To-morrow was to be the great day, the opening of the Astrarium, the first night; and Jimmy, more bustled than ever, forgot Lily ... almost ... on that evening, especially, the evening of the dress-rehearsal: not an ordinary rehearsal, with the band-parts handed to the conductor across the footlights—“A march here, please, a waltz there. ’K you”—no, the whole show, with orchestra and all complete; the stage flooded with light; each turn in its own setting: corridor, wood, room, palace. Jimmy multiplied himself in the final fever. The theater, arranged according to his ideas, was still encumbered with ladders and scaffoldings; but gangs of laborers were hard at work on every side. The obstructions all disappeared like magic, were juggled away. Jimmy had made sure that the roof was ready; he had run from the landing-point, out of sight of the audience, through the door contrived in the wall of the stage, crossed the fly-galleries, come down by the pulley-rope; the whole thing, from roof to stage, had taken him, watch in hand, thirty seconds. And Lily had done it also. It formed part of the turn, a sensational addition to the aerobike. All would be ready, all would go well, provided that Lily was not nervous that evening ... and to-morrow especially! Those confounded crazy little girls! Crazy every one of them: Laurence herself, the bravest of the lot, had just had an awful fall, at Boston, in her excitement at losing her lucky charm. It was the event in the profession, the accident of the day. Lily might be frightened by it. Now it was essential that she should succeed and succeed at the first attempt. His fortune and hers, his future, the success of the Astrarium depended on it. And Jimmy, obsessed by his labors, had hardly time to think of Trampy, in the formidable effort of the eleventh hour. And yet, sometimes, he felt a pain at his heart. That adorable Lily! Would he succeed in making her love him? And now there was that impersonator! Oh, to work, to work! And he went at it, hammer and tongs, to make sure of the aerobike’s success. To make them talk of him ... to achieve fame ... which was as sweet as love! And he was wanted from one end of the theater to the other. Oh, he might well look upon the Astrarium as his creation! Already, a few days before, rumors of a strike were current. The managers were boycotted by the artistes, in England.... Jimmy feared lest the Astrarium should feel the consequences, under the pressure of the Performers’ Association, but he had arranged everything, seen each artiste separately, explained his plans: gala matinÉes, creation of an asylum, a home of rest ... a glory to help in such a task ... who could tell but that they were working for themselves by adding their stone to the edifice? He quoted the Para-Paras and their wretched end; old Martello, dead without leaving a penny; the Bambinis, homeless; Ave Maria, unprotected. The men listened, with serious faces. As for the girls, his words came straight from the heart. Those decent girls, who earned their living as they knew how and the living of others besides, they understood him at once; and Lily no longer laughed; on the contrary:

“Me? Whatever you like! For nothing, if you like; rely on me, Jimmy!”

And now the hour had come; they were to appear under the critical eye of Harrasford. The acting-manager had arrived from England that same day with the stage-manager, who was “behind.” It made a strange impression, that huge red-and-gold house, glittering with light and sounding curiously empty to the thunder of the band. Everybody was at his post: the tall flunkeys stood motionless at the entrance-doors, in the promenades, as if the audience had been there, whereas there was practically nobody except Harrasford and the manager. And on the stage, which had been cleared of every superfluous piece of property, splendid order reigned: the scene-shifters, up above, had their hands on the windlasses; the two electricians, on their perches, turned the lime-light where it was to fall; the drops rose and fell without a hitch; the scenes slipped into their places, shifted, in the English fashion, by one man. For each turn on the stage, the next was ready to come on, no more; all the rest were in the dressing-rooms. But there, behind the iron curtain, one could picture staircases crowded with people running up and down, passages full of light, a flurried ant-hill, and feel that a ring of bells would be enough to bring tumbling on to the stage a whole glittering, grotesque or radiant world of people, from the monkey-faced comedian to Lily, in her pink tights, an image of Venus. There was electricity in the air of that empty house, in which all felt the presence of the powerful master, harder to please than a crowd! And rays of light ran along the stage, the back-drop seemed a cloud ready to split in the crash of the thunder, under the storm of the raging brasses. On the stage, the turns defiled in their order, under the shimmering lights: the Bambinis, brother and sister, supple grace and strength combined, filled the huge space with the free play of their rosy bodies and the brightness of their genuine gaiety. The Three Graces formed the human cluster, a hanging group of faces, figures, shoulders and glorious lines. The program poured out laughter, harmony, beauty, till, against the blue forest, came the scarlet step-dances of the Roofers. And then silence: the feature of the evening, the aerobike! There was a moment’s anxiety. A net was stretched above the stalls, from the footlights to the opening in the roof. For the audience, at any rate, all danger was removed, even in case of a fall. Then the glass dome above opened, and the curtain rose on the Elysian glimmer of a scene studded with stars; and everything was empty, stage and auditorium. The distance seemed immense: “miles and miles!” The machine was to start out suddenly, rush through space, disappear up above, like a meteor that shoots out from infinity and returns to it.

