The fortnight that followed upon this meeting was such a strenuous one for Jimmy, with eighteen hours out of the twenty-four spent at the Astrarium, among the day and night gangs; his life was such a slavery that he had hardly time to think of Lily. But he did think of her, for all that. He seemed to hear her still. Yes, he confessed to himself, he had, perhaps, believed ... he had, in fact, been told that Lily was Lily no longer ... But he had just been admiring her magnificent anger. He had seen her eaten up with ambition, quivering from head to foot, and that brave face lifted up to his. Twenty times over he was on the point of saying something to her; but he must see first ... Would she herself be willing? Even though she had seemed resolved to do anything?

“Meanwhile,” thought Jimmy, as on the former occasion, when she was ill, in Berlin, “how are we to help her out of this ... how?”

And he was caught in the whirlwind again: it was Jimmy here, Jimmy there. He had to be in ten places at once. Not that he was manager or stage-manager: his was a special case. Since his return from America, Jimmy possessed an even more thorough knowledge of all the machinery of the theater. He had his memorandum-books filled with notes, his head crammed with new ideas. He had a smattering of everything, a vast amount of experience picked up in rushing about the world. After his triumphs with “Bridging the Abyss,” the managers, knowing that he had prepared something different, something strange and terrible, without knowing exactly what, the managers had bombarded him with offers: Chicago, Berlin, London. A conversation with Harrasford, whom the Astrarium held body and soul, had determined the matter otherwise: he would open the Astrarium with Jimmy and remodel the theater from top to bottom in view of the new trick, the most sensational that had ever been seen. And Jimmy should make the necessary alterations, he should have a free hand.

Jimmy accepted. To open in a theater made for himself seemed preferable to Jimmy to launching his new invention in a closed hall, such as the London Hippodrome, for instance, which did not provide the aperture in the roof, the door opening on to the stars, which he required to obtain his effect upon the crowd. And that was why, in the work at the Astrarium, everything turned upon Jimmy. He was responsible to both Harrasford and himself. For that matter, he was fully equal to the interests at stake. Harrasford, a great judge of men, intrusted everything to Jimmy, the sensational bill-topper, removed above all jealousy; and he left it to his experience to construct the program. Harrasford himself, the chief and master, rarely left London; he managed all his theaters from his office, with the ’phone at his ear, or else flew like the wind in every direction, buying a theater here, picking up a star there, on the wing. It was not until the third week that he came to see for himself how the work was doing and to discuss the accounts. His broad back was seen, followed by Jimmy, to plunge down the plastery corridors, to pass under the

scaffoldings. He looked like a conqueror, tracing with his finger the plan of the palace that was to rise upon the ruins of the destroyed city; or else he would point out things with a jerk of the chin:

“The proscenium pushed forward to here, eh, Jimmy? A cluster of electric lights here. Another there. And what about your trick, Jimmy?”

“You must imagine the house in darkness,” said Jimmy, “and blue and green rays falling on the stage from above. Through the blue, we send a great dazzling beam, from over there, lighting up every inch of the house, a terrific light, the light of the Last Judgment....”

“Good!” said Harrasford. “We want two or three fits of hysterics at the opening, real ones, not hired at two bob a night,” he added, with a wink. “They’re working, up there,” he continued, a piece of old plastering falling on his shoulder, as they crossed the floor of the house, denuded of its seats.

“It’s the opening in the roof,” said Jimmy. “I should have liked to show you ... the staircase is blocked with scaffoldings ...”

But Harrasford, at the risk of breaking his neck, had already grasped the rungs of a provisional ladder, made of spokes stuck through one of the four beams which rose from the floor to the ceiling and supported it, while the whole of the space between them was being opened. The architect was there when Harrasford came out on the roof. He showed him four piers of strong masonry which were being built against the outer walls, explained that two T irons of considerable strength would rest with their ends on the piers and run across the roofing from wall to wall. Two other irons, also parallel, but running lengthwise, would be bolted to the first two. This arrangement would make a horizontal frame of twenty by thirty feet. They would then remove the beams which supported the roof during the operations. When the plastering was finished and the gilding applied, this would form, as seen from below, a handsome frame to the sky. The architect also explained how the truncated roof would be secured to the frame, forming a whole as firm as a rock, and how a light iron sash, completely glazed, could be drawn along the two transverse T irons, thus opening or closing the hall as desired.

“The whole thing’s worked from below by electricity,” said Jimmy.

“How long will it take?” asked Harrasford.

