ma had prophesied to her that, one day, she would be worse off than they! No, she would never be half so badly off! Why, she could have had anything she wanted, motor-cars, Paris gowns, for the asking.



"Glass-Eye, my bag!" And, handing a small gold coin to the wretched couple, "There ... between artistes, you know ... give it back when you can; good-by. Did you notice, Glass-Eye," asked Lily, as she walked away, "how flattered they were when I said, 'Between artistes?' They looked quite touched."

But there was no time to waste in nonsense, on a day when she was calling on the agents. The thing was to get there first; and Lily consulted her addresses....

She was exasperated at being obliged, with her talent, to climb all those stairs, to hang about in the waiting-room, she, Lily Clifton! And it reeked of vice, stunk with the trashy scent of the "not-up-to-muches:" merely to look at them suggested faces seen in Piccadilly at night or in the Burlington Arcade.

Lily sent in her card, threw a short-sighted glance around her and remained standing, like a lady who is never kept waiting and who is sure to be received at once. And, with her head bent down and her chin in her gold-spotted tie, she turned over the pages of Le Courrier des Cafes Concerts on the table ... names which she didn't know ... the small "numbers" of the continent ... so much the better ... all the more chance for her. But the engagement which she dreamed of did not offer this time either. What the agent did propose to her, almost without lowering his voice, with the door open, before everybody, was the grated private boxes of South America ... the private rooms of Russia ... accompanied, at a startled movement on Lily's part, by this concession:

"You needn't sleep there, you know!"

To talk like that to a lady! Lily felt stifled. Was that what she had learned the bike for? To exhibit herself after the show, at the customers' disposal? Lily could have fainted on the stairs, as she went down.

"One of those!" she said. "Not I!"

And she continued her weary pilgrimage of stairs, from agent to agent.

"I must have six months filled up in my book before to-night!" she said, determined to visit them all, small and large, rather than go back empty-handed.

There were some who suggested to her that ten per cent. was really very little....

"I like their style!" thought Lily. "They want an extra sop thrown to them: one might as well work for nothing!"

She thanked them, nevertheless, so as not to make enemies of them—one never knows—and the agent doesn't matter so much; but the assistant, who happens to have known you when you were "that high" ... better give him a tip, lest he should round on you.

She also saw a former artiste, a friend of Pa's, who had become an agent.

"Miss Lily? Lily Clifton? What are you doing now? Won't you see my secretary? Leave your address with him."

"Fellows whom Pa helped!" she grumbled angrily, as she went down the stairs. "They're the worst of all! They make you pay for the humiliation of their own failure on the stage!"

Presently, she came to an agent who practised almost in the street, in an arcade somewhat like the Burlington, an agent for everything ... circus, music-hall, theater ... artistes formed in a week ... white flesh at famine salaries. There were all sorts of people there, a moving heap of frayed velvet and shabby plush. Lily passed by with great dignity. Next, she came to the big agent, with offices in Berlin and London ... the ting-ting of telephones, the tick-tack of typewriters all day ... business pure and simple, an exchange for supple loins, swelling biceps, muslin skirts, pigeon's eggs ... a sheaf of stars who, from there, radiated over Australia, America, England, the Eastern and Western Trusts, Bill and Boom, Harrasford, the continent. Lily felt a little ill at ease as she entered—she had a pain in the pit of her stomach, as when she used to expect a smacking—and again in the private office crammed with papers and registers, when alone with the agent, who looked at her card, he seated, she standing. Then, suddenly:

"Lily? Miss Lily? Your price is two hundred francs a week, I believe."

"What!" said Lily. "With a bike and a maid?"

"It's what you had at Maidstone, so I was told."

"What a lie!" said Lily. "Three hundred francs is the lowest I've ever had. I'll show you my contracts."

"Don't trouble," said the agent. "I thought ... we can get plenty at that price, you know ... in your style...."

"In my style, perhaps ... but not me."

"Pooh, the audience doesn't know the difference." And he started looking through a register, turning over the pages and repeating mechanically, like a refrain or a lullaby, "The audience doesn't care a hang; it's all the same to the audience." And, suddenly, with his hand flat on the open book and the other ready to take up the pen, with a piercing eye fixed upon Lily, "I can give you a month at a thousand francs ... they want a girl in tights ... at Lisbon."

"Lisbon?" said Lily. "That's at the Colosseo. A thousand francs to go to the Colosseo, with one's luggage and a maid?"

"Well?" broke in the agent. "And what do you want a maid for, you extravagant little beast? Why not your maid's family while you're about it? A thousand francs: will you take it? I've got some one who will, if you don't."

Lily had to say yes or no quickly. Her forehead was wrinkled with the effort of turning the francs into shillings, the shillings into pounds. She consulted her book, like an artiste who doesn't know, who may not be free, for a whole month. She lowered her chin in her tie, but without smiling ... had a cramp in her stomach, rather ... at a pinch, by leaving Glass-Eye in Paris.... After Lisbon, one generally had Madrid and Barcelona and returned by Marseilles and Lyons. Friends of hers had done well like that. But to accept a lower salary once meant accepting it always, in establishments of the same class; it meant reducing her price, for always, by two pounds a week, at least.

"A thousand francs: will you have it?"

And Lily:

"No, it's impossible! I can't take less than twelve pounds a week." And she began to sum up her proofs: "Look here, at the Hippodrome, Glasgow ... at the Palace, Leeds...."

But the agent wouldn't listen, shut up the register, was sorry:

"Can't do it ... bad season ... cyclists to be had for the asking. Good-by."

"Good-by."

And Lily went out, went down the stairs, feeling half-inclined to go back and accept; but no! Lower her prices? Never! Oh, those cheap artistes, those black-legs deserved to be hanged! Great lazybones who learn a few baby tricks on the bike or the tight-rope, back-shop acrobats, slop-shop Lilies, who practise at a safe distance, by watching you on the stage, through an opera-glass. They cut your prices by half; they would work for a handful of rice, like a monkey. They deserved to have the iron curtain come down on them, and flatten them out like black-beetles, the wind-bags!

"I say, Glass-Eye, perhaps it's they who fell into the orchestra, was it, when I got my thighs full of lamp-glass from the footlights, eh? They copy you, think themselves artistes.... What! Yes? You say they are, Glass-Eye? Damn it, I'll have your eye out!"

And Lily had a fit of laughing when she saw Glass-Eye, who hadn't said a word, raise her elbow in affright to ward off the blow.

Lily held the banister with one hand, leaned on Maud's shoulder with the other and laughed and laughed, only to see her maid's terrified face, a regular fat freak shrinking before the belt. My! She would have fallen with laughing, if Glass-Eye had not held her up; she plugged her lips with her scented handkerchief, slapped her thighs. She had never laughed so much in her life. She already felt consoled for all her bothers:

"Watch me, Glass-Eye! This is the way to go down-stairs!"