A few seconds passed, during which Jimmy gave Lily her last instructions:

“You’re not afraid, Lily? Would you like me to do it?”

Afraid! She turned her calm face to him. Oh, she could have accomplished impossible and cruel things, braved torture, walked on burning coals! She felt herself made of supple steel, unerring and exact:

“Up, quick, quick! Ready, Jimmy?”

“Ready!”

“Then ... GO!”

The aerobike flashed like an arrow from the bow, raised itself with a magnificent jerk; the propeller hummed like a thunder-bolt, the wings rustled in flight, pointed toward the opening, went up ... up ... up ... disappeared in the star-strewn sky.... It was done! The band struck up the triumphal march, Harrasford, the manager, the few who were present all burst into cheers; and, suddenly, over the house plunged in darkness, from the back of the stage, came a burst of light. Lily, after running over the roof and sliding down the pulley, was descending against the blue back-drop, bringing with her the star! First, one saw the light breaking, then swelling and increasing in brilliancy, and Lily appeared, a starry Eve, holding, in her upraised hand, a dazzling luminary, a crystal globe, which an invisible wire from behind filled with an intensity of light. And powerful rays shot to every side, end-of-the-world coruscations, above the crater of the orchestra.

“Splendid!” cried Harrasford. “That dishes the waterspouts at the Hippodrome, the avalanches, everything!” And, as Jimmy came up, “Good boy, Jimmy!” he said, catching him a great smack on the shoulder by way of a compliment. “And your girl ... your ... Maggy ... your ... what’s her name? Lily ... glorious! Very good indeed! Couldn’t be better! Capital idea!”

He gave a quick glance at his watch, a few words to Jimmy, to the manager, over his shoulder, on the wing:

“All the boxes booked three weeks ahead? All the stalls? That’s right! Good-by, good luck!”

Already his broad back was disappearing through the door; had to catch the midnight train for Cologne; presence indispensable.

“Telephone to-morrow; let me know how things go. Ta-ta!”

And Harrasford was far away.

And Lily? Lily was in her dressing-room, stupefied with delight. How soon it was done! How simple it was! Jimmy, after all, with his scrawls and his scribbles, with his brain-work: what a discovery he had made! She would have liked it to last for ever, the flight on the aerobike; she still seemed to be rushing up to the stars, to feel the coolness of the night on her face. How funny it was, going up, up, up and out through that hole. She was still laughing at it, with little convulsive movements of the shoulders, and stammering out things.

When she was dressed, she received Jimmy’s congratulations and everybody’s. They gave her a bouquet:

“To our little favorite!”

She answered, without knowing what she said; went home. Everything seemed to be turning round and round. She ate a few mouthfuls, washed down with a glass of milk; and then, suddenly, made a rush for Glass-Eye! A pillow fight followed:

“Here, take that! Take that! And that! And that!”

Ten minutes of an epic struggle, on the bed thrown into confusion and disorder, as after a murder; huge slaps on the firm, rounded forms; virile smackings; and Glass-Eye, breathlessly, had to own herself beaten, to beg for mercy.

“That’ll teach them!” cried Lily, falling on the bed, panting, drunk with joy, drunk with joy! Trampy, Mexico, Ma’s insults, the jealousies, the grudges, Daisy, the fat freaks: pooh, none of that existed for her! Nothing remained but herself, drunk with an immense joy! She was almost delirious, in the excess of her great happiness:

“I’ll smash up their damned troupes, do you hear, Glass-Eye? There! Like that!” And she tried to renew the fight, but her strength failed her. “Dished and done for, their damned troupes!”