“It’s all ready. It’s only got to be fixed up,” said the architect.

“And how much? Give me the detailed account to-night, at the station. I’ll study it on my way to Berlin.” And, turning to the workmen, “Faites vite! DÉpÊchez!”

They were the only words of French he knew, a vocabulary no more extensive than Lily’s, but of a different kind.

“And the lights?” asked Harrasford, before he went down again.

“Here, there,” said Jimmy, “on steel rods, connected by electric wires.”

“That’ll dish the Berlin Winter Garden, with its stars set in black velvet,” said Harrasford.

And he followed Jimmy toward the stage wall, which stood out above the roof of the auditorium. Here some other workmen were cutting a doorway.

“Let’s go and see the floor now.”

And Harrasford plunged through the door, followed by Jimmy. They crossed the fly-galleries and

made for the blocked staircases. Before they went down, Jimmy called his attention to a pulley which was being fixed to the ceiling and which was to carry a rope with a stirrup for the performer’s foot, to enable him to reach the stage in a few seconds, after doing the trick.

“Very good,” said Harrasford.

In half an hour, he had visited everything: the roof, the flies, the cellar, the auditorium, the front entrance. Workmen were hurrying everywhere. Harrasford encouraged them with a slap on the shoulder:

“DÉpÊchez! Faites vite!”

They were working at everything at once, from the new installation of electric light and the steam-heating apparatus, in the basement, to the emergency exits and the main lobby. Upholsterers were taking measurements in the front boxes. The sound of the hammer rang out from top to bottom, amid a cloud of dust; men climbed the scaffoldings, hoisted up things; and the sight of all this activity gave the impression of a plan thought out in advance, executed with great certainty, but incomprehensible to any one not in the secret. There could be no doubt but that the spectacle which was being prepared would be of a sensational character: even the back-wall of the stage, which was empty at that moment, had been altered. By clearing away a few dressing-rooms, they had raised the floor and ceiling of the huge property-entrance. It had been closed up at the back and fitted with a sliding door in front.

“The bird’s cage,” said Jimmy, with a smile.

“And how does he get out?” asked Harrasford.

“Windlasses here ... a rope up above ... hooks,” said Jimmy.

“And when will it be fixed?”

“Finished next week, everything’s ready, the trials have been made. It will only need a little practice, here, on the spot, calculating the effort, getting used to the distance.”

“House packed for six months!” said the manager. “Here’s a cigar to your success, Jimmy! Come and let’s have a drink at the bar; we’ll settle the program over there.”

A moment later, the two entered the bar where, a fortnight earlier, Lily had handed round the hat a second time for old Martello and his Bambinis and where the artistes, who had already dispersed toward the four corners of Europe, had raised their glasses to the success of the Astrarium. And there, in the little back room, which was deserted by the artistes, now that the theater was closed, but which would soon again be the intersecting point of so many vagabond existences ... where the nigger cake-walker from Chicago would play poker with the equilibrist from Japan ... where the profs and the bosses would exchange complaints about the strictness of the regulations concerning the work of apprentices ... where little girls, worth their weight in gold, would come, coyly, encompassed by Pas and Mas, but with glances askance at flight; in that corner where funny men would swallow mixed drinks and talk through their noses; there, under the frames containing row upon row of signed photographs of artistes: human pyramids, girls in a knot, foaming muslins, Apollos and Venuses all muscles; there, in Pros’ Corner, Harrasford, the man for whom all those people toiled and moiled, head down or feet in the air, the man from whom one thousand persons drew salaries night after night, Harrasford lit his cigar and sat down at a table with Jimmy, over a

bottle of beer, and, forthwith, pencil and note-book in hand:

“Let’s see the program.”

Jimmy, on his side, took a written list from his pocket and laid it on the table.

It goes without saying that the select turns which they were about to discuss had long been engaged for Harrasford’s different music-halls, some of them two or three years ahead, as often happens in the case of the great bill-toppers, and the question was to choose among the best, so as to insure the triumph of the opening night. For Harrasford, who had as yet appointed no one as manager or stage-manager, the thing was to settle a program which would discourage any attempt at competition, to have none appearing except stars, without counting those whom he held in reserve for the following month, before distributing them over his variety-theaters in England, or, later, to any part of Europe, in the “Great Powers Tour” which he proposed to create and of which the Astrarium would be a sort of “commodore” music-hall, or headquarters. Jimmy only gave his opinion, after which Harrasford would decide.

