But Lily was grandest of all at the rehearsals. She was now no longer a lady: she once more became the Spartan, bare-necked, her hair undone, her body streaming with perspiration, and to work, to work, to make up for lost time! In the mornings, alone on the deserted stage, she practised and practised....

“Come on!” said Jimmy. “And mind you do your work properly,” he added, with a laugh, “or else, you know ...”

And he patted the back of his hand.

“I don’t care!” said Lily.

“You may break your head, you know,” continued Jimmy, to try her.

“It’s none of your damned business if I do! Show me your tricks. To work!”

And Jimmy showed her a movement to execute on her bike, which she had brought with her: balancings, as in “Bridging the Abyss,” an excellent training for the aerobike. And Lily went about it clear-eyed, hard-cheeked, with all the little muscles contracted on her stubborn forehead, ready to butt at the obstacle. A few falls to begin with, but she jumped up again nimbly:

“That’s all right!” she said. “It’s part of the game!”

“But stop, stop,” insisted Jimmy. “Be careful!”

They were sometimes on the stage for hours at a time, but to Lily, all wrapped in her work, it seemed so many minutes. She understood the jerk which she was to give at the moment when, after rolling along the inclined plane, she should shoot out into space for the soaring flight of fifty yards:

“The start, that’s the great thing with the back-wheel,” she observed. “The rest goes of itself.”

“Don’t cry till you’re out of the wood!” said Jimmy. “It’ll be different when you’re riding the aerobike.”

Lily was longing to begin that famous practice! And, a few days later, she at last had that delight, took that further step toward triumph. Jimmy removed the bird from the cage, fixed it on a stand. When Lily sat in the saddle, she was crimson with pleasure, prouder than a princess sitting on a throne for the first time:

“There,” she said. “Here I am! And what next?”

Jimmy explained the complicated touches—“Press your left foot, there, like that, to make it point upward”—and showed how, explained why; then he passed to the working of the handle-bar—“There, like that, to turn it, there”—and how and why the saddle slipped backward and forward.

“And then?”

“That’s all.”

“That’s all?” repeated Lily. “That won’t want any smackings! Let’s see, like this, eh? Then that. Suppose I’m coming down at full speed. I throw myself backward, a back push, there, like that. A kick, gently, there, that’s it. I’ll do it as soon as you like! This minute, if necessary!”

But Jimmy, without replying to these sallies, proceeded methodically. He made her practise again, standing still, with the motor going at half-speed. This was a different impulse: the displacement of the air raised a stormy wind, the dust flew, the scenery hanging from the flies waved to and fro and Lily shook in her saddle under the vibration of the propeller.

“Well, Lily?” said Jimmy. “That shakes you up, eh? That complicates matters?”

“Pooh!” said Lily. “And what about the boards? There are some of them that are pretty rough, too! At Pittsburg, you know, it’s like riding over cobblestones. I prefer that to a stage that’s too smooth: it’s less treacherous.”

A few days later, Jimmy ran up a steel cable from the stage to the opening in the ceiling, which was now finished and covered with a tarpaulin; and Lily was to try the flying. At the time for practice, there was no one in the theater, from which the scaffoldings had been removed. There were no seats on the floor or in the boxes: everything was being made outside, and would be put in place in a day or two. In the afternoon, when there was no practice, the house was filled with workmen, painters, upholsterers, carpenters, whose places were taken by others at night, working by electric light. Ten days more and they would have the triumphal opening; already Paris was covered with picture placards: you saw Tom, as a caryatid, supporting the weight of a palace; the Three Graces entwined in their radiant nudity; the impersonator standing, like a Don Juan, surrounded by a bevy of women: the ballet-girl, the shop-girl, the fine lady; then, besides those, the New Trickers—“My idea!” thought Lily, but she didn’t care a jot now—the New Trickers fluttered round Daisy. You saw the elephants; the monkey; Patti-Patty, the white negress; all, all, down to the Bambinis, whom Lily had “got” engaged. The whole program was reverberated on the walls and hoardings, like a thousand-voiced echo. An even larger poster than the others, all blue, strewn with stars, displayed the aerobike in full flight in the sky; and a human figure, seated upon it, lifted a hand filled with rays.