And she laughed, she burst with laughing, when she thought of their eighteen feet of stage:

“Stages as big as my hand, Glass-Eye, is what they’ve got to turn in!”

Whereas, she went straight up in the air, up to the stars, miles high, up above everything! Bang! A smack for Glass-Eye, who was just taking off her skirt!

“And I say, Glass-Eye! Ma, who said that I ... you know what she said! But wait till they see me in my grand dresses! I’ll order them to-morrow; and my hats too. And I’ll invite Pa and Ma to the hotel! And we’ll drink champagne and I’ll have fifty francs’ worth of flowers on the table, just to show them! ‘Our Lily,’ that’s what I’m going to be, ‘our own Lily,’ damn it!”

Lily, when she was in bed, turned things over and over in her brain. Yes, her Pa was quite right. It was for her good, for her own good! Big salaries, which would all belong to her! And no more performing-dog toques, but big hats and feathers and motor-cars and furs, but no goggles! No, she must find something that wouldn’t hide her face, so that people would recognize her and say:

“That’s Lily!”

And the road behind her motor would be strewn with the bodies of pros who had died of jealousy!

And she would consult Pa and Ma on the color of her liveries, on her crest: a wheel, with wings to it! And Lily dropped off into a sleep interrupted by awful nightmares, in which Ma was dead—poor Ma!—before witnessing her triumph—and in which elephants trumpeted in her honor and sea-lions applauded her with their finny fore-paws, all along a queer sort of Tottenham Court Road, paved with fat freaks, at the end of which a Horse Shoe, as big as the Marble Arch, opened out upon the stars.

Poor Glass-Eye, on her side, had the most outlandish dreams. Her brain was turned from living in the midst of all that. She dreamed that she was flying, too; that she was Lily in her turn; that she was soaring over Whitechapel; but, from time to time, a nervous kick from Lily recalled her to the realities of life.

“Glass-Eye! There’s a knock at the door, I think. Or else I’m dreaming. What’s the time? Ten o’clock. Get up, Glass-Eye! If it’s the landlady, tell her I’ll pay her next week!”

But Glass-Eye, who had gone to the door, shut it suddenly and came back to Lily, looking quite startled:

“Miss Lily, there’s some one, all in black, on the stairs; a ghost!”

“If you’re trying to frighten me,” cried Lily, jumping out of bed, “I’ll knock your other eye out! Take care!”

She was choking with excitement. Lily was afraid of nothing. But those confounded ghosts: poor Ma, perhaps! And she quickly separated two fingers wide behind her back, so as to be on the safe side and ward off ill-luck:

“Come with me, Glass-Eye; you go first!”

And Lily, in her night-dress, half-opened the door, looked out.

A thin woman, all in black, stood motionless. It was not Ma. Lily breathed more freely:

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want to speak to Miss Lily,” said the woman in black. “I went to the theater and they gave me your address. I came.... I suppose you don’t remember me, it’s so long ago. Ave Maria, on the wire in Mexico?”

“Ave Maria! Come in,” said Lily.

Ave Maria, whom she had sought for so long. She would know at last! Oh, if it were true! God grant that it might be true! Lily, hardly recovered from her fright, quivered at the thought. And she devoured Ave Maria with her eyes. She recognized her, now that she knew: it was she indeed, but grown old before her time, looking wretched, thin, hollow-eyed, a face all skin and bone. And the two stood contemplating each other in silence.

“How pretty you’ve grown!” whispered Ave Maria timidly. “No one would take you for a professional.”

But a sudden fit of coughing brought scarlet patches to her pale cheeks.

“It catches me here,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest. “It’s damp, sometimes, in the tent. And then half-naked on those trestles. The work warms one, it’s true. The other night I saw some one who knew you, a gentleman. I should have liked to ask him more, but my brother struck him in the face. I got my turn after. However, I wanted to see you. I went to the Astrarium. I asked them.”

“Go on,” said Lily, who was burning to know, but did not want to show it. “Glass-Eye, give me my dressing-gown. Go on, please!”

“I don’t know that I dare,” said Ave Maria, “now that I have seen you. You are so much better-looking than I am. Are you still living with him?” she asked, in a low voice, fixing two fiery eyes on Lily.