Harrasford’s dream was a model music-hall, something, in its own way, like the Grand OpÉra in Paris: a palatial edifice, in a new style of architecture, with friezes displaying bodies in contortion, caryatids, cast from life, supporting the springers of the arches, mixed groups of loins and chests with swelling muscles, under the electric lights, and, in the lobbies, a lavish display of African onyx, Scotch granite and Russian porphyry. The crowd would pass in between Venus and Apollo, holding flowers and lights; and there would be music everywhere; gaiety, noise, red and gold everywhere; all cares would be laid aside and forgotten on entering; it would be a hall containing every modern convenience, like the Iroquois at Buffalo or a ’Frisco sky-scraper: newspapers, cafÉ, bars, smoking-room, barbers’ saloon, telegraph-office, telephone-office, messenger-boys, ticket-office, private rooms in which phonographs would shout out the latest news illustrated with telesteriography, from eight o’clock till midnight. The idea was to create, thirty years ahead of its time, the great popular music-hall, with its ball-rooms, as at Blackpool, its side-shows, a palm-garden, a roof-garden; to draw to the theater those who, on getting up from dinner, go to the cafÉ and stay there; to give them an atmosphere of mirth and jollity, of comforting lights, a sort of night forum, of People’s Palace, with, in the middle, in the sumptuous hall, facing the furnace that was the stage, a long thrill of three hours’ duration.

And he would realize it next year, but he was in a hurry to open now, to plant his flag of victory:

“Faites vite! DÉpÊchez!”

Dare Devil had won the place for him and Jimmy was bringing him the sensational attraction, the inspired godsend which would pack the Astrarium for six months and fill its till and spread its name far and wide over Europe.

Harrasford thought of this with a puff at his cigar, after glancing at the photographs on the wall, and then, suddenly:

“Let’s see the program.”

“Nothing but bill-toppers,” said Jimmy. “Picked turns from the first to the last ...”

“Which will be you,” Harrasford broke in.

“Yes ... I ... or somebody else ...”

“What do you mean, somebody else?”

“Perhaps,” said Jimmy, “to heighten the effect of my turn ... for reasons which I’ll explain to you ... perhaps it would be better to have a woman ... better for the success of the attraction!” he hastened to add, at an astonished gesture of Harrasford’s.

“And ... are you sure?” asked the other.

“I think so,” said Jimmy.

“The program first,” said Harrasford, returning to his notes.

“We open with a gallery in marble and gold, something showy and quaint, in the Potsdam style, with a negress inside.”

“I know. Light of Asia, eh? The armless Chinese girl whom I discovered at Poplar.... Music of cymbals and triangles, eh?”

“No,” said Jimmy. “I have something better ... more Æsthetic, less cruel ... a Soudanese woman from Chicago. She walks on to the stage in a low-necked dress ... a magnificent woman ... a creamy complexion, with a touch of pink ... and golden hair ...”

“You said a negress,” interrupted Harrasford.

“Wait ... a splendid voice ... classical music ... then a wild African melody.... She feels a flutter of homesickness; the perspiration streams down her face; she presses the sponge soaked in water, hidden beneath her wig,—and the enamel, the white of the shoulders, the pink cheeks all trickle away and, finally she appears black as ebony, and, to the growl of the kettle-drums, does a disheveled dance, kicking up her legs like a puppet on a string ... Patti-Patty ... talent and absurdity mixed ... a crazy toy ... movement and noise, while the hall fills.”

“Next?” asked Harrasford.

“Next, without any interval,” continued Jimmy, “directly after that performance by the court fool before his majesty the audience, the curtain rises upon a park ... and the New Trickers chasing one another among the trees.”

“The New Trickers!” said Harrasford. “Bicyclists: that’s very stale. And, besides, what about you?”

“Has one ever,” asked Jimmy, “seen a music-hall give two similar special turns, two bicycle turns, for instance, in the same show?”

“Absurd!” said Harrasford. “Explain yourself.”

“It’s to differentiate between my invention and trick-riding from the very first,” replied Jimmy, “to show, once and for all, that mine has nothing in common with the ordinary turns you see on the stage: ‘Bridging the Abyss’ or ‘Looping the Loop.’”

“You may be right,” said Harrasford, “it will prevent confusion; yours is purely scientific. And the New Trickers: tights? Bloomers?”

“Skirts, all in white, Warwick style,” said Jimmy. “A school-girls’ spree: see-saw on the bike ... somersaults over the benches ... waltzes, lively tunes: an impression of gaiety and happiness. The star is a statue on a pedestal in the park. The others throw flowers to her. She wakes; steps down: ‘Hullo, a bike!’ And then a special tune for the star and a waltz on the back-wheel, amid the admiring circle of school-girls.”