The mere sight of the posters was enough to stimulate Lily to the maddest feats of daring. She felt herself firmer than steel, when she thought of the New Trickers and of Pa and Ma, who were coming with Daisy, their farthing dip!

When everything was ready, Jimmy hung the aerobike to the steel cable by two ropes, ten feet long, ending in pulleys which ran along the cable. Each of these two ropes was looped up and the loop secured with thin twine: this was an infallible way of ascertaining if the aerobike weighed down upon them or if it was supporting itself in the air; the two cords acted as a spring balance registering the tension in the rope. Should the twine break, because the aerobike rested on the ropes, then the ropes would unloop and the machine remain hanging without any danger for Lily. This was the way in which Jimmy had worked when learning “his trade as a bird,” as he called it; and Lily, he had no doubt, would succeed even better than he did, being more supple, lighter and quite as plucky.

Oh, the rapture with which Lily bestrode the aerobike for the first flight!

Jimmy and two confidential assistants hauled up the machine to the top of the inclined plane that gave it its impetus. Jimmy spent an endless time in verifying and testing everything. The electric wire that set the propeller in motion also caused him uneasiness. It had to unroll behind and follow the aerobike without weighing upon it, without retarding its flight; for the machine, which was necessarily a small one, to be able to move within a confined space, did not carry the additional load of a motor, but only a wire, as wireless transmission of power was not yet available. At last, when everything was provided for, Jimmy allowed Lily to make her trial. He trembled; not that she ran any danger, for a fall was impossible: the machine was stopped, up above, automatically, by a cable stretched crosswise and fastened to a strong spring, which slowed and stayed the flight within the space of a few yards. But if the two pieces of twine broke suddenly and if this happened several times in succession, the shocks might come to frighten Lily, for all her self-control.

And Jimmy went on explaining.

“I know,” said Lily. “I quite understand. It’s like this, like this, yes, I know. It’s only a matter of trying! It’s a trick I’ve got to do and that’s all about it! Daisy would kill herself on it and so would the fat freaks, but I shan’t! I shall succeed.”

“Well, then, steady!” cried Jimmy, and his voice rang through the empty theater. “Go!”

The machine ran down with a swoop, the propeller whirred, Lily gave a magnificent back push, when she reached the bottom of the inclined plane; then she went straight up and the two pieces of twine snapped in two. Lily found herself hanging fifty feet in the air, the two pulleys glided slowly backward toward the stage. Jimmy stopped the machine.

“That’s wrong!” cried Lily. “Let’s try again. I see what it was: I forgot to push down my foot to point the machine up. It was a slip.”

However, at the next attempt, it went better. The twine broke each time, but Lily rectified her movements:

“It’s my back push! It’s the propeller! It’s the front-wheel!”

And, in fact, that was what it was. Jimmy and his assistants, who followed her with their eyes, had noted the fault and Lily, too, had observed it, in spite of the giddy flight. She was extraordinarily plucky and cool, her eight stone of flesh and bone, unerring and exact, seemed made for the aerobike.

“Bravo, Lily! Hurrah!” cried Jimmy.

She could have screamed for joy in the street, as she went out.

Her unparalleled stroke of luck in being chosen tickled her heart. She felt her sense of responsibility increase and also her wish to do well; no sooner had she left off practising than she was seized with but one idea, to begin again:

“Eight days more!” she thought.

At night, she dreamed of backward jerks, of turning the handle-bar, pushing the pedal. Poor Glass-Eye, cowering in a corner of the bed, had terrible nightmares, and, in the morning, after Lily’s kicks, she rose with her ribs smarting and her shins all black and blue. That was all her profit, for Lily had hardly any money left and was not yet drawing a salary.