And, nimbly as a bird, Lily hopped on the banister, with her back to the wall, and—w-w-w-w-whew!—slid down to the bottom, keeping her balance faultlessly, sprang to her feet on the last stair and, with a wave of the hand, as after a successful trick:

"There! What do you think of that?"

Lily was not given to long spells of sadness. Reaction always followed immediately upon her worries, made the thousand and one vexations of a day like this easier for her to bear. The compliments which caught her ear in the street comforted her too:

"You pretty, pretty ..."

But she had no time to listen. Six months in her book before night! As time passed, Lily would have been content with less. And trot, trot, trot: while she was at it; then she would end by seeing whether they would get her for a handful of rice.

This idea amused her. Lily had confidence in her talent and continued her visits. She saw them all: other agents, former bosses or profs, who had sucked apprentices dry to the marrow and who continued their evil practices in their offices; this sort sized you up with the eye of a slave-dealer. There was also the lucky agent, who had started a sensational attraction, a Laurence or a Light of Asia. This agent had a touch of pride about him, with his eternal, "I gave her her first start!" as though to say:

"They'll never find another like her, never! They don't turn them out like that now!"

And all this was a pretext for offering you ridiculous terms, because you were neither Light of Asia nor Laurence. It was no use Lily's boasting of having declined Bill and Boom and Harrasford, pretending to be an artiste for whom the managers were competing against one another with sheaves of banknotes. There was nothing for her at this one's ... nothing for her at the others', either ... only a scrap of news of her family, through an artiste. The New Trickers were all the rage in Scotland, it seemed; an engagement in London, at the Palace, was waiting for them. When Lily heard that, she turned pale with envy: so it was on their account that she had been refused that tour in England, so that they might have it! Patience! Her



day would come ... when she returned from the continent and, instead of Miss, called herself Mlle., like Adeline Genee and lots of others! Meanwhile, she had found nothing. Still, Lily knew that one sometimes had whole months of enforced idleness, without knowing the reason, and then, suddenly, one's luck returned. One only has to wait a bit, thought Lily, making herself very short-sighted as she passed before the arcade, the haunt of the out-at-elbow pros and of the piffling little agents, the jackals of the profession, on the lookout for a bone to gnaw. And it was not a little vexing to hear her name pass from mouth to mouth—"Mrs. Trampy, Mrs. Trampy"—and who could be drawing attention to her in that rotten lot? Was Trampy there, by any chance, pointing his finger at her? She felt inclined to go back to them, to tell them in two words what she thought of them. Mrs. Trampy, indeed! It was not for long, in any case. Her divorce was not far off!

In the evening, at the theater, she forgot her bothers, as usual. The day, for that matter, was quite an ordinary one: it was the typical day, the trot, trot, trot, of the star alone, in search of engagements. And, thoroughly tired, in her dressing-room, she related in her own way the adventures which she had had since the morning, the compliments on her beauty; and at the agents', my! If she had liked, she could have filled up her three years' book! The architect came in her dressing-room for a moment: so interesting a Lily! so amusing, he thought, as funny, in her way, as Light of Asia, the Chinese girl without arms. Sitting on the big trunk, he admired by turns Lily and the disorderly dressing-table, its cracked looking-glass, scribbled over with names, and, under the glaring light, the grease-paints—red, white, black—the powder-puffs and hare's feet, the biscuits in the tray among the hair-pins, a bottle and glasses beside the powder-box. From nails on the whitewashed walls, scratched all over with inscriptions, covered with penciled dates, hung rainbow skirts, bodices with metallic flowers. The bike shone in a corner, half-buried under Lily's outdoor clothes. Tights hung beside it, like pink skins, gold spangles strewed the uncarpeted floor and scent hovered over everything.... Half-open doors admitted gusts of music from the orchestra; and Lily, opposite the glass, fumbled among her pots with the tip of her finger, stained her lips blood-red, fixed the rebellious curl to her forehead with a touch of gum. Outside, in the passage, was the row of doors, with spy-holes and visiting cards, half-sheets of paper, stuck down with wafers and bearing the names of the various occupants:

"Prof. X. The Famous X. Family. Absolutely the best."

There were others "absolutely the best."

On Lily's door, her card—"Miss Lily"—and, under that, modestly:

"And maid."

Lily revived amid these surroundings; here she forgot her fatigue, blossomed out to her heart's delight. With her rainbow dress, her feathers and her pearl pendants, combined with her elaborate gestures as she made up her face in front of the gollywog, she resembled the officiating priestess of a strange religion, pacifying some angry-eyed idol to the sound of distant choirs.

While finishing her make-up, Lily continued her stories, talked of her successes in England and here and there and everywhere ... and the lord who wanted to marry her and rained down presents upon her: fifty-pound brooches, diamonds.... Everybody in love with her: to listen to her you could have followed her traces like the passage of a cyclone ... men gone mad ... others blinded through weeping ... millionaires ruined in chocolates and sweets ... and flowers, my!

"You could fill the Colosseum with them, couldn't you, Glass-Eye? I've been spoiled everywhere," continued Lily, "and I'm known everywhere! Even in Paris, to-day, there were a lot of ladies and gentlemen under an arcade and you heard nothing but 'Miss Lily, Miss Lily,' didn't you, Glass-Eye?"

"Yes, Miss Lily."

But these social successes did not make Lily forget her business affairs. Harrasford's new music-hall worried her: if she could only play there, only snatch it from the New Trickers! For they would certainly try to get there; and the architect, of course, knew ...

But Lily was interrupted by the call-boy: time for her to go down to the stage!

A hurricane came up from the orchestra, muffled, with beats of the big drum, like distant cannon. The curtain would go up soon; it was the time when Lily stretched her legs, before giving her performance, and took a breath of air in the painted forest. A click of the padlock and:

"Come along, Glass-Eye, the bike!"

Lily, in spite of her brilliant successes in England, was dead tired of tipping the boys; it ran away with all her money. As she allowed herself the luxury of a maid, by Gollywog, she might as well make use of her; she wasn't going to feed her to do nothing! And poor Glass-Eye attended to the bike, at the risk of putting out her other eye. Every day the struggle between Glass-Eye and the bike formed the joy and the delight of the passage. There were incredible swervings, scratchings of the wall, barkings of Glass-Eye's shins. Lily followed behind, bursting with laughter, warning Glass-Eye to take care or she would put the bike out of gear by knocking it about with her legs:

"Oh, where's my belt?" she cried, patting the back of her hand.

The artistes, attracted by the noise, half-opened the doors; laughing eyes gleamed at the spy-holes; voices cried:

"Go it! Never say die!"

Glass-Eye perspired like anything, pursed her eyebrows above her fat, red cheeks, grumbled, in her Whitechapel slang:

"Kim up, you lousy moke! Igher up, Jerusalem, you pig-headed bag of tricks!"