“All right,” said Harrasford. “And what’s the price of the New Trickers?”

“So much.”

And he jotted it down in his note-book, near the prices of Dare Devil and Cataplasm.

Jimmy also took notes, mentioned the names of the great serio, the great comic singer, with their figures:

“So much.”

“They earn their money pretty easily, those two!” grunted Harrasford. “But I’ve got to submit to it, I suppose. Next?”

Jimmy only described the spectacular turns. Harrasford listened, saw it in his head: a corner of untamed nature, a valley in the mountains, blue distances, sunshine in the foreground. The Three Graces arrive all out of breath.

“You understand,” said Jimmy, “they are supposed to have been chasing the deer or hunting butterflies. As a matter of fact, Mr. Fuchs will have made them do their Sandow, before going on, to bring the blood to their cheeks; he’s full of ideas, is Mr. Fuchs. On arriving, a moment’s rest, an adorable group in all the splendor of the nude ... sweet, solemn music ... and then a glorious performance, a sort of human cluster hanging from the trapezes, something healthy and robust.”

“All right,” said Harrasford, putting a cross in his note-book opposite the Three Graces. “And next?”

With Harrasford it was always “And next?” like a man who never has more than just so many minutes to spare, because his train’s waiting.

It was a curious sight to see the two talking together in low voices, with an occasional glance at the door when some indiscreet person looked in. They might have been taken for a pair of conspirators plotting a move; no one would ever have suspected that they were composing a performance, unique of its sort, which would be famous to-morrow. Everything was provided for: scenery, music, the color of the dresses, effects of light, the alternate doses of laughter or grace or terror to be served up to the audience; everything was discussed then and there, in all its details, down to those two sketch-comedians, with faces streaked red and white, against a back-drop representing an old English street, two drunken sports, with hats mashed in, coats turned inside out, ten minutes of mad tricks and inhuman cries; for the audience must have its pittance of the grotesque as well.

There was a herd of comic elephants, five enormous animals in a Hindoo setting; and no master on the stage, no boss, no prof: they all obeyed a whistle blown in the wings. And, conducting the orchestra with an air of unspeakable gravity, a monkey, Mozart II., a caricature of an infant prodigy, made the huge brutes perform their evolutions, to the Soldiers’ Chorus from Faust. Then, in his enthusiasm, Mozart sent his desk flying into the air, followed by his coat, his shoes, his conductor’s baton, and ended by seizing his tail in his hand and beating time with that.

“That dishes Orpheus and Mad-darewski,” said Harrasford. “And next?”

The entr’acte came next, with portraits and biographies of the artistes distributed among the audience.

“Yes, yes,” said Harrasford, laughing. “Old English families ... clergymen’s daughters....”

“Learned all that with their governesses, as a surprise for their Pa and Ma!” continued Jimmy. “Mozart II., a favorite of the king of Lahore; Patti-Patty, a descendant of the Queen of Sheba: we’ve got to do it. There’s no getting away from it.”

“We must hide the bruises,” said Harrasford. “And next?”

“Next, I hope to have the Bambinis: ten minutes of rosy mirth; real biographical babies, born with that in their blood, brother and sister, two marvels. I shall obtain permission for them to appear, though they’re under the age; the old father is dying, the famous Martello.”

“We must engage them for my tour,” said Harrasford.

“If the old man doesn’t die first; in that case, there’s a brother who will come and claim them, it seems. They’re a fortune, the two Bambinis, to whomever secures them.”

“One dress-coat more on the stage,” said Harrasford. “And next?”

“Topsy Turvy Tom.”

“Oh, yes, I know!” said Harrasford, laughing. “The fellow who used to wear leaden armlets to harden his muscles and smash Clifton’s jaw.”

“That’s the one,” said Jimmy, laughing in his turn. “A threat of Clifton’s, who said that he would ‘make him dance the hornpipe on his hands, damn it!’ suggested the idea of a turn to him, so they say. He set to work with superhuman energy—and now he is a bill-topper....”

“Well done!” cried Harrasford, banging his fist on the table. “There’s no country but old England can turn out bulldogs like that, lads who jump from the gutter to the top of the bill! That’s what I call a man! And what’s his turn like?”