Lily submitted to all sorts of privation with a proud dignity. She would be beholden to nobody. Soon her whole fortune would consist of her box of lucky halfpence and a franc which she had won by turning a cartwheel, for a bet, among artistes, in the country, to stagger the jossers. And so their little evening meal was a scanty one. A sausage, a little fruit, a cup of tea ... and then to bed. That was better than listening to the owner of the Hours and all those men who propose things to you. Never, never! Her work, her work! Lord, after what she had seen of Poland and the Hours, it was much simpler to work, to be self-reliant. At night, sometimes, Lily would lie awake and think ... where did that three hundred francs of the Bijou come from? Not from the Bijou: Cataplasm’s defeat had swallowed up everything and the theater had long been without a penny; they used to fill the house with paper distributed among the staff, with orders to get rid of it anyhow. They were not far short of inviting soldiers from the barracks. There had never been more than two hundred seats paid for of an evening; it meant flat bankruptcy. And she was the only one who had received anything: why? How? Then it must have been some admirer, but who? Not the architect, surely, that josser! Who then? And why had Jimmy engaged the Bambinis, when she asked him to? He did everything to please her. He was letting her top the bill: why? She made a heap of guesses, without getting at the exact truth ... Jimmy ... Jimmy ... that man, with his coldness, interested her. While so many others were prowling around her, he alone seemed indifferent. She would have liked to see him in love with her ... to make him suffer a little in his turn! All the beauty-shows which Lily had seen, all the exhibitions of painted Hours had not spoiled her good taste: Jimmy pleased her, with that strong face of his. What an endless pity that she had married Trampy! She gave a scornful pout when she thought of it: she married to Trampy! Married to that soaker: she, a woman made for a man, a creature of flesh and blood, who admired fine muscles, rough sport and virile smackings! Gee, if she had been a man, it seemed to her that she would have enjoyed spoiling a little Lily: outside working hours, of course! And, if a little Lily had asked her, “Do you love me, yes or no?” she would never have answered no. To-day, she would have bitten off her own tongue rather than put that question to Jimmy! And yet Jimmy had a dignity about him that pleased her. She could see into the game of the others. The architect, for instance, would give her just a smile in passing, a pleasant word, as one performs a social duty, between two pieces of business. A little amusement, no more: that was all she was to him ... and to all of them. Jimmy seemed different. But, still, if he loved her, why hadn’t he the courage to tell her so? And, besides, when all was said, she was sick and tired of men! Some of them ran after you like dogs; others, damn it, were icicles! A girl could have Marjutti’s figure, Thea’s arms, Nancy’s legs, Lillian’s or Laurence’s face ... and still they would not be satisfied! And thereupon Lily pursed her brows, asked herself how and why and went to sleep like a baby.

And the rehearsals continued every day, without respite. Lily became terrible the nearer she drew to success: her indomitable spirit mounted to her heart. Jimmy had difficulty in holding her in. She made twenty flights, thirty flights ... and the twine no longer broke. From that moment, she was sure of succeeding, always. When you have once succeeded, even if it be but once, you have no right ever to fail again. She had been brought up in those principles, had had them rubbed into her skin. She could not fail now, it was impossible! Even in her flight to the opening up above! She had learned her “times,” she knew how to aim exactly at the right spot. Jimmy hastened to have the roof arranged for the final exit, when the aerobike would disappear before the eyes of the audience, in the star-strewn sky. All that remained was to get everything ready for the final rehearsal: the complete show, with all lights lit, as for a gala night. Lily seemed to see it all beforehand. On the day when she realized that no accident was possible, that it was a trick of which she was certain, she stifled a cry of triumph in her throat. She was afraid to believe in it herself, so greatly did it surpass her dreams. She would have stayed for days on the aerobike to experience the delight of the leap into space. It seemed to her as though she were becoming a bird and about to hover in mid-air and leave them all behind her, in the crowd below ... all, all ... and be a little Lily, flying away on the back-wheel before their noses.

“You’ll make yourself ill,” said Jimmy. “Take a rest; there’s no need to tire yourself; you do it as well as I.”

For Jimmy, of course, had done the thing too, if only to show Lily; besides, it was easy for him, who had had so much practice in London and who knew his machine from end to end. And he appreciated the difficulty all the more. He admired Lily’s incredible pluck, her all-devouring ambition and that splendid determination to get out of her scrape, to be a little Lily earning her bread as she knew how, by her work, even if she had to break her neck in the doing of it! And proud to her finger-tips, in spite of the dog’s life she had led.

“If I had not procured her this delight,” thought Jimmy, “I should never have forgiven myself to the end of my days.”

And, from working with her for hours and hours, from holding her by the waist at the first trials, from feeling that little body quiver under his hand, from seeing Lily rush at danger, Jimmy became madly in love with her again ... if he had ever ceased to be so! Ah, if Trampy...! But Lily was married ... the divorce depended on the husband ... and the husband wouldn’t have it ... at any price: not for a million, he said, by Jove, would he be separated from a little wife whom he adored!