Lily lost patience, snatched the machine from her, ran it down the stairs, pushed the door of the "meat-tray," and found herself behind the scenes, the drops rising and falling, the nightly spectacle since she had been "that high," the land of the unreal lights. And the sudden glare from the reflectors set clusters of shoulders blazing with a silvery glow, brought up out of the shade the pale flesh of the dancing-girls, heaped up behind the pillars. It swarmed from every side, right and left—"Hi, there! Meat, meat!"—under the rush of the stage-hands shifting the wings. There were fleecy foams of fair wigs, smiles from kiss-me-quick lips, blinkings of made-up eyelids, a swarm of arms, thighs and necks, preparatory to a ballet, Heures d'amour, in which Poland, the Parisienne, triumphed with her costumes Deshabille gallant, Dessous diaphanes, Le tub, Volupte, Dodo, eight pantomimic scenes in a sumptuous setting, with girls to impersonate the Hours, from pale-pink flirtation to scarlet desire.

Lily watched this familiar sight with a wandering eye; and suddenly she turned pale: what was that? Who was that? In the midst of it all, smiling to her from a distance, as though laughing at her, stood Trampy! My!

"Here, hold my bike, Glass-Eye!"

It was close on her turn, but, before going on, she had a word to say to the stage-manager and, walking up to him:

"Do you see that josser looking at me?" said Lily, pointing to Trampy. "If he stays here, I ... to begin with, I shan't go on. I won't be humbugged by any one!"

"Who is it?"

"My husband!"

"All right, darling," said the stage-manager and, suddenly, between the scene which was being hoisted up and the other let down on the silent, empty stage: "You there! Get out!"

Trampy could not believe that the words were meant for him. He waited until the order had been twice repeated. He, an artiste, before those girls! He made a gesture as though to ask:

"Do you mean me?"

"Yes, you! No jossers here," said the stage-manager. "Sling your hook!"

"Gee!" thought Lily, when he had gone. "This time you've been paid back in your own coin! So you kicked me out at the Horse Shoe, did you? It's my turn now, you damned tramp!"

She exulted with delight, as she went through her performance. It was her first revenge! the other's turn would come next.

"I don't forgive and I don't forget," she muttered to herself. "Every dog has his day."

Oh, how happy she was! She was magnificent on the stage, under the flashing lights, and the dull sounds in the orchestra were to her as the throbbing of a riotous heart.

"Well, Trampy, you got soaked to-night, to-night," thought Lily, as she might have said, "One, two!" to mark her times. "To-night, to-night. And, if you don't like it—one, two—you've only got to lump it! Divorce was made for men and women, not for dogs!"

Lily was triumphant, laughed, winked her eye, as she rode past, at the stage-manager, who threw her a kiss and grinned. Immediately after her turn, she ran to her dressing-room, poured water on her steaming skin, while the make-up trickled in pink streaks down her face, and devoted an hour to the dainty care of her person, like a cat licking itself. And then Lily, without paint or powder—awfully ugly, not in the least pretty off the stage, as she said, smiling in her muslin tie with the gold spots—Lily went out by the front, to avoid the pros' corridor.

The moment she was in the lobby, she assumed the air of a lady accompanied by her maid. She cast an indifferent eye at the string of carriages, like one who changes her mind and prefers to walk, a smile to the gentlemen at the controle, a nod to the Roofers going out, two by two, always, a dark one and a fair one. Lily stopped for a second, to look round....

Then: "Let's go home, Glass-Eye!"

She took a few steps along the street, but a jolly voice behind her cried:

"Gee, what a spanking walk!"

She turned round; it was Trampy again!

"Ah, this time," thought Lily, "I shall have witnesses!"

She expected blows! She would have given anything to be struck: her divorce, at last, would be hastened on! Cruelty, public insults! But no:

"How's my dear little wife?" asked Trampy, with outstretched hand.

Lily was so greatly surprised that it took her some seconds to recover her presence of mind; and then, without turning her head:

"Come away, Glass-Eye," she said. "There are drunkards about."

"Don't let us quarrel, little wifie. Aren't you my dear little wifie? Well, then...."

And Trampy took her by the arm.

"Let me go, or I'll break your jaw," muttered Lily, under her breath.

Trampy seemed in a jovial mood, with his cigar in his mouth, his cheeks flushed with insolence, his eyes moist with libations.

"Let's make peace," said Trampy. "Peace in the home: that's my motto!"

"Divorce!" cried Lily.

"Peace in the home for me!" rejoined Trampy, who grew the more radiant as Lily grew more and more incensed.

"Let me tell you," he continued, puffing luxuriously at his cigar, "that divorce—why, how can you think of it?—means a public scandal, my name dragged in the mud...."

"Footy rotter!" roared Lily.

"Dragged in the mud; and my dear little wife left to her own resources, marrying again, as she feels inclined, marrying some one unworthy of her, perhaps. I won't have it! I'm responsible for you! I'm your natural protector! You're not Miss Lily, you're Mrs. Trampy. You've been in the wrong, certainly; you had me turned off the stage, me, your husband; but I forgive you."

"And I ... take that!" Lily broke in, spitting in his face. "That's how I forgive you! Take that! And that!"

Trampy reveled with delight:

"You are my dear little wifie, aren't you? And you'll remain so ... and you'll never belong to any one else, do you hear? I am a faithful husband. You're trying for a divorce, I know, but you won't get it. The wrong is on your side and I'm not going to law, and you're Mrs. Trampy and Mrs. Trampy you'll remain! Will you come and have a drink, Mrs. Trampy?" he continued, lighting a fresh cigar. "Won't you? Very well. Good night, wifie!"

And Trampy, turning his back to her, disappeared in a cloud of smoke.



CHAPTER IV

Lily came home and went straight to bed, without even waiting for supper, so great was her hurry to forget. It seemed to her that things had happened, things without end; that this day had been as long as a year. She simply could not understand Trampy. She could have imagined anything, except that! She racked her brain to conjecture how, why; and sleep quieted her till the next morning; and she woke up with teeth clenched and eyebrows set and ... why? Why? And again why? Did he still want to keep her?—after realizing in a hundred different ways that she did not love him, that she loathed him, that she had married him only to escape her whippings and that she had but one idea in her head: to divorce him!