“No,” said Lily, “I am living with nobody!”

“But they told me. I heard at Buenos Ayres ... the story of the whippings, your running away with him....”

“What whippings? And I’m living with nobody!” retorted Lily, very haughtily.

“But you have lived with him ... in Germany ... Trampy, you know.”

“No,” said Lily, “I was married, wasn’t I, Glass-Eye?”

“But I’m married to him!” Ave Maria broke in, more aggressively than before.

“Oh, if it were true!” thought Lily. “Oh, if it were true!”

She dared not believe it, it would have been too beautiful, beautiful beyond dreams. And, with her nerves stretching to breaking-point:

“Prove it!” she said coldly, to Ave Maria.

“Yes, I have my proofs,” replied Ave Maria, shaken with a furious cough. “And I’ll show them! Trampy belongs to me, not to you! He’s in Paris, they tell me.... And I mean to have him, do you hear? I’ve suffered enough and to spare. I’ve done everything since he left me. Look here, at Caracas people used to offer me twopence to let them black my eye, sometimes, when my brother was locked up at the police-station. And there were the one-horse circuses where we slept in a heap on the straw, in Chili or some such country. And, sometimes, I lost my balance on the wire, because of my cough. And my brother: you know him! And the cattle-men, when they’re drunk! One of them stabbed me here, with a knife, there, here, in the breast; they had to cut it off—the breast—later, at Montevideo, because of the gangrene. Yes, he stabbed me with a knife, because I wouldn’t say, ‘I love you,’ to him! Fancy my saying, ‘I love you,’ to any one but Trampy! Never! I would have let them jump on my chest with their hobnailed boots first! And, now that Trampy’s here, I want him! He belongs to me and I mean to have him.”

“Well, take him, if he belongs to you!” said Lily. “I don’t care a hang for your Trampy; I’ve turned him out long ago!”

“So ... it’s true? If he’s no longer with you, I can have him again. I shall have him! I’ll have my brother locked up, if necessary, to be free! I have only to say a word, not because of the story of that nose which he bit off at Rio: no, the other day, at Vaugirard, he used the knife. I’ll tell everything, to have my Trampy back.”

And her rough voice became gentle now, in her Anglo-Italian jargon, with a dash of Spanish in it; everything became clear, everything yielded before the violence of that fierce love. Lily was astounded to hear it:

“That’s what I call love!” she thought. “I had no idea, my! And all for Trampy! It’s worse than in the novels.”

And she was touched, in spite of herself, and, when Ave Maria cried, “Oh, how happy you must be, if he loves you!” Lily dared not protest that she didn’t care a hang for that soaker, for fear of hurting the poor martyr. She replied, on the contrary, that Trampy was very nice, but that he was hers no longer, that he belonged to Ave Maria, since Ave Maria had the proofs ... if she had the proofs.

“I have them here, Miss Lily, my marriage-lines. I was able to get them, after he went. I had the certificate witnessed. My brother, when he came to fetch me, never knew about it. I sewed it into the lining of a portmanteau; no chance of losing it: here it is.”

And she produced a yellow document from her bodice and laid it on the table.

Lily seized upon it ... read it at a glance ... it was quite regular! Oh, the footy rotter! Two wives! To say nothing of his thirty-six girls! And what a fine trick she would play him! At last, she was about to get rid of her festering sore! She could not breathe for happiness. And, as Ave Maria was watching her movements, lest she should keep the paper, Lily handed it back to her, certain that it was in good hands, that it would not be lost.

Then and there an idea came to her. Trampy would be at the theater that afternoon with Tom, who, knowing little about all these stories, interested only in the condition of those biceps of his, had taken Trampy as his assistant and had told Lily so. And Lily had said nothing, reserving to herself the right to have him turned off the stage by Jimmy, with a smack in the eye, before everybody: the footy rotter, coming there to defy her! Well, there would be no smack in the eye; she would simply hand him over to Ave Maria, as one flings a lump of carrion to a tigress!

“Wait a bit, you faithful husband!” she growled. “You’ll see, presently!”

And, first of all, when Ave Maria rose to go, Lily forbade her to do anything of the kind, for fear that the brother, who must be out looking for her, might drag her back to the booth at the fair and then take the first train to some other place, after getting hold of the Bambinis. And Lily meant none of all this to take place; she would rather go to the police and have the brute arrested!