“Poor Lily!” thought Jimmy sadly. “Will she always be doomed to drag that dead weight about with her?”

During the intervals for rest, while Lily wiped the perspiration from her forehead, Jimmy talked to her ... at first, of insignificant things ... the name “Astrarium,” for instance ... a place devoted to planets, to stars: as a palmarium is to palms. Stars ... that was to say, bill-toppers: the Three Graces; the Laurences; the Lillians; the Marjuttis; the Lilies ... yes, the Lilies! Then he pitied her for belonging to Trampy; and what a good little Lily she would have been if she had remained with her family!

“But I am a good little Lily!” she said, with a display of childish vehemence. “What more do you want? We artistes do what we jolly well please, and we don’t care a damn for the rest!” And she had half a mind to tell him that it was all his fault! “I had to do a silly thing and I did it,” she continued, with an expression of regret on her face. “I married without love, but lovers, my! I’ve had, I may say, as many as I wanted ... from the son of a lord down.”

And Lily, to excite him, told him the long array of her love affairs, as it was told everywhere, on the Bill and Boom Tour, on the Harrasford, on the Eastern and Western Tours, like the whippings and the rest.

“Yes, I know,” replied Jimmy, very coldly.

“What, you don’t believe me!” exclaimed Lily. “There were men who would have left wife and child for me! ... heaps of lovers, tons of them!”

“My poor Lily, having so many is the same as having none at all,” added Jimmy dreamily.

But still he did not declare his love: besides, he had constantly to leave her, to go and give orders, or climb up on the roof, or look at the heating-apparatus, below.

Lily watched him go, followed him with a sphinx-like glance, while a vague smile flickered about her lips....

But she hardly had time to think of all this: the assistants replaced the bird in its cage, locked the door, opened that leading to the dressing-room passage and the artistes arrived and took up their places on their carpets.

Lily had seen it a hundred times, a thousand times, “millions of times!” She never wearied of it. She spent the day there, among the groups of bloomers: the Three Graces, bare-armed, went to work, practised the human cluster; Nunkie kept an eye on his dear nieces and rehearsed the Bambinis, now that old Martello was keeping his room for good. Lily, who was almost reduced to eating dry bread, but who remained the fine lady nevertheless, brought them bags of sweets. Calmed by her work, she sat down in a corner, laughed, her head thrown back, full-throated, applauded the others with her thumbnail, shook hands with new-comers, made herself liked by all. And it was:

“Hullo, girls! Hullo, boys! Dear old Blackpool! What’s the news at the Palace? Who’s topping the bill at the Hippodrome?”

Lily, on her rickety chair, made as it were a little center at which the news was exchanged; to think that, instead of being there, at the top of the profession, she might have been at Glasgow, some twopenny theater, where ladies are admitted without shoes or stockings, or playing the darky at Earl’s Court! Yes, but for Jimmy, that’s where she would have been! Or else the Parisienne, in Russia! She, an English girl, my! And Lily fervently touched her lucky charm: oh, work, work, thank goodness for it! And Lily rendered homage to work and sprang from her chair to shake hands with Tom, who had come to see his palace unpacked:

“Good morning, Tom! Welcome!”

This Tom, who now topped the bill everywhere and had a permanent address and his own scenery: wasn’t it wonderful? He was no longer her Pa’s old servant: genius removes all distances; a man is what he makes himself! And they shook hands warmly, like equals.

Lily, as a sensational bill-topper and a friend of Jimmy’s, was always in great request. She talked nicely, without pose of any kind, like a woman who is sure of herself and knows things. The Astrarium ... the Astrarium ... what did that mean? They asked Lily:

“It’s like ... a palmarium,” she explained, “with sunflowers in it, all sorts of things ... girls ... stars ...”

She described her journeys, storms, gee! Weren’t there, Glass-Eye? People who had never been outside Europe and the States had no idea! Lily talked of India, Africa, Australia; talked of lions, which stand on their hind-legs when they’re angry, and tigers, which lie down flat; mentioned stage friendships between elephants and camels and herself in the midst of it all: “That high!” lowering her hand to six inches from the floor; talked of animal-training: dogs, cats, sea-lions and that “great, big, wicked Australian rabbit” which boxed like a man. She was a well-informed person, was Lily. And a providence for her family also, to listen to her. When any one brought news of her Pa and the New Trickers, with Daisy as a statue on her pedestal, one of the successes of the year:

“Yes,” Lily replied, in a patronizing tone, “I know. It was my idea. I gave it to them!”