Now—only Lily could not know this—it was because of that very reason that Trampy clung to her, like a faithful husband: Jimmy, Jimmy was his bugbear. He believed Jimmy to be in love with his wife. Once Lily was divorced, Jimmy could marry her; and Trampy would see him further first! The greater Jimmy became, the more jealous Trampy grew. He knew the steps Lily had taken to obtain a divorce, the witnesses she had tried to secure. She was very keen on a divorce, was she? All the more reason for not gratifying her; and she wasn't going to get it. The witnesses, Trampy had just heard, declined to give evidence. They had seen nothing, heard nothing. A bike at her head? Maybe. They didn't know. A bit of a fuss between artistes, such as you see every day, and none of their damned business. Outside that, Lily had nothing to go upon; on the contrary. She had abandoned the conjugal home; all the wrong, apparently, was on her side. He, Trampy, alone was entitled to file a petition; but that never! He considered that Jimmy and Lily had trifled with him sufficiently. He could not swallow the idea that they were only waiting for the divorce to get married; the idea that Lily would be Mrs. Jimmy, of her own free choice, after marrying him, Trampy, to escape her whippings; no, he couldn't swallow that! Now it rested entirely with him to prevent that marriage. He had only to keep his dear little wife for himself. In that case, Jimmy, if he wanted her, would be obliged to do without her or else to "live with her" and set a bad example, lavish bestower of good advice that he was, the dirty hypocrite, preaching morality to others! That was what Trampy had determined to do. As for Lily, Trampy, who was incapable, at bottom, of either hatred or love, didn't care one way or the other. He was always sure to want for nothing, so long as there were girls on the boards and whisky in the bars.

There was another reason still that urged him to let matters rest, without going further. To embark on a divorce-case, to have his name in the papers and his story hawked round the four quarters of the globe—"Trampy, you know. You knew Trampy, didn't you? The husband of Lily?" and so on—was what he didn't want at any price, for a reason known to himself. He had made inquiries, quite privately, at the beginning, when he thought of petitioning for a divorce; and what he had learned had made him prudent: his marriage in America was valid beyond a doubt. He was well and duly married, whether he liked it or not. By the common law, two wives meant bigamy; and bigamy meant prison, which was the last thing he wanted, as he himself said. But, so long as there was no scandal, he ran no great risk. He had lived on tenter-hooks at first, in Germany. Chance might have brought him face to face with Ave Maria, on the stage of a music-hall. This danger was not to be feared now, so far as he knew. Ave Maria and her brother Martello were no longer fit stars for Europe, nor for North America. He was too well known to the agencies; his brutality had produced too many complaints, too many denunciations to the police; it discredited any theater employing him. He might have come to Europe—who knew?—to try to get hold of the Bambinis, now that the old man had not much longer to live. But that was not very likely, either. An artiste, come across by accident, had seen the pair at Iquique, in a wretched circus that was doing the coast of Chili. He gave Trampy details: poor Ave Maria had grown very ugly; a body all skin and bone and nerves; no hips, no chest; nothing of the woman about her; in the last stages of consumption; and finished, as an artiste, done for; no spring left in her overworked thighs, no suppleness in her loins: even her brother, that brute, could get nothing out of her now. And Trampy, who knew Chili, followed them, in his mind, on their tour along the coast, from Iquique to Copiapo, to Valdivia: a trying climate, biting winds which would kill her on the spot, unless she went and perished in the fever-stricken plains of the Argentine.... When people had fallen so low as that, they did not rise again: there was nothing to fear from that side. But her presence was not necessary; the danger still existed. There were documents, in black and white. Their names were bracketed on a register somewhere or other: he knew where. It was better, therefore, in every way, not to call attention to himself. Meanwhile, he was playing a nice trick on Lily and her Jimmy. And Lily was Mrs. Trampy and Mrs. Trampy she would remain; and that was all there was about it.

But it was no use for Lily to give herself a headache trying to make out why and how. She did not guess Trampy's secret thoughts, any more than he suspected the actual nature of her relations with Jimmy. For her, too, one thing was certain: Mrs. Trampy she was and Mrs. Trampy she would remain! She would never be free; she would always be chained to that tramp cyclist! And, if a match should happen to turn up for her among her admirers, the architect, for instance—you can never tell: plenty of others had already proposed for her hand in marriage, in England—she would be obliged to refuse! And, if some gentleman were to pay her his addresses, treat her like a lady, take her to choose a hat or a silk petticoat in a smart shop, there was somebody who would have the right to say to her, as she passed:

"How's my little wife getting on?"

Oh, those two Jim Crows round her, spoiling her future! Jimmy and Trampy! They would end by being the death of her. Oh, if she had had Thea's arm, what a blow in the jaw for one or both of them! And Lily, when she thought of it, wore the face which was hers on her bad days, teeth clenched, stubborn forehead. Glass-Eye shook in her boots when she saw it, for sometimes Lily vented her anger upon the poor girl with a smack, considering herself quits if she begged pardon after!

"If it's one of those footy rotters," growled Lily, hearing a knock at the door, "smash a bottle over his head!"

But no, it was simply her letters, sent on from the theater. Nothing of importance this morning; prospectuses, mostly: a wig-maker, special theatrical department; a manufacturer of traveling-hampers, for South Africa, Australia....

"No use for them," thought Lily, with a sigh.



And, on opening The Era, she received that discouraging sensation: always so many names, and so many tricks, and all "the best;" new ideas and troupes, troupes, troupes; another new troupe of fat freaks, a very flood of them; and Roofers, Roofers; "Greater-Greater England Girls," words and music guaranteed, with scarlet legs and muslin skirts, complete; page upon page of pink tights; and national troupes and colonial troupes; and one had to earn a livelihood and shine among all that! Lily was half crushed; and everybody she knew was triumphing: the Pawnees,—one hundred and thirty music-halls, the whole of the Eastern and Western Trusts, the great two-years' tour! The Three Graces also were continuing their triumphs. Lily, who felt herself the equal of any of them, held her breath as she read the news. Laurence had won her terrible bet that she would ride straight across Manchester and Salford on her bike, hands tied together, feet fastened to the pedals. At the Art Institute in Chicago, Marjutti had given a lecture on the art of contortion.

"Some josser of a journalist wrote it for her," thought Lily.

And The Performer Annual had sent Marjutti its set of questions to answer, she had been published in print! And Lily was still waiting! And Tom? Tom was in England now, in the De Frece circuit; had had a triumph at the Portsmouth Hippodrome, as "Topsy Turvy Tommy," dancing a sailor's hornpipe on his hands. All, all were successful, including others even who were not so good as she was: one who obtained engagements because she had a nigger in her show; another because of a monkey.

"And I've done nothing yet!" grumbled Lily.

Oh, to be talked about in her turn, to achieve something, to become "our Lily!"

"It's twelve o'clock and I'm still in bed!" she cried. "I ought to be practising!"

It was just a flash of pride, mixed with remorse. She knew it well enough; often and often, she had reproached herself for her idleness, for her habit of sleeping till the middle of the day, of taking her meals before the performance; but she would make up for it to-morrow! It is the usual refrain of stars who have become detached from their troupes, far removed from regimental discipline, so to speak: without a Pa, without a boss, you can do nothing. You must have some one to force you.

"A month on the three years' book before to-night!" prayed Lily, touching her lucky charm.

And she studied the omens with an expert air, gave an ear to passing sounds, tried to catch the meaning of them, for she had visits to pay, letters to write, business, damn it!