“Stay here, Ave Maria,” she said. “I’ll give you back your Trampy this afternoon.”

Oh, if she had been alone, how she would have flown at Glass-Eye, to work off her superabundant joy! It would have been a merciless fight, with slaps in the Mexican style! But a lady receiving her friends must set a good example. She contented herself with hustling Glass-Eye by word and gesture:

“My new dress! My big hat!”

Ave Maria, quite taken up with the excitement of seeing Trampy again, of having him back again, left herself in Lily’s hands. She felt as if she were looking at a princess, when Lily made Glass-Eye spin round the room. She could not even help smiling when she saw Glass-Eye catch her foot in the dresses spread out on the floor, so much so that Lily asked her angrily if she meant to go on hopping about like that for ever, if she really wanted to have a candle lit in her glass eye to make her see that bodice, there, right in front of her nose, damn it! And Glass-Eye’s fright, when she heard that ... though Glass-Eye was never surprised at anything that Lily said or did!

Going to the Astrarium, Lily, followed by Glass-Eye, walked along the street with her cheeky feather waving like a flag in battle. Ave Maria, by her side, kept close to the wall, with frightened glances to right and left; Lily did not call her attention to the Astrarium posters for fear of humiliating her: she would have had to explain that she was topping the bill and poor Ave Maria, who was starring at the fair, would never have understood. A professional abyss separated the two of them. Lily saw this and had too kind a heart to let the other feel it. What a difference between them! Merely in the way in which Lily entered the theater and smiled to the stage-doorkeeper! Ave Maria followed very timidly, like a beggar-woman stealing into a palace. She felt out of her element in those big theaters, where she had not appeared for ever so long, having come down to the level of one-horse circuses, patched canvas tents, acrobatic performances in the open air, on the slack-wire stretched from tree to tree. Lily looked a princess beside her, really. Ave Maria was even surprised to see her address a gentleman who was there: it was the architect, with a bandage over his eye. Ave Maria recognized him; and he, rendered prudent by the blow which he had received from “her man,” stepped back instinctively at the sight of her. But Lily caught him by the lapel of his coat:

“You’ve been fooling me ... with your measurements,” she said, “and there are certain things that jossers oughtn’t to meddle with; and it serves you right, that black eye of yours; but I forgive you, because of the immense service you’re doing me ... without knowing it ... you lover of second-rate goods!” she muttered, as she watched him slink off, taking her forgiveness with him.

The stage was almost empty. Tom had come, not Trampy; so much the better, there would be all the more there presently, for the great scene!

“Wait for me a minute,” she said to Ave Maria. “Sit down over there, in the corner.”

And Lily went up to her dressing-room; she wanted to look her best, to bedizen herself ... a little red on her lips, a little blue on her eyelids ... to make Trampy regret the more what he was going to lose. And, when she was ready, Jimmy passed and, icicle though he was, could not help paying her a compliment on her good looks. He appeared quite disconcerted:

“Just imagine, Lily. What do you think happened to me, in the impersonator’s dressing-room? I had something to say to him ... I walk in ... see the impersonator half undressed ... and it’s a woman, Lily, a magnificent woman! You never told me, you kiddie!”

“Hush!” said Lily. “Don’t give her away; it’s a secret, it’s her living, Jimmy.”

“Don’t be afraid, Lily, I won’t prevent any one from earning her living, as long as she does all right on the stage. But I don’t know where I am now. That woman who came in with you, for instance,” continued Jimmy jestingly, “she looks just like a man; there’s no knowing; nothing would surprise me after that!”

“She’s a woman, Jimmy, a married woman! You’ll see presently. We’ll have a good laugh; mind you’re there! I want everybody to be there! It’s a surprise, Jimmy!”