“A scene of his own: the front of a palace. A pink marble figure, naked down to the waist, supports a huge cornice. A thunder of big drums, a flash of lime-light and the palace splits from top to bottom. The figure staggers, falls on its hands and gives a stupendous acrobatic performance: somersaults on the hands; waltzing; treading the ball: the ‘hornpipe, damn it!’ And then Tom stands on his feet, all in shadow. A powerful ray of light is thrown upon him, and you see the muscles of the abdomen slowly moving, the pectoral muscles quivering, the deltoids leaping and starting, the biceps swelling; and, when he turns round, the rhomboids hollowing out, the muscles of the back rolling: the triumph of the human machine ... and of Tom.”

“And of will,” said Harrasford. “How much?”

“So much.”

“It’s worth it. And next?”

“Roofers, high-kickers: the Merry Wives. We begin with dancing and end with dancing. The puppets make their bow to the public before being put away in their boxes ... the curtain falls ... and good night!”

“And then you come!”

“Then I come,” said Jimmy. “Or she.”

“Your invention,” said Harrasford seriously, “is not a music-hall entertainment. It is, undoubtedly, the greatest of all scientific toys, a marvel of modern ingenuity. Do you really want a pair of tights on the top of that? And, first of all, where will you find the woman who will dare?”

“That’s the question, obviously,” admitted Jimmy.

Not that Jimmy must have been in love with Lily, to think of her! It had first just passed through his head, no more. But, on reflecting, it had appeared to him that, in the theater, the beauty of a Lily would add greatly to the success of his attraction. To work his invention in public was different from experimenting with it in his shed in London. It was leaving the laboratory to take its place in life; and it would be a triumph to see the daring trick succeed, every day, at the fixed hour, within a restricted compass; to see it go through the opening above; to see that machine worked by a young girl in whom one would have suspected neither the strength nor the nerve: it would make the public infer the excellence of the engine. Now Jimmy was possessed, above all, of scientific enthusiasm. His machine before everything; not his personal triumph, his machine. He dreamed of giving that added grace to his diagrams; and he considered that there was no disadvantage in allowing science to be introduced by youth and beauty. Moreover, Jimmy was a little heavy for an apparatus in which he had even suppressed the motor, in order to make it more easily manageable ... a lighter body would perhaps be better ... Lily, Lily was the ideal operator; but was she capable of it? Jimmy had confidence in her. Jimmy, certainly, did not allow sentiment to mix in his affairs; there was the weight of his responsibility to consider. But then there was also his meeting with Lily in the dressing-room passage. And he had understood her mental agony. He had seen the gleam in her eyes and so great a display of energy in her face that Jimmy had resolved to try her; and he would judge her much better by the way in which she should face death.

That is what Jimmy explained to the manager, leaving a good deal untold, of course, and Harrasford retired behind the smoke of his cigar, listened, approved.

“It’s your affair, when all is said and done. All you want is success, I suppose? And will you arrange with her ... with your ... what did you say her name was?”

“Lily.”

“There are so many Lilies; and, if somebody has to break his or her back, I had rather it was a Lily, one out of the bunch, than you.”

Lily, meanwhile, was loitering outside. Harrasford and Jimmy had no notion that the girl about whom they were talking was quite close to them, thinking of them. Lily had heard an artiste say that Harrasford was visiting the Astrarium. She had come in all haste, impelled by some vague hope. Chance would have it that she was still in Paris. Everything, besides, seemed to be keeping her there: an agent, the day after her interview with Jimmy, had advised her to stay a few days longer; there might be something important for her. Lily could not understand in what way; however, she had stayed, though she was almost without means of support. She began by trying to sell her jewels, the fifty-pound diamond, among others, which that lord had given her in England: the jeweler handed it back to her, saying that it might be worth eight francs! That meant destitution. And yet hope always returned to her in one way or another. She had even received three blue banknotes, three hundred francs, in an envelope! Her fortnight at the Bijou! No doubt about it, they were paying the artistes’ salaries; perhaps the Federation had taken the matter up? Three hundred francs; not enough to pay Glass-Eye or to give to Jimmy, but just sufficient to settle her small debts, buy some new dresses and go to London to play the darky at Earl’s Court. Oh, what a ridiculous come-down! And so, when she learned that Harrasford was at the Astrarium, she took her courage in both hands: she would see Harrasford. She would try the fascination of her smile upon him. She would be settled at once and for ever.... When she thought of the New Trickers, her blood seemed to stand still in her veins: the New Trickers at the Astrarium! And Jimmy, the mean cur, not to have got her that shop, when she had such a splendid idea: Lady Godiva on a bike! And a scene of her own: the front of Peeping Tom’s club, with all the boys at the windows!