That was what Pa used to say before her. And it was not so easy to turn a letter prettily: that was Trampy's forte. She knew something about it. Lily, in her night-dress, with her elbows on the table, bit her pen, reflected, in a mental effort that gave her a headache. And that note-paper wasn't nice, either, without a heading; true, it only rested with herself; every day she was approached with offers of artistic photographs, even of tricks which she did not do: standing with one foot on the saddle, the other in the air and her arms stretched out before her, like a flying genius; or as Cupid, with his dart in his hand: impossible things which neither the Pawnees nor Laurence would have dared to attempt! But it would look well, with her name in red letters: "Miss Lily," or "La Belle Lily." Or else a photograph showing her strolling in a great park, with a palace in the background, taken from nature, followed by her maid, or by a footman, hired by the hour, for the occasion.

"I think I shall select the governess," said Lily to herself, "because of my biography; it will be nicer, truer. Or I might be taken riding on the back-wheel, like a lady just leaving the house and doing that to amuse herself?"

Lily, still undecided, took up the pen again: one foot on the saddle; six pairs of tights; three dresses; the theaters at which she had appeared....

What a pack of jossers! She couldn't forgive the agents for her present want of success. She was exasperated. She felt inclined to go and see the managers themselves, those who had made love to her on the stage, and to send in her card to them—"Miss Lily"—just to teach those jossers of agents! Her independent ways had already made enemies for her: she knew that; but how could she help being angry? The tricks they played you, down to making you miss a marriage, as had happened in London, the other day, to the Three Graces, to one of them, who had been courted, during Mr. Fuchs' absence, by the boy-violinist. Their agent had launched into slanders and even insults to prevent the marriage, which would have split up the troupe and broken the contract....

"What a pack of nigger-drivers!" thought Lily. "As long as they get their ten per cent., the rest can go hang, for all they care!"

There was no doubt that Lily had got out of bed on the wrong side, at the thought of having to climb all those staircases again and to dance attendance with the rotten lot in the waiting-rooms. But, by Jove, she could have boxed the ears of the first agent she visited that afternoon! He had the impudence to offer her a magnificent engagement in the Indian show at Earl's Court, she to stain her skin brown, dye her hair black, with rings in her nose, at the wrists, at her ankles; a costume like Miss Ruth's, all in gauze; the nautch-girl on the bicycle; six times a day, in the open air, to the sound of tomtoms. Play the negress; that's what he offered her! She could not help laughing, in spite of her anger. But she became quite intractable and snubbed another agent who suggested a one day's billet in a tiny music-hall at a ridiculous price.

"I don't give my performance under five pounds, or on a stage of less than thirty feet!" cried Lily.

At last, luck seemed to turn; she settled for Spain and Portugal, and that same evening, at the Bijou Theater, she was offered another engagement, for three months hence. This contract would procure her others, after her spell of ill luck. Lily at once took courage again:

"Oh, if I had the Astrarium!" she thought.

Everywhere, at the theater, at the agents, people were talking of the new music-hall. It even became a current joke. They said, "So-and-So's performing at the Astrarium," as though to say, "He's not performing! He's living in a castle in the air!" Every one was talking of the great music-hall which was to open in a few months and which was not to be seen building anywhere. Some said that it was serious; they quoted engagements: Tom; the Three Graces; the impersonator; nothing but turns quite unknown to Paris; novelties, nothing but novelties: Marjutti; Laurence, perhaps; or the New Trickers. Lily shivered when she heard that!... She opened wide eyes, like Alice in Wonderland. Oh, to appear there! But she had performed in Paris. Then she would change her name; bike mixed with dancing; and her whole trick done backward, as Pa had once advised Trampy to do in Mexico! Oh, if she could have that! Lily Godiva, undressed on the bike! She'd show them she was a lady, not a performing dog! The Astrarium, that was certain, would open in Paris in a few months. Harrasford had said so himself. There was no doubt about it. They even told the name of the stage-manager, Joe Brooks, the cleverest of all. Lily felt herself carried away with ambition. Oh! to open there! Oh, if it were true! God grant that it might come true! Oh, if Daisy, their star, could only break a leg! The few days which Lily was still to remain in Paris, before leaving for Spain, she employed in obtaining further information. She learned the most exact particulars. Incredible though it seemed, the Astrarium was to open quite shortly! The blue-chins discussed the thing, amid clouds of tobacco smoke, in the bars, after the show. To allude to it now was not like talking of castles in the air; on the contrary. To tease a pal, one said:

"You're opening at the Astrarium, aren't you? I don't think!"

Which was another way of saying:

"The Astrarium's no place for you! They're taking nothing but bill-toppers there!"

The new music-hall, even before it came into existence, was beginning to spread, like the story of the whippings; it would be talked about, all round the world, as something stunning, a more complete show than the Tivoli at Sidney or the New York Hippodrome. Harrasford was credited with designs for a palace in onyx and marble. He had bought or was going to buy a theater with the object of transforming it; names and prices were given. Everybody was interested in it. Just now, especially, when the bioscopes and the gramophones and the singers were taking the bread out of the "artistes'" mouths, it meant twenty turns more to receive princely salaries there; and, every month, that galaxy of stars, which Harrasford would send shooting to Paris, was to disperse toward Brussels, Antwerp, Marseilles, Hamburg: the European Trust, the Moss and Stoll tour of the continent, managed by Harrasford, the great English manager.

To open at the Astrarium meant having work insured and your three years' book filled for ever so long; meant appearing in public, later, wearing on your chest the medal which they meant to distribute in memory of the opening. Gee, Lily had a pain in her side at the thought of it! The Three Graces, it was said, were on the program. Lily would have consulted them—there was no jealousy about the Graces—but they were not yet in Paris. Oh, Lily was longing and dying to be settled! Who was Harrasford's agent? If she had to go to London to see him, she would go.

Why, damn it, she would go to Heaven itself to get the Astrarium! Anything, anything to open there! That dream of greatness made her endure her present vexations. Mrs. Trampy ... Mrs. Trampy ... She was addressed as Mrs. Trampy everywhere. Trampy must be telling the story, taking his revenge for the whippings, making little of her in his turn. One night even, the night before her departure for Spain, when the architect was to wait for her at the door of the theater, Lily, who had dressed herself in her best, once more had the humiliation of being accosted by Trampy in front of everybody.

"Hullo, wifie! How are you, darling? All right?"

Lily bristled with rage as she left Paris. Even when she was far away, she still felt that she was dragging a chain which lengthened out endlessly without breaking. Never, oh, nothing could ever get her out of that! Yes, a brilliant triumph. Then, at least, she could crush him from the height of her success, that footy rotter with his red-hot stove! Oh, what a grudge she bore him! Jimmy was different: that was a wound of her own and nobody would ever know; but Trampy, who laughed at her everywhere and called himself her husband! He would make her lose all her friends. To say nothing of the fact that those tales perhaps counted for much in her failure: they were repeated from mouth to mouth. Oh, her profession disgusted her at times! And to think that she, an English girl, was going to earn her bread among the Dagoes, instead of starring in England!