What a kiddie she was, thought Jimmy, as he went down the stairs. The architect, the impersonator: the two scandals of her life. That impersonator whom she kissed in front of him, a story that had gone round the world, Lily’s love affairs, one more ready to leave wife and children for her sake: the exaggeration of the stage, always; professional boasting. Like the story of the whippings, like those girls whom she had described to him, and herself, with all over her skin—“Here, here, damn it!”—wounds that you could put your finger into. Or like those who were said to be done for, or burned alive, or drowned in shipwrecks, with waves miles high, all for the honor of the profession; when, perhaps, it was simply as good a way as another of retiring from the stage, to get married, with a flourish of trumpets! It wasn’t true, all that, or their parade of vice either, all humbug, from end to end, their amorous conquests, their orgies, their escapades, like their ostrich-feathers, that long, or their sham diamonds, that big, and bouquets large enough to fill a cab. But they were decent-hearted girls, all the same: that Lily, what a kiddie, thought Jimmy, feeling quite comforted, quite glad on her account.

And just then, as luck would have it, he met Tom, to whom Glass-Eye had brought Miss Lily’s album, with a request for his autograph. Tom, whose formidable muscles were hardly capable of wielding a pen, especially to write “thoughts,” was holding the album with a sheepish look, turning it round and round:

“I say,” he said, as Jimmy passed, “write something; for me!”

“All right!” said Jimmy.

And he lightly turned the pages of the album, the famous album, said to be crammed with passionate declarations. Not a bit of it! Nothing but foolery and childish nonsense:

“Un afetuoso saludo y un augurio de feliz viaje le desea Pedro y Paolo.”

“Puedo decir que nunca he visto yoo ... tan cuida y bella....”

There was page upon page, in this style, with, here and there, a rough sketch: a heart pierced by an arrow, signed, “Castaigne;” a dried shamrock: “Blarney Castle;” a bit of seaweed: “Dundee.” Jimmy smiled to himself and especially at what he heard beside him, where Glass-Eye, while gazing wide-eyed at Tom’s immense arms, was telling him all her troubles: quite mad, Miss Lily, ought to be locked up! And she ought to know: never left her side since she began traveling by herself, day or night.

“You’re a lucky one, you are!” Tom broke in.

“I should like to see you try it, just!” Glass-Eye retorted. “And meantime I get more smacks than halfpence. Oh, I know she’ll pay me all in a lump, when she gets it! She’s very generous, really. And her Pa and Ma ... yes ... do you know what she means to do? She’s not angry with them any longer. She’s going to stuff them with turkey and pudding at the hotel and stand them fifty francs’ worth of flowers. She’s forgiven them!”

“That’s more than I have!” replied Tom. “Her Pa will know what I am made of to-morrow, the brute! He’ll have one on the mug, for boxing my ears and kicking me out ... you know ... because of the letters from Trampy.”

“If you do that, Tom, you’ll have Miss Lily to reckon with! What! You’re laughing!” cried Glass-Eye angrily. “You don’t know how it hurts ... on one’s bones! And those pillow-fights: I’ve had my nose smashed in one of them before now! Nothing surprises me that Miss Lily says or does. Why, this very morning, she wanted to put a lighted candle in my glass eye!”

“Eh, what? A light in your eye?” exclaimed Tom suddenly. “I wonder if one really could ... I say, Jimmy, could one?”

“Yes,” said Jimmy, greatly amused, “with an invisible wire under the dress....”

“Hurrah!” cried Tom. “Would you like two shillings a day, Glass-Eye? And your food and clothes? You shall travel with me; you shall appear on the stage. Come along to the cafÉ, we’ll sign the engagement!”

“But what will Miss Lily say?” objected Glass-Eye, trembling at the idea of announcing her departure to her terrible mistress.

“Well,” said Tom, “I’ll be nice to her Pa, if she’s nice to you. Come along!”

“But I don’t know how to sign my name.”

“You can make your mark, before two witnesses. Come along!”

Glass-Eye, dazzled and beglamored, followed Tom. She, an artiste! On the stage! At last! Going round the world with Tom ... living with him ... married ... almost!

“That’s come in the nick of time!” said Jimmy, as he watched her go off the stage. “Lily, perhaps ... in her new position ... will want a real maid, not a Glass-Eye! Lily ... why, she’s perfection! To think of the abysses she has walked along without falling! There’s more merit than one thinks in that kind of life. And how I should like to get hold of the people who talk ill of her. And that ... that ... oh, that one!”

And Jimmy clenched his fists, at the thought of Trampy, and his heart burst forth: all his patient, brave, manly heart, now well nigh exhausted.