They thought it very nice of her. She listened with great dignity to what they said about the New Trickers. They would not be at the Astrarium on the opening night. They were finishing an engagement on the Bill and Boom that same evening. They would be in Paris the next day. Mr. Clifton was reckoning on this appearance for the final triumph of his troupe ... and he deserved it. What a man, Mr. Clifton, what a man! “Not easy to please, eh, Lily?” And the inevitable gesture followed. But Lily would have none of that now, she would not hear her Pa spoken of as a brute! Did they take her for a performing dog? One was born with the gift or else one remained all one’s life a Daisy or a fat freak! She was proud to have a Pa like hers. She wasn’t a mountebank picked up on the road! Lily had a Pa and a Ma: a Ma of her own, a Ma whom she was certain about. She bore a well-known name. She belonged to the “father and son” aristocracy of the music-hall. She had never needed “that” to make her practice, she an artiste, brought up like a lady:

“Wasn’t I, Glass-Eye? Tom, wasn’t I?”

And the jewelry and the sweets her Pa bought her, my! Tons of it! Of course, he would stand no nonsense about behavior; and Lily made them all laugh till the tears came about that footy rotter who made love to her in London, before the time when drink made him look so disgusting, and, when she loitered in the street with him, Pa, the moment she reached the door, caught her such a blow that she took all the steps to the basement at one jump; and there found her Ma waiting for her ... gee!

“And they were quite right, too! And ... do they know that I’m going to top the bill at the Astrarium?” she asked.

“No, they think you’re in Spain or somewhere.”

“Somewhere!” said Lily to herself, with a thrill at her heart. “I’ll show them!”

She choked with joy at the idea of the startled look on the faces of Pa and Ma when they saw her on the aerobike. An exuberant gladness filled her heart. And that feverish work, those laborers everywhere, the opening in the roof, the terrace up above, those posters all over Paris and there, behind the iron door, in the dark, the bird! It was all for her: a theater for herself! And she felt a need to leap, to laugh, to spread gaiety all around her; and she rushed about madly with the Bambinis, romped with them behind the pillars, rolled with them on the floor of her dressing-room, became once again the Lily who had played truant all around the world, inventing practical jokes in India and climbing apple-trees in Honolulu. She crossed the combs and tooth-brushes on the Roofer girls’ tables, rushed into their room when they were undressed, drove the trembling herd of them distracted, talked of the thousand dangers that awaited them if they didn’t mend their ways, made them fly to their lucky charms to ward off ill-luck, when she offered them a yellow flower, with great pomp, or some broken glass in a jewel-box. Then she talked to the Three Graces, those big girls who always astonished her with their cloistered existence—Nunkie before everything—and who amused themselves by measuring one another round the biceps, round the chest, or else, with their elbows on the table, played at who should first bend back the other’s wrist. Lily sat down for a moment with them, then stopped, breathless with larking and talking, and went back to her dressing-room:

“I shall have months to spend in here!” she thought.

And, assisted by Glass-Eye, she pinned up bits of stuff, tied a silk bow to the back of the chair, put up nails for her costumes, laid out on her table long rows of post-cards, photographs of friends, all dispersed to the four quarters of the globe, some dead, others done for, all the poor witnesses of her life. Then she took her black gollywog from her trunk and kissed it passionately—“Darling! Darling! Darling!”—before hanging it up on the wall. And along the dressing-room passage and through the window came the sound of voices ... snatches of homesick tunes: From Rangoon to Mandalay or Way down upon the Suwanee River ... and “Hullo, Lily! Hullo, old boy!”... The female-impersonator walked into her room as though it were his own, sat down on the basket trunk, plunging his green eyes into hers.

And sometimes Jimmy passed, always at a run: something had gone wrong somewhere, the heating apparatus, the electric light....

“Hullo, Lily!” And he stopped for a moment, frowned at the sight of the impersonator. “Always busy?” he asked, seeing Lily, bare-armed, washing something in her basin.