Her wandering life continued; her journeys from town to town, in the Spanish provinces, her arrival in the chill of the morning, her anxiety about her salary, the hustle and bustle of departure and—trot, trot, trot!—lugged about in the railway-carriage, like a performing dog in his box.

And what theaters! It was worse than Germany or even Paris. In England, on the Harrasford tour or the Bill and Boom, they had nice dressing-rooms, with a carpet, water hot and cold, quick attendance, stairs swept every day. Here, old plaster and those idiots who looked as if they understood nothing—it took three of them to shift a scene—Dagoes who asked her straight out, in Pidgin-English, if she was alone:

"No man viz you?"

It touched her on the raw. Lily lost all her cheerfulness: to begin with, that engagement was not a particularly brilliant one; it was not at all calculated to prompt her to do better, to introduce novelties into her turn. Besides, on stages not yet overrun with Roofers or fat freaks, an artiste performing by herself made an impression. Her old tricks sufficed; sometimes she topped the bill:

"Theaters are the same everywhere; artistes the same everywhere, from New York to Bilbao. Topping the bill in one means topping the bill in the others ... doesn't it, Glass-Eye?"

But she knew quite well that it didn't; and, besides, that satisfaction of her vanity put no money in her pocket. The amount she owed, my! She thought of the past, of what she had earned for "them" since Mexico. If she had only had half of it, a quarter, a quarter of a quarter, damn it!

Meantime, she had to make herself respected. In those countries, where people used gestures when they spoke to you, a lady could not be too careful. Why, the men treated an English girl just as they treated their own women. She could have flung her bike at their heads! And they kept it up all night, as in Russia, all except the jewels; you had to stay till morning and were expected to accept invitations for supper, so as to keep the customer there and push business! A little more and she would have had to sleep there! She had threatened to tear up her contract, to complain to the consul. And what annoyed her also was being in the same dressing-room with singers who undressed without shame, while receiving their friends, and made eyes at Lily worse than the impersonator.

And she had to have her food at the theater, no dessert, nothing but a biscuit or an apple; and, if she asked for a pear, it caused a terrible to-do. Rather than stand that, Lily went to the hotel, which put her to double expense, for the board at the theater was compulsory. She had to pay in any case; so that she went away without a farthing, thinking herself very lucky if the manager did not try to kiss her in his office. Oh, the things she saw, the things she rubbed shoulders with, the vice, the promiscuity, the rushes of girls in the passages before the onslaughts of footy rotters, direct propositions, with eyes looking straight into eyes, brief wooings on the stairs, behind the properties, between people just about to take the train, one east, the other west, and in a hurry to have done with it; a silent embrace in the dressing-room, a neigh, a kiss; and au revoir, ta-ta!

And the conversations between the stage-girls, who were always surrounded by legends of the white slave-trade; stories of disappearances; of "engagements for Caracas" and finding one's self over there without resources, stranded in a bad house: like that poor girl, a Roofer, who had received a letter and some sweets in her slipper, which she had sent flying into the audience with a high kick—Lily remembered—well, she had disappeared in South America, somewhere; one or two despairing letters and then silence. And that other one, at Alexandria, who had called out for help, behind her green blinds; and ever and ever so many others, whom she had known slightly. Lily shivered: brrrrrr!

She was sick to death of it. She had had enough of it, was fed up with it. She aspired to better things. Lily had hoped that her engagement in Spain would have marked the end of her bad luck; but no, nothing offered. She was sour, bitter, fierce; a wild bull, a stallion, as Ma used to say. And she became especially terrible now, when her energy was spent in neither work nor love, so much so that there was a cross against her name in the agents' books.

Oh, she had often felt inclined to send them all to the devil: the made-up eyes, the kiss-me-quick lips, the tow wigs, the low jokes, the monkey-claws! There were some who had merit, no doubt, like that boy who was all over scratches, from head to foot, through training cats; but the rest, almost all of them, were a pack of good-for-nothings who copied their betters: amateurs, jossers all; and they had more work than she, who had taken such pains and who had made a fortune for her Pa. Oh, if that wasn't enough to make her chuck everything and see life, in her turn. She had only to choose ...

These reflections came to her more particularly when she returned to Paris, after Brussels and Copenhagen, and was again performing at the Bijou Theater, where she had already appeared.

"To make all that money," thought Lily, when she saw Poland again, "and never to have been through the mill!"

She admired Poland for that, envied her good manners, her grace, the way she slipped on her dressing-wrap in the living picture, The Bath. She turned green with jealousy at the sight of Poland's motor-car, her thousand-pound ear-rings, her sable furs. It was not that Lily lacked admirers or sympathizers. She even had a little triumph at the Bijou Theater, one day when she passed round the hat for old Martello, who was ill in bed and penniless. Lily topped the bill in her own fashion, by putting her name at the head of the list, and the collection was a success, everybody contributed ... including the architect, who was still prowling round her, in the passages, on the stage, everywhere. Lily was decidedly courted: the rich bookmaker who ran the theater as his private harem, he, too, patted her cheek in a funny way, complimented her on her firm, round hips before the group of dancing-girls packed like poultry, in the shadow of the pillars. Gee, it only rested with herself to have as much of that as Poland! And everything reeked with love, amid the cannonade of the big drums and the clash of the cymbals, while the sudden flashes of the reflectors, moonlight-blue on one side, bright-red on the other, lit up all around her the herd of the languid Hours. But her heart swelled and puffed with pride. No, no, not that! She would succeed by her talent, damn it, not by getting round men! She, an English girl; she, Pa's daughter; she, who had gone through the mill, to sell herself like cat's meat! Never! And her Ma should beg her pardon on her knees, on her knees, damn it! The thought infuriated her.

She was quite sincere with herself. It was all her fault. She ought to have worked and practised, practised every day, improved and improved her turn; but she would do so now, to-morrow. It was her last chance. She had hardly any money left; her three years' book was virgin once again, unsoiled by contracts; but she had a stage to practise on and she was going to practise to-morrow even if she had to pay somebody to run after her, with the belt, if need be! Lily had nothing but that in her head now: to get out of her present life, to get out of the mud, to reach the summit at a bound. Was it possible? She consulted the Zanzigs; she spent a fortune in penny-in-the-slot machines to learn the future, but always received the same reply:

"You will marry the man who loves you. You will be very happy."

She smiled with pity when she read that nonsense; to prophesy her marriage: how silly! She was only too much married! That was not what she wanted to know; but the Astrarium! the Astrarium! Would she be there or would she not? The New Trickers were plotting to get there, with a turn which she had given them, goose that she was; and Cousin Daisy, that farthing dip, would triumph and not she, a star, a real one! Lily was rather in the position of Pa, when he arrived in London from New York ... with this difference, that Pa had money and Lily had none. But there was the same display of energy, once her pride was aroused. Lily also had run round Paris like a mad thing: not to the agents!—with them it was: "Lily? Lily Clifton? nothing your way to-day!"—but to her friends and acquaintances, to find out about the Astrarium. Lily grew crazy at the idea that she might perform there, be there at the opening, ride over all of them, treat the New Trickers like so many fat freaks!