Just then, Harrasford came out of the bar. She hurried up to him and introduced herself:

“Miss Lily.”

“Which one?” said Harrasford. “Excuse me; no time now. See Jimmy, will you?”

And he plunged into a cab and shouted an address to his driver.

Lily stood stupefied, as she watched the cab disappear. This time it was finished, quite finished.... She gave a last glance at the Astrarium and sighed....

“Lily!” It was Jimmy coming out and crossing the street. “Hullo, Lily!”

She did not reply.

“Listen, Lily,” said Jimmy, gently and gravely. “You wanted to get there the other day, didn’t you? You told me you would do anything for that.”

“To take the place of the New Trickers, yes!” exclaimed Lily. “I’d have risked my life!”

“The New Trickers are there,” said Jimmy, “and are going to remain. Listen to me, what I have to propose to you is very serious: it’s something else.”

“What else? You know that’s all I’m good for ... to go round and round ... you know it quite well!” cried Lily, her face drawn with impotent anger. “I know what you can do. Look here: would you like to be above the New Trickers? Would you like to top the bill? Are you ready to do everything for that?”

“May God forgive you for mocking at me!”

“Will you top the bill?” asked Jimmy again, in an accent that sent a thrill down her back. “Answer me: yes or no?”

“Yes,” cried Lily. “My life, everything, damn it!”

Glass-Eye opened two terrified eyes, wondered if Lily was going mad....

Glass-Eye had become dulled through constant obedience, had lost her memory, mixed up her yeses and noes, like those actors who forget their parts through playing them too frequently; her recent life had excited her too much, and never a sou in her pocket, only barely enough to eat ... it was ten times worse than in Rathbone Place.... And then that new crotchet of Lily’s.

“Can I fly, Glass-Eye, or can’t I? Am I a bird or am I not?” It was enough to make Glass-Eye lose her head....

Glass-Eye was obliged to answer yes ... and that very quickly. But she kept on trotting behind Lily, who, realizing that she would soon be taken up with her rehearsals, took advantage of her last days of liberty to pay visits and show herself a little, accompanied by her maid, like the fine lady that she was. She went and took the Bambinis some candies. Poor kids! Their games and laughter no longer filled the hotel with mirth and gaiety: old Martello was getting worse and worse and was now not able to leave his room at all. Lily found a kind word for everybody and was grieved at not having any money, which would have allowed her to be generous. That would come later. She worked out a scheme for occupying herself with the children when the old man was gone, for having them always with her, like two dear little lucky charms. It was impossible, of course: never mind, it was the idea of a lady, which she would not have had in the old days, and Lily was pleased with herself for having entertained it.

“I will speak about you to Jimmy,” she said to the Bambinis. “I’ll get you engaged at the Astrarium, eh?”

And the old man trembled with delight, stammered out his thanks, tried to accompany her to the door, like a princess; and the little boy, to thank her, promised to teach her a way of standing on your head which he had learned all by himself!

“Poor darlings!” thought Lily, as she left them. “If ever they fall into their brother’s hands! They would be better dead! Luckily for them, he has disappeared for good; and his Ave Maria with him, unluckily for me!”

For Lily understood how badly her position as a lady went with that name of Mrs. Trampy. It was like dragging a tin kettle at her skirts, to make the people in the street turn round and look at her.

And, more than ever before, Trampy posed as a faithful husband. Nothing sufficed to take down his arrogance. Always the same old Trampy: great, by Jove! And, with his red lips, his glittering eye and the cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, he made love to second-rate “sisters,” inferior Roofers in red calico skirts. His glamorous title as the bill-topper’s husband still won him a few conquests. And Trampy, especially since Jimmy’s return, plumed himself more and more on the fact that he was the husband of his dear little wife!

Lily knew all this and it made her fume with rage at heart; but she showed nothing, pretended, on the contrary, to treat it as a little matter of no account. For instance, after her visit to the Bambinis, as she passed an artistes’ bar, quite close, there stood Trampy, lording it on the pavement, among a lot of unemployed pros. Lily made herself short-sighted to the point of absolute blindness. Trampy caught her, as she passed, with a:

“Hullo, Lily! Hullo, my dear little wife!”

But Lily behaved like a real fine lady who knows how to put people in their place without calling them names:

“Hullo, Mr. Trampy!” she replied, in a sarcastic tone. “Still got your red-hot stove, Mr. Trampy? Still a success with the girls? Kind regards, Mr. Trampy!”