“Have to be,” said Lily. “I always wash my little blouses; we do everything ourselves, don’t we, Glass-Eye? And, when I’m performing, I have two pairs of tights to wash a day!”

“Two pairs of tights!”

“Why, of course, matinÉe and night! You have no idea, Jimmy ... the nickel ... when I sit on the handle-bar, it makes a great mark ... just here, look!”

And she laughed at Jimmy over her shoulder while she pointed to the place ... and then blushed, like a frolicsome child that has been found out and is, oh, so sorry!

“Every one’s got to keep to his own dressing-room!” said Jimmy, feeling very uncomfortable, to the man with the green eyes. “You can’t stay here; it’s against the rules!”

“We’re doing no harm, please, Mr. Jimmy,” retorted Lily, sitting down beside the impersonator and slipping her arm round his waist.

“Poor Jimmy!” said the impersonator, when the other had left the room in a rage. “He’s jealous, isn’t he, darling?”

“He jealous? Then why doesn’t he say so? One can’t guess a thing like that! When you’re a man, you speak out!”

And the architect appeared in his turn, he, too, running from one end of the theater to the other. He wore a bandage over one eye:

“Knocked up against a beam ... a little accident. Have you seen Jimmy?”

“He’s over there, I think,” replied Lily, without troubling to look at him.

There was no jealousy about the architect. He stayed for a moment, sniffed at the scent-bottle, smiled at the photographs on the wall. A green-eyed impersonator, a blue-eyed impersonator: the room could have been full of impersonators, for all he cared. Dark girls, yellow girls, fair girls, so many playthings to distract him from his rules and compasses. He was bored at once; turned to another at once; and it was all so amusing! He was the typical lover of the woman of the stage, with his little surface passions. And very amiable withal, knowing them all, and friendly with them, a great purveyor of anecdotes:

“The Para-Paras, you know, Lily, committed suicide in their room ... awful poverty. The wife wasn’t ... Tottie enough ... and the husband was teaching the English accent to continental clowns! Poland? A magnificent engagement in Russia. Old Martello hasn’t three days to live. Oh ... and Nunkie! There’s news among the Three Graces! The troupe’s done for this time!”

And he told how, last night, poor Thea, while mending her uncle’s overcoat, found in the lining an old letter from America ... from some swain she had had over there ... a letter glowing with love and regret. Yes, Nunkie knew how to hold his nieces, the architect explained, laughing ... watched them like a Spanish duenna, confiscated the letters that came for them, if necessary, the old rogue, and calmed their ardors with a few drops of bromide in a glass of water, every evening, on the pretense of keeping them from catching cold in the drafts. Oh, the old rogue! And Thea had almost fainted with grief in her dressing-room when she read the letter.

“Quite a business, Lily! A scandal in their little home! Very funny, eh?” he added, as he ogled Lily’s pigeon’s eggs and rolled a cigarette.

Lily, who had seen poor Thea cry before and who knew to what extent her lover’s treachery had humiliated her, was secretly furious to hear that josser talk carelessly of things like that: did he imagine, the idiot, that they weren’t built like other people, in the profession, that they had no feelings? What need had the public to know about their lives? It was among themselves, quite among themselves, all that!

“Get out of my sight, you damned josser!” said Lily. “Go and eat coke!”

But the other, greatly amused, described his latest discovery, a pearl, in an out-of-the-way neighborhood ... at Vaugirard fair ... an extraordinary girl, showing off on a couple of trestles in front of a canvas booth, in which her man lifted weights to the light of the Argand burners:

“Picture this girl, Lily,” said the enthusiastic josser, “picture this girl on her trestles, doing weights, balancings, all sorts of things. A body like a boy’s, all muscle, and thin: whew! Not that much fat on her, no hips, arms and shoulders, like Michael Angelo’s flayed model. And I talked to her afterward! And her man gave me a queer look you know ... I got a blow....”

“Well done!” cried Lily, clapping her hands. “The beam, eh? That’ll teach you to meddle in other people’s business! Oh, you don’t know those tenters! One of these days you’ll be picked up with your face smashed in, or shot through the chest with a revolver.”

“I say, though,” the architect interrupted, “that girl ... I don’t know how we came to speak of you ... she knows you, Lily!”

“That’s right! Now I have mountebanks among my acquaintances!” said Lily, with an air of disgust. “Get out of this, I say!... You wanted Jimmy; there he is, look!”

And Lily, furious, jerked her head toward the passage.

When Lily went home again she did not even think of what she had just heard. The death of the Paras; the Graces ... Nunkie, that old rogue!... She forgot all about it.... She saw only that: the theater, the aerobike, the theater! Ah! she had it in her blood, in spite of those ugly stories! Even outside, when, upon Jimmy’s advice, she went to take the air in the parks, under the great blue sky, she regretted the dark stage, the canvas landscapes of the back-drops; the open-air scenery appeared paltry to her, beside it. Between her and nature there was always the aerobike! In a few days ... was it possible? She clenched her little hands over an imaginary handle-bar, hardened her pigeon’s eggs, made pedaling movements, in spite of herself, on the floor of the tram-car which she very soon took to get back to the theater again! It was her life, her joy, her suffering, her good and evil ... it was her field, her very own field, the field which she had sown with sweat that she might reap fame and glory.

And, when she returned, she reveled in that smell of hot glue and tar and scent; oh, it was much nicer than the country! And more interesting, too: all the little drama that was being enacted among the Graces, for instance; Nunkie had lost his wonderful reputation, he was surrounded with less reverence; the story of the confiscated letters was beginning its round of the world. It was all very well for him to spoil his dear girls, to double his attentions, to treble the doses of bromide; there was no doubt about it, the troupe’s days were numbered. The boy-violinist and others were making love to the Three Graces, fresh troupes were being formed, three more, any number! And they all talked freely, turned their backs without hesitation upon Nunkie, who was prowling round:

“Well?” he asked. “What’s the mystery?”

“We were discussing marriage, Nunkie,” the Graces answered.

“That’s right, my children,” he replied, with a sigh.

Lily, in all these plots and counter-plots, knew how to remain neuter and to be very nice to everybody; she had been trained from childhood to keep her opinions to herself; none of her damned business, all that; something that might have been foreseen and expected ... like the death of old Martello, which Jimmy told her of.... Yes, the old man had flickered out in his bed just like that....

But she needed all her composure, indeed, when Jimmy told her that those dear little Bambinis ... ah, there was bad news for them, the poor loves!

“What? What?” asked Lily.

“Well, we are going to lose them; they’ve been claimed by their brother, it seems.”

“What!” cried Lily. “Their brother? The ... the Mexican one?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Jimmy. “He’s come back from South America. He is in Paris now ... somewhere in a penny show, in the suburbs ... I don’t know where ... with a girl.”

“With a girl!” thought Lily.

Everything returned to her in a flash! The girl with the bruised skin ... that boy’s body all muscle ... Ave Maria! Ave Maria! Not dead! She felt inclined to run up to Trampy, to fly at his throat, to bellow in his face that Ave Maria was here, just to see the effect! But she restrained herself. Suppose it were not true? Oh, she would soon know! That footy rotter, if it were true! O God, grant that it might be true!

All this passed through her brain in less than a second.

“Why!” said Jimmy, seeing her turn pale. “Does that affect you so much ... the loss of your little friends, the Bambinis? For you’re going to lose them....”

“No, Jimmy!” she replied indignantly. “You shall not give up the Bambinis to their brother, a cruel, cowardly brute like that, right at the bottom of the profession. I know ... I’ve seen.... You shan’t do it, Jimmy, and, look here, I forbid you!”

“Well, Lily, Lily, I’ll do what I can, to please you, you know; I’ll try; I’ll see the police; you must give your evidence, if you have anything to say. Do you know, Lily, you are as good as gold. You’re a good little Lily: hard upon herself and kind to others.”

But he was interrupted ... Jimmy here, Jimmy there ... he was wanted ... for the flies, for the roof.... Jimmy flew to the stage, bothered on every side, worried by the Astrarium ... and Lily. Lily! He could not escape her now, do what he might! He had her in his heart, in his brain, everywhere. She lived and existed in his breast, shot up there like a flame! Whatever he had been told about her he no longer knew, did not want to know. And, besides, even if it had been true, oh, he would have forgiven everything! He would have passed over everything! He would have plunged into the abyss to get Lily out of it, whatever she had done; yes! In spite of everything! in spite of everybody! In spite of Trampy, husband or not!