"Oh, God, if it were true!" she cried, with her hand on her lucky charm. "God above grant that it may come true!"

She was at the end of her tether. Nothing short of the Astrarium could set her on her legs again. She had no choice; it was either that or an absolute come-down: the nautch-girl on the bike, at Earl's Court, or else nights of dissipation, champagne and diamonds, like Poland; and Lily, like her Pa in the old days, clenched her fists and gnawed her lip as she went off to the Three Graces, who had their engagement and who would be able to give her some hints.

Lily knew their hotel by reputation. Nothing but pros; a rallying-point of troupes, an hotel where nobody's skin was free from bruises and where, from morning until night, you heard the clatter of the clog-dancers' heels. It reeked of potatoes, of sleepers three in a bed; chests, strange-shaped packing-cases, ticketed with distant labels, made the yard look like the stage-entrance of a music-hall. Lily did not care for that sort of place: no matter; besides, the Bambinis were there and their mad rushes, their yells of mirth filled the gloomy house with gaiety. And Lily did not mind walking in with her gold-tasseled hat on. All those heads at the windows: it was just like a fine lady visiting the poor. And yet she was not proud now. Formerly, she would have laughed on learning the kind of life led by the Three Graces, those three girls who remained good so as not to break up the troupe and annoy Nunkie and who were said to spend their spare time in sewing and cooking and doing Sandow exercises and measuring one another round the biceps and the chest: simple joys, the only true ones.

"They may be right, after all," thought Lily, who envied them from the bottom of her heart for having the Astrarium. "If I had only practised too! Practising is certainly better than attaching all that importance to dresses or sending those puff photographs to the agents!"

A surprise awaited Lily when she entered the hotel; pros were talking with a mysterious air. There was muttering in the corners, a piece of news was going round: the Bijou Theater had closed, that very day; the treasury was empty, bankrupt; everything sealed up; just on the eve of pay-day too!



"My! Is it possible?" thought Lily, distracted and forgetting the Astrarium and the Three Graces. "And what am I to do for food to-morrow? Come, quick, Glass-Eye!" she whispered, catching her a thump in the ribs. "To the theater, quick!"

For Lily knew by experience that it was a good thing to be first. Her Pa had saved his salary once, in a similar case, at Perth, in Australia; but one must arrive in time.



CHAPTER V

There was a crowd in front of the Bijou when she arrived. They were commenting on a notice pasted on the door:

"Ferme."

What could that mean? Lily had not provided for this in her vocabulary of the French language; but the theater was closed until new arrangements could be made. It meant complete ruin, enforced idleness....

"The rotten lot!" growled Lily. "Money, damn it, money! Pay up, you pack of thieves!"

But Lily soon recovered herself, when she saw that there was nothing to be done. She had been through worse than that, when the iron curtain all but smashed her to a jelly, at Milwaukee, and when she tumbled into the orchestra, at Glasgow! Notwithstanding the anguish that wrung her inside and heralded the coming hunger, Lily put a good face on the matter before all those people, like a lady who is above that sort of thing: a disappointment, that was all.

"But how will those small artistes manage?" she seemed to say. "Those families with babies?"

Lily declared that it was very sad, called Glass-Eye to witness, as usual; but poor Glass-Eye remained dumb, reflected that she would never, never be paid, if this went on. Lily owed her eighteen months' wages now! True, she got enough to eat, or nearly; she traveled with Lily; and she wore her old hats.

Meanwhile, the door opened; the artistes were allowed to take away the implements of their work, before the final closing. The move began: they fetched out basket trunks, hoisted packing-cases on to cabs. It was a heartrending sight, all those things, made for the glitter of the footlights, now displayed in the street. And everybody made such haste as he could, under the eyes of the inquisitive passers-by, for fear of a general execution, with every door sealed up and days to wait before one could recover one's property. Fellow-artistes from other theaters came to look on. Some were indignant that the Artistes' Federation could not take up the matter and hurl the experience of its lawyers at the heads of the proprietor or syndicate responsible, to say nothing of the moral weight of its five thousand members, who had already made the English music-halls come to terms by means of a wholesale strike. Others observed that it was a private theater, one of those theaters run, for the fun of it, by some prosperous gambler or lucky bookmaker; a sort of harem theater, with almost empty houses, but with swells on the stage, among the swarm of half-naked women; and no one responsible, the old boy ruined, the treasury empty, bankruptcy; couldn't be helped; take in your belt a peg, that's all!

"What do you think of this, eh, Lily?" asked a voice. "Only yesterday we were passing the hat for others!"

Lily still had the list; and the money was locked up in one of the dressing-rooms. Then it passed from mouth to mouth, like a watchword: they would give back the collection; but not in the street, not before everybody, for the honor of the profession. Lily, quite excited, entered the passage and there, in the dim light, assisted by two one-legged artistes, who called out the amounts and ticked off the names, she handed back the collection of the previous day. Some received their share with an air of furious determination; others looked shy and blushed; others, again, refused, Lily among them; and it was decided to go to the "Pros' Corner," or artistes' bar, near the stage entrance, to drink up what remained: the ups and downs of life, damn it! Your turn to-day, mine to-morrow; jolly lucky not to break a leg, after all! And their gaiety returned, amid the smoke and the glasses, through a need of reaction; and, after the first drink or two, came jokes, after-dinner stories, impromptus which had traveled ten times round the world and brought tears of laughter to the eyes of the audiences in thousands of music-halls, not to speak of the second-class cabins of every ship of every line and the smoking-carriages of every train, from the G. I. P. R. of Bombay to the S. F. of Buenos Ayres.

"Owen Moore went West one day, Owing more than he could pay. Owen Moore came back to-day— Owing more!"

And they joined in the chorus and they sang, "We all came into this world with nothing!" and the one-legged artistes beat time with their crutches, my! the pink Hour and the scarlet Hour, who were there, got a stitch in their sides. Lily, with her head flung back, full-throated, laughed nervously. Besides, as she said, artistes did as they pleased and didn't care a hang for anybody! All made plans for the morrow, all had been through that sort of thing before and much worse, too: six stories cleared at a bound, to escape from a theater in flames! Falls of seventy feet on one's head! And wrecks! And waves miles high! Already they began to talk of going away, of traveling; traced the route with their finger on the table: Cape Town, Australia, the States. To listen to them, those everlasting wanderers seemed to have pretty nearly the whole world under their hands. They spoke of taking a rest at their permanent addresses: good old London; good old Manchester; there was nothing like good old England, after all, eh? They'd had enough of the Dago countries!

