A few minutes later, Pa was hustling his herd before him:

“Quicker, my Woolly-legs! No time to lose!”

He thought of the tricks which he had jotted down the evening before in his note-book. Lily would learn them quick enough: she was as clever as the Pawnees, when all was said, only less graceful. She had the balancing power all right; but grace, grace, damn it, to do a thing like that as though it were child’s play: that’s what she hadn’t got! You saw the effort. And the apprentices had no precision in their groupings. Now the fat freaks had. To combine German discipline with English gracefulness, that was the question; to have the troupe of troupes; to have a Lily who would be worth more by herself than Polly, Edith and Lillian put together. But that meant work and going through the mill! This last made Pa think of the old sheep and their bleatings. He gave a nervous little laugh and his hand had a convulsive movement, as though to strangle those pests.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How sweet you’ve grown! Why, Lily, how pretty you are!”

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

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

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

“Yoop, up with you!”

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

“Hi, you there, Mary! I’ll pull your ear! Birdie, if I take my belt to you!”

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

“Stand up, Lily! Show pluck, Lily!” said Pa.

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

“Nothing broken? A tiny scratch; it’s nothing. Tom, the white stuff!”

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

“You see, Lily, you’re not dead yet! Nothing to be frightened about. Come, try again!”

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

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

“More graceful! That’s it! Not so stiff!” said Pa.

“But, Pa, I can’t!” protested Lily, soaked in perspiration.

“But you’ve got to, my little lady!”

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

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

“Do your best, my Lily,” said Pa. “He’s watching us.”

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

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

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

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

“But, Pa, I can’t!”

“But you’ve got to, my little lady!”

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

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

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

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

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

“Dear Nunkie!”

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

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

“Shut up, Lily!... Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Lily?”

And he looked at Nunkie with an air of saying:

“You old rogue!”

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

“To work!” said Pa. “Let’s have a somersault, eh?”

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

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

“But, Pa, it hurts!”

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

Then, suddenly, Lily succeeded magnificently.

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

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

“Would you like to, Lily?” asked Pa.

“Yes, Pa.”

“Very well, then.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And your lover in America, tell me about your lover ...” interrupted Lily, pressing Thea’s arm.

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

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

“And did you write to him?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Come on!” said Mr. Fuchs.

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

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

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

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

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

“Now look here, I’ll smack you, Lily! When your Pa tells you a thing!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hullo, Clifton!”

Pa turned his head in surprise:

“Hullo, Trampy!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He laughs best who laughs last,” growled Ma.

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

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

“Why, yes, Ma, old Fuchs.”

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

“But, Ma...!” said Lily rebelliously.

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

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

“But, Pa ... but....”

“Obey your mother first,” said Clifton.

“Yes, Pa.”

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

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

“It’s an example you ought to follow, instead of laughing at it, Mr. Clifton!”

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

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

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

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

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