Now Trampy—even if he had to marry her for it, by Jove!—had set his mind on having Lily, at any cost; and that not only because of her prettiness, but also that he might play Clifton a damned good trick and teach him that he must smart for treating a gentleman as he had treated him in Mexico. It would be paying him out with interest to take his Lily from him. Besides, think of the credit it would give Trampy in the profession to have for his wife the prettiest, the cleverest girl on the boards, each of whose shows, when she performed alone, would be worth at least three pounds, as much as a whole troupe! He suspected in her the ripe fruit that was bound to drop; and he shook the tree to hasten the fall. He considered his reputation at stake: he, the man with the thirty-six girls, as he was called at the music-hall. He got caught in his own toils and wanted Lily madly, out of revenge and pride ... and jealousy too, for he suspected that Jimmy was courting her; and the idea that he had a rival inflamed his ardor.

In the evening, pen in hand, in his dressing-room, or else at a table in a cafÉ, after a second and a third glass of old port, he prepared his batteries: letters, post-cards, he excelled in everything, was careful about his phrases, with the vanity of an author whose writings are widely quoted. Lily was “fascinating” and “bewildering;” he compared her to “those strange Indian poppies whose scent intoxicates a man and sometimes gives him death.” Gee, but that set Lily dreaming! Fancy having all that in her! Who on earth would have thought it? Never mind, it was very nice.

And the way in which she received her correspondence amused her as much as the rest. Trampy, it goes without saying, did not write direct: a few pence to Tom, who hated Clifton, and Lily received the cards in secret, devoured them when she was alone and then quickly tore them into little pieces and sent them flying through the window.

Her trouble was how to answer. She really did not know what to say:

By return of post, she received “a thousand kisses on her rosy cheeks, on her fair tresses, everywhere,” kisses without end.

“He’s mad,” thought Lily.

But she was greatly flattered by Trampy’s attentions. He treated her as a woman, not as a child, as Pa and Ma went out of their way to do. Her life, after all, would be more agreeable if she was Trampy’s wife; and he was delivering the attack in person, since his return from Lancashire, where he had traveled about with his property red-hot stove. He overwhelmed her with bouquets, even as a general bombards a bastion before the final assault, and he managed to meet her now. He dazzled Lily with his big gold watch-chain and the diamond in his tie. When he was able to whisper a word to her, it was always the same thing—“Motor-cars! Paris gowns! Jewels! Flowers!”—until Lily thought she saw all the shop-windows in Regent Street poured out at her feet.

Jimmy made but a sorry lover, compared with Trampy. He never promised anything, silk dresses, diamonds or jewels. “The husband at work, the wife at home.” Gee, there were no ostrich-feathers in that! But he adored her all the same, as Lily was well able to see; and she had many occasions to talk to both of them. Not that Lily was less closely watched. She never went out alone, but it was not always Ma who was at her heels: it was sometimes Glass-Eye. With faithful Glass-Eye, things took their own course and the interviews with Trampy became easy. As for Jimmy, he saw her every day at practice and he took that opportunity to tell her of his ideas, his plans for the future.

“I shall succeed, you will see, Lily,” he said. “I shall do something some day. I’m a bit of a mechanic, a bit of an electrician, that is to say, a bit of a wizard. Others have started lower down and climbed very high.”

“Yes,” replied Lily, “I know. It’s like Pa. He wasn’t much before he got me into shape; and look at him now!”

This was said with an artless candor that enraptured Jimmy.

“What a dear little girlie you are!” he said. “What an adorable kid!”

“That’s right,” retorted Lily. “Why not a baby, while you’re about it, a school-girl in the biking-class and so on? Some people treat me as a woman, Jimmy, and propose to marry me!”

“What’s that?”

“What I say, Jimmy.”

“And this man making up to you is worthy of you, I suppose? And do you love him?” asked Jimmy, greatly upset.

“Pooh!” said Lily. “I’m not quite sure.”

“But you wouldn’t marry him unless you loved him?”

“I should marry him to change my life.”

“A change, Lily,” said Jimmy, with feeling, “is not always a change for the better! And your life is a little pleasanter now, you told me so yourself. Your mother is sorry. You’re getting pocket-money; ten shillings a week, eh? Why, Lily, that’s splendid!”

“Well; and I earn it, I suppose,” said Lily. “And Ma isn’t a bit sorry. Pa said he wouldn’t have it, that’s all. They were afraid of my running away if it went on. I am no longer a child!”

“No,” said Jimmy, taking her hands, “an adorable girl; that’s what you are. Oh, a man whom you would love should do great things! He would love you with all his heart! And your life would be different then! No, you would not be a performing dog, as you call it; you would be a darling little wife. It’s all very well to rove about the world, from theater to theater, riding round and round on your bike....”

“I adore the stage, for all that!” interrupted Lily.

“But that can’t go on for ever,” continued Jimmy. “You’re entitled to have a nicer life: a home of your own, Lily; you have the making of a lady in you, if you were taught. In a year or two, Lily, you would be the equal of any lady in the land.”

“Learning, more learning, always learning! I’ve had enough of it in my life!” muttered Lily, affected, nevertheless, by Jimmy’s intense excitement, and lowering her eyes under his glance.

“Why, yes, Lily, always learning, that’s life!” said Jimmy. “But the other chap, of course, promises you the earth! Some millionaire, I suppose: an admirer in the front boxes?”

“He’s an artiste,” said Lily.

“Why,” said Jimmy, stepping back, without letting go of her. “But, no, it’s impossible; you’re not thinking of Trampy!”

“Why not?” said Lily angrily, trying to release herself from Jimmy’s passionate grasp.

“Why, because ... because he’s a drunkard ... a ... The other day I saw him at the bar of the Crown, as I was passing. He was blind-drunk.”

“What’s the good of talking?” said Lily. “He’s miserable. He worships me. He drinks to forget. He told me so himself!”

“But they say he’s married,” said Jimmy. “Why ...”

“It’s mean and jealous of you to say that,” said Lily, suddenly withdrawing her hands. “You deserve a smacking! How can he be married, when he wants to marry me?”

And with that she left him and went up to the dressing-room.

Jimmy was heartbroken.

“It’s a joke of Lily’s ... as in my shop, some months ago, when she pretended to have a sweetheart, though she hadn’t!”

But, argue as he would, Jimmy thought with terror of Trampy’s habits of conquest, of his reputation in the profession as a Don Juan. He bitterly regretted waiting so long to speak to Lily. He had thought that he was pleasing her by keeping in the background, for fear of causing her annoyance at home: was his sole offense now that of coming too late?

Oh, if he had only had evidence to hand! But Trampy’s marriage was one of those vague rumors. One could say nothing for certain. However, the danger, no doubt, was not yet imminent. And Jimmy had a friend who was doing America in the theaters of the Eastern and Western Trust: he resolved to write to him; the friend would receive his letter at the Majestic, Houston, Texas, or at the Denver Orpheum. The thing had happened over there; they would probably remember it in the theaters he passed through; he could make inquiries, perhaps even obtain proofs. That exquisite Lily, that masterpiece of grace: what a darling wife she would make! And all for Trampy! Jimmy was determined to do everything to prevent it.

He did not despair of supplying Lily, before long, with the proof that Trampy was married; he would give the name, the date; he would compel Trampy to admit it. But he was not sure enough yet to accuse him openly: Lily would have seen nothing in it but a ridiculous jealousy and would never have forgiven him.

Then Jimmy was worried: people came to him for this, for that, for the thousand details of the stage.

Lily, on her side, left the theater. That day, she was accompanied by Maud, who fixed her with her glass eye, while the other was engaged in watching the flies. Of course, Trampy was prowling round the theater to see her part of the way home; for he, too, had decided to carry things with a high hand. And he set to work at a quicker pace than ever.

He had none of Jimmy’s scruples; he was not afraid of exaggerating: far from it. Lily always left him under the impression of a glimpse of paradise. This time, however, she failed to smile when Trampy vowed that she was “the sweetest little thing that one could lay eyes on, by Jove!” For a long time, but especially since that morning, she had been burning to put a question to him. Possibly she had no intention of marrying him, but she wouldn’t allow him to make a fool of her; and she interrupted him in his compliments to ask if what they said was true.

“Who says so? It’s a lie!” Trampy hastened to answer.

“I mean your marriage,” replied Lily.

“I thought as much,” said Trampy.

“Tell me the truth,” persisted Lily innocently, looking him straight in the eyes.

“If I was married, Lily, would I want to marry you?”

“Of course not,” said Lily, already shaken.

“Who’s been talking to you about that?” asked Trampy. “Your Pa, eh? And Jimmy: I’ll bet that Jimmy ...?”

“Jimmy too.”

“If I don’t box that fellow’s ears!” shouted Trampy. “Can’t you see that he’s jealous? Why? He didn’t even give you my bouquets! He handed them to your Ma! And so I’ve been married, eh? Whereabouts? In America, I’ll wager?”

“Yes, somewhere on the Western Tour.”

“Of course,” said Trampy. “That’s what I’ve heard myself. Still, it seems to me that, if I had a wife, I ought to be the first to know it; don’t you think so, Lily?”

This was proof positive. Lily could find nothing to answer.

“Come and have a drink, Lily?”

“They’re waiting for me at home,” said Lily.

Trampy went into the bar alone, in a desperate state of love which made him call for a port and another, by Jove! Then he sat down at a table in a corner, lit a cigar and examined his glass, as though truth lay at the bottom. For he could not tell for certain. Was he married or was he not? That’s what he himself would like to know! According to him, upon his soul and conscience, he was not a married man; he did himself that justice. Opportunities, certainly, had not been wanting ... with all the girls he had known ... enough to fill a dozen beauty-shows. Sometimes even he had had a narrow escape, as in that damned town in the West, in one of those states where you can’t so much as take a girl to supper without finding yourself married to her in the morning, all for entering yourself in the hotel book as “Mr. and Mrs. Trampy,” in other words, as man and wife. And yet he couldn’t ask the girl who adored him to sleep on the mat! Yes, a poor girl who had found glowing words in which to tell him her love, one night in Mexico, words which had set Trampy quivering with longing compassion: was he to be reproached with that? He had made her happy, after all; and, on the whole, this lark was one of his pleasantest memories; it hadn’t lasted too long: a matter of a few weeks at most. He had left Mexico, taking the girl with him, and played Trampy Wheel-Pad in the Western States, with any amount of success, by Jove! Encores, packets of tobacco, a new suit of clothes! And, by way of entr’acte, the girl—“Tramp Wheel-Pad’s Jumping Flea,” as she was called—turned somersaults and flip-flaps. But she would have killed him, this dark girl with great dark eyes,—this girl with a boy’s figure, all muscle and sinew, keeping him awake all night and talking of nothing but smackings, as though she had never learned anything else. And so much in love that she would bite and scratch: a very tigress. Any one but himself would have wearied of it. And then, one fine morning, for coupling their names in the visitors’ book, they found themselves married, in the name of the law! And that was what people called a marriage! So little married were they, according to him, that he had given her the slip then and there, leaving her all the money he possessed, however: he was not the man to look at fifteen dollars, when honor demanded it. Trampy had had more stories of this kind in his life; they left as much impression on his mind as the recollection of a “schooner” swallowed at a bar on a summer night.

It was dishonest, he considered, to pretend that he was married. Not that he was perfect: far from it! He did not set up as a model. He had had scandals in his life: he admitted it humbly; and, if some jealous person, some Jimmy, for instance, wanted to do him harm, all he had to do was to dig in the heap, instead of hawking round that story of an imaginary marriage.

His differences with Poland, the Parisienne, for instance: a regular Mrs. Potiphar, that one. He had found it a hard job to get away from her. And ever and ever so many others! He couldn’t remember. People were always talking ill of him. There was more than that, however: he, too, was capable of manly ambition; he, too, had taken a breakneck risk. He had perfected and patented at Washington an invention of which he had seen a drawing, by accident, in a scientific journal—Engineering, or another—a purely theoretical invention. The inventor himself, a young London electrician, declared it to be unrealizable. Well, he, Trampy—Poland had helped him with her purse; she was very nice about it—he, Trampy, had had the thing made. He had deposited the models at the Patent Office; and the apparatus itself was now in a London storage. He would get it out, some day, and show them all what he was capable of.

Now he was wrong, perhaps, in abandoning Poland, after accepting her services; but, after all, those were matters which concerned nobody but himself. It was not fair play to tell Lily about them: she, he felt, would always be the girl of his heart, the thirty-seventh and last, and it would take a better man than Jimmy to snatch her from him!

Already, it was much to have pacified Lily on that incident of the marriage: Lily believed him. One thing, however, disquieted Trampy: bigamy, all the same, meant doing time. Now, if some jealous person produced the proof of that marriage, contracted under the Western law ... suppose it were valid ... really valid? H’m! Was he going to lose Lily for that? And his liberty into the bargain? That Lily who was worth her weight in gold, love and fortune in one!

Trampy resolved to broach this delicate subject:

“Suppose I was married,” he hinted, one day, “that wouldn’t matter. Couldn’t we ... live together ... eh?”

“I like your style!” said Lily, feeling slightly indignant at such a proposal. “What do you take me for?”

“I was only joking,” Trampy hastened to say. “If you want to be married, I’m quite agreeable.”

“I insist upon it!”

“So then you prefer to take strangers into our confidence?”

“What strangers?” asked Lily, in surprise.

“Why, the quill-drivers at Somerset House and those damned fire-escapes.”

Lily had enough religion to know that the fire-escape was the clergyman:

“As for that,” she said, “we shall see later; but I want the registrar’s office. If I’m to be your little wife, I want to be so for good and all: marriage or nothing!”

“I shall be delighted, Lily!”

“And I’m determined!”

Lily was the more bent upon it, because marriage made her free: that was the essential point. If she were not married, her parents could make her come back, she thought ... keep her with them ... gee! It gave her cold shivers down the back! Once married, she was protected by law; Pa and Ma had nothing to say; and so she was very keen upon marriage.

“What a dear little wife she’ll make!” thought Trampy. “And how she loves me!”

That, however, did not advance matters. It was all very well for him to put his arm round her waist, to talk softly to her, to whisper those words which had already won him so many conquests:—one day, even, he had kissed her on the lips,—Lily thought that very nice; it was all very well for him to cut a dash at the bar, to stand her a claret and a biscuit; it was all very well for him to sing his love-litany: all this did not help him; at the rate at which he was going, he wouldn’t get anywhere in six months.

Lily, between those two jossers, amused herself immensely. How lucky she was! Two men, at her age! They irritated her, sometimes; when they went too far—Trampy, especially, who got excited at the game—anyhow, it was a homage paid to her beauty. Between that and going away with him there was all the difference in the world! To leave home was quite another matter. Why, goodness, if things went on as they were, she could do without marriage at all!