But enthusiasm broke out when the great news arrived, brought by some one straight from the agencies: Harrasford—"Guess, boys!"—Harrasford had bought the Bijou Theater! It was all signed and sealed. He was carrying out his program: and he wanted to open at once. For three months, it appeared, there had been a silent struggle between him and the unlucky bookmaker, who did not want to sell; and Harrasford had got it almost for nothing; he had practically won it, yesterday, at the races,—with Dare Devil, his wonderful horse. Dare Devil had beaten Cataplasm, his rival's colt, and the smash had followed at once: the Bijou closed; a forced sale; Harrasford had bagged it; and that was one, with more to come!

The artistes were carried away by this daring stroke! Harrasford, a son of a gun, who could put them all in his pocket! The one-legged artistes fought a mock duel between France and England, the victor to marry Lily: what did they think of that? Hurrah!

"Say, boys, which is the quickest way of dropping money?"

"Fast women!"

"No, slow horses!"

It was grand. They drank to everybody's health. They drank to Harrasford; they drank to the Astrarium! They counted the money on the bar-counter; the amount of the collection had been greatly exceeded and somebody suggested that it was a nice thing, upon my word, yes, a very nice thing, what they were doing: having a good time, while the Bambinis, perhaps, were going to bed without any supper! The whiskies and sodas had warmed their hearts: my turn to-day, yours to-morrow, damn it! It might happen to any of them, to hop the twig and leave Bambinis behind him.

"Lily, the hat!"

And Lily handed round the hat again and collected more than on the day before, even among those who had had their money back.

"Take that to the Bambinis," they said. "We've been behaving like Dagoes, damn it! Artistes ought not to act as such!"

"'K you! 'K you!"

And Lily Clifton walked off, very proudly, with her maid, to hand the money to Nunkie, who was acting as treasurer.

"And, meantime, one's got to live," said Lily to herself, when she was outside.

After the spurious gaiety of the moment, she seemed to be returning to her distress, with no work, no money, the Bijou closed, Harrasford taking possession of the theater. She revolved all this in her head, without succeeding in connecting the whole: rags of ideas hung in her brain, like the strips of scenery at the back of the stage. She had not even the courage to go and take her bike ... to-morrow ... to-morrow. The Hours, the pink one and the scarlet one, who came out of the bar also, resigned themselves gaily. Their salary mattered so little. As they explained to Lily, you're always well paid, when you have rich friends, and, if you haven't, all you have to do is to look out for them:

"Like Poland, what! A fat lot she cares the old boy's ruined! All she will do is to find another, change her owner!"

Lily had knocked up against everything, seen everything, heard everything, in her adventurous life; but this way of getting out of a difficulty always made her blush to her eyes. No, a triumph at the Astrarium: that was the only solution for her, Lily Clifton! She was eager also to hand the money to Nunkie. The Bambinis' money was a different matter from Jimmy's: they were hungry children. Nunkie must be at the theater now, with his Three Graces, quite close, and they were going to perform at the Astrarium. So it was not essential never to have appeared in Paris! That meant one more chance for her!

"Come along, Glass-Eye!"

They now passed into the noisy quarters. The Olympia opened its furnace of light before them. The Three Graces stood displayed in life-size on posters, with others beside them, names which Lily knew vaguely, as she knew them all, from seeing them somewhere,—as she knew the stage-entrance of the Olympia, by instinct, in the dark street, at the side: the mouth by which the monster nightly swallowed and rejected its fill of meat. A courtyard ... three steps up ... turn to the right ... Lily was at home again, amid rainbow lights.

"Hullo, Lily!"

It was Nunkie greeting her on the stage, while his dear girls were dressing in their room. He took the money for the Bambinis, congratulated Lily on the result of her collection, thanked her.

"And what about the Astrarium?" asked Lily. "Do you know...?"

Of course, Nunkie knew. His dear girls were engaged to perform there. And he had seen some one on his way to the theater: the opening would take place in a month ... in six weeks at the latest....

The architect—"You know, Lily?" said Nunkie—the architect who used to hang about on the stage, in the passages, on some pretext or other—to make love to girls, apparently—was minding everything for Harrasford! He was taking measurements, drawing out plans:



"Everything is ready in advance, everything's ordered; they've only got to put things in their places; the workmen will start to-morrow."

"So that's what he came for!" thought Lily angrily. "The damned parley-voo!"

"And your Pa, you know," continued Nunkie, "will be there too, with his New Trickers: it would have been easy for you to get there first," he added, with a meaning smile.

"The New Trickers! Daisy Woolly-legs!" stammered Lily, turning pale. "Who told you so?"

"I'm sure of it, I had it from Jimmy himself," replied Nunkie.

"Jimmy told you? And what has Jimmy to do with it?" asked Lily, anguish-stricken.

"What has he to do with it? Why, he's simply going to top the bill," said Nunkie. "And, besides, Harrasford has left it to him to make out the program. Why, didn't you know?... Your friend Jimmy...?"

She was in the street once more, feeling weak-kneed and light-headed. She leaned on Glass-Eye's arm; she had a pain in her side from the emotion. She felt inclined to enter a cafe, to get drunk on champagne, to forget.

The next day an awful headache made her keep her room.

"To-morrow," she said to Glass-Eye, "to-morrow I will fetch my bike."

She dared not go out; she felt as if it was written on her forehead:

"The New Trickers at the Astrarium! Daisy Woolly-legs at the Astrarium and not you!"

And, "to-morrow," again she spent the day stretched on her bed. And the next day, well, as she had to ... as her bike was her bread-winner, after all ... her only bread-winner, whatever happened!...

"Come on, Glass-Eye! Let's go for the bike! I don't care if I do play the darky at Earl's Court!"

But, on reaching the Bijou, she could not restrain a cry. Nunkie had spoken the truth; they were at work everywhere, unloading joists, running up scaffoldings, attacking the theater from every side. Her friend, the architect, passed, looking very busy, greeted her with a "Hullo, Lily!" But Lily did not even see him.

"I hope our things are still in the dressing-room. Hurry up, Glass-Eye!"

And Lily ran along the passage, where already sacks of plaster had taken the place of the velvet and nickel properties. She crossed the stage, which was still untouched, took the dressing-room corridor and there, almost before her door, met Jimmy! She felt like turning her back on him, after spitting on the floor, as a mark of contempt; but, after all, no! The coward! They'd see which of them should lower eyes first! And she planted hers straight in his face, like a blow of the fist!

Jimmy, who was coming toward her, had a moment of hesitation ... but it did not last. He soon recovered himself. It would have been obvious to any one seeing that masterful face that here was a man cured of his love, a strong man and sure of himself, a man whom a kid like Lily—Lily had always remained a kid to him, and not Mrs. Trampy, not the wife of Trampy, that thief in the night!—a man whom a kid like Lily could not have at her beck and call. And he held out his hand, like a good friend, simply, among artistes: