Presently, she came to an agent who practised almost in the street, in an

arcade somewhat like the Burlington, an agent for everything ... circus,

music-hall, theater ... artistes formed in a week ... white flesh at

famine salaries. There were all sorts of people there, a moving heap of

frayed velvet and shabby plush. Lily passed by with great dignity. Next,

she came to the big agent, with offices in Berlin and London ... the

ting-ting of telephones, the tick-tack of typewriters all day ... business

pure and simple, an exchange for supple loins, swelling biceps, muslin

skirts, pigeon's eggs ... a sheaf of stars who, from there, radiated over

Australia, America, England, the Eastern and Western Trusts, Bill and

Boom, Harrasford, the continent. Lily felt a little ill at ease as she

entered--she had a pain in the pit of her stomach, as when she used to

expect a smacking--and again in the private office crammed with papers and

registers, when alone with the agent, who looked at her card, he seated,

she standing. Then, suddenly:

"Lily? Miss Lily? Your price is two hundred francs a week, I believe."

"What!" said Lily. "With a bike and a maid?"

"It's what you had at Maidstone, so I was told."

"What a lie!" said Lily. "Three hundred francs is the lowest I've ever

had. I'll show you my contracts."

"Don't trouble," said the agent. "I thought ... we can get plenty at that

price, you know ... in your style...."

"In my style, perhaps ... but not me."

"Pooh, the audience doesn't know the difference." And he started looking

through a register, turning over the pages and repeating mechanically,

like a refrain or a lullaby, "The audience doesn't care a hang; it's all

the same to the audience." And, suddenly, with his hand flat on the open

book and the other ready to take up the pen, with a piercing eye fixed

upon Lily, "I can give you a month at a thousand francs ... they want a

girl in tights ... at Lisbon."

"Lisbon?" said Lily. "That's at the Colosseo. A thousand francs to go to

the Colosseo, with one's luggage and a maid?"

"Well?" broke in the agent. "And what do you want a maid for, you

extravagant little beast? Why not your maid's family while you're about

it? A thousand francs: will you take it? I've got some one who will, if

you don't."

Lily had to say yes or no quickly. Her forehead was wrinkled with the

effort of turning the francs into shillings, the shillings into pounds.

She consulted her book, like an artiste who doesn't know, who may not be

free, for a whole month. She lowered her chin in her tie, but without

smiling ... had a cramp in her stomach, rather ... at a pinch, by leaving

Glass-Eye in Paris.... After Lisbon, one generally had Madrid and

Barcelona and returned by Marseilles and Lyons. Friends of hers had done

well like that. But to accept a lower salary once meant accepting it

always, in establishments of the same class; it meant reducing her price,

for always, by two pounds a week, at least.

"A thousand francs: will you have it?"

And Lily:

"No, it's impossible! I can't take less than twelve pounds a week." And

she began to sum up her proofs: "Look here, at the Hippodrome, Glasgow ...

at the Palace, Leeds...."

But the agent wouldn't listen, shut up the register, was sorry:

"Can't do it ... bad season ... cyclists to be had for the asking.

Good-by."

"Good-by."

And Lily went out, went down the stairs, feeling half-inclined to go back

and accept; but no! Lower her prices? Never! Oh, those cheap artistes,

those black-legs deserved to be hanged! Great lazybones who learn a few

baby tricks on the bike or the tight-rope, back-shop acrobats, slop-shop

Lilies, who practise at a safe distance, by watching you on the stage,

through an opera-glass. They cut your prices by half; they would work for

a handful of rice, like a monkey. They deserved to have the iron curtain

come down on them, and flatten them out like black-beetles, the

wind-bags!

"I say, Glass-Eye, perhaps it's they who fell into the orchestra, was it,

when I got my thighs full of lamp-glass from the footlights, eh? They copy

you, think themselves artistes.... What! Yes? You say they are, Glass-Eye?

Damn it, I'll have your eye out!"

And Lily had a fit of laughing when she saw Glass-Eye, who hadn't said a

word, raise her elbow in affright to ward off the blow.

Lily held the banister with one hand, leaned on Maud's shoulder with the

other and laughed and laughed, only to see her maid's terrified face, a

regular fat freak shrinking before the belt. My! She would have fallen

with laughing, if Glass-Eye had not held her up; she plugged her lips with

her scented handkerchief, slapped her thighs. She had never laughed so

much in her life. She already felt consoled for all her bothers:

"Watch me, Glass-Eye! This is the way to go down-stairs!"

And, nimbly as a bird, Lily hopped on the banister, with her back to the

wall, and--w-w-w-w-whew!--slid down to the bottom, keeping her balance

faultlessly, sprang to her feet on the last stair and, with a wave of the

hand, as after a successful trick:

"There! What do you think of that?"

Lily was not given to long spells of sadness. Reaction always followed

immediately upon her worries, made the thousand and one vexations of a day

like this easier for her to bear. The compliments which caught her ear in

the street comforted her too:

"You pretty, pretty ..."

But she had no time to listen. Six months in her book before night! As

time passed, Lily would have been content with less. And trot, trot, trot:

while she was at it; then she would end by seeing whether they would get

her for a handful of rice.

This idea amused her. Lily had confidence in her talent and continued her

visits. She saw them all: other agents, former bosses or profs, who had

sucked apprentices dry to the marrow and who continued their evil

practices in their offices; this sort sized you up with the eye of a

slave-dealer. There was also the lucky agent, who had started a

sensational attraction, a Laurence or a Light of Asia. This agent had a

touch of pride about him, with his eternal, "I gave her her first start!"

as though to say:

"They'll never find another like her, never! They don't turn them out like

that now!"

And all this was a pretext for offering you ridiculous terms, because you

were neither Light of Asia nor Laurence. It was no use Lily's boasting of

having declined Bill and Boom and Harrasford, pretending to be an artiste

for whom the managers were competing against one another with sheaves of

banknotes. There was nothing for her at this one's ... nothing for her at

the others', either ... only a scrap of news of her family, through an

artiste. The New Trickers were all the rage in Scotland, it seemed; an

engagement in London, at the Palace, was waiting for them. When Lily heard

that, she turned pale with envy: so it was on their account that she had

been refused that tour in England, so that they might have it! Patience!

Her

[Illustration: LILY]

day would come ... when she returned from the continent and, instead of

Miss, called herself Mlle., like Adeline Genee and lots of others!

Meanwhile, she had found nothing. Still, Lily knew that one sometimes had

whole months of enforced idleness, without knowing the reason, and then,

suddenly, one's luck returned. One only has to wait a bit, thought Lily,

making herself very short-sighted as she passed before the arcade, the

haunt of the out-at-elbow pros and of the piffling little agents, the

jackals of the profession, on the lookout for a bone to gnaw. And it was

not a little vexing to hear her name pass from mouth to mouth--"Mrs.

Trampy, Mrs. Trampy"--and who could be drawing attention to her in that

rotten lot? Was Trampy there, by any chance, pointing his finger at her?

She felt inclined to go back to them, to tell them in two words what she

thought of them. Mrs. Trampy, indeed! It was not for long, in any case.

Her divorce was not far off!

In the evening, at the theater, she forgot her bothers, as usual. The day,

for that matter, was quite an ordinary one: it was the typical day, the

trot, trot, trot, of the star alone, in search of engagements. And,

thoroughly tired, in her dressing-room, she related in her own way the

adventures which she had had since the morning, the compliments on her

beauty; and at the agents', my! If she had liked, she could have filled up

her three years' book! The architect came in her dressing-room for a

moment: so interesting a Lily! so amusing, he thought, as funny, in her

way, as Light of Asia, the Chinese girl without arms. Sitting on the big

trunk, he admired by turns Lily and the disorderly dressing-table, its

cracked looking-glass, scribbled over with names, and, under the glaring

light, the grease-paints--red, white, black--the powder-puffs and hare's

feet, the biscuits in the tray among the hair-pins, a bottle and glasses

beside the powder-box. From nails on the whitewashed walls, scratched all

over with inscriptions, covered with penciled dates, hung rainbow skirts,

bodices with metallic flowers. The bike shone in a corner, half-buried

under Lily's outdoor clothes. Tights hung beside it, like pink skins, gold

spangles strewed the uncarpeted floor and scent hovered over

everything.... Half-open doors admitted gusts of music from the orchestra;

and Lily, opposite the glass, fumbled among her pots with the tip of her

finger, stained her lips blood-red, fixed the rebellious curl to her

forehead with a touch of gum. Outside, in the passage, was the row of

doors, with spy-holes and visiting cards, half-sheets of paper, stuck down

with wafers and bearing the names of the various occupants:

"Prof. X. The Famous X. Family. Absolutely the best."

There were others "absolutely the best."

On Lily's door, her card--"Miss Lily"--and, under that, modestly:

"And maid."

Lily revived amid these surroundings; here she forgot her fatigue,

blossomed out to her heart's delight. With her rainbow dress, her feathers

and her pearl pendants, combined with her elaborate gestures as she made

up her face in front of the gollywog, she resembled the officiating

priestess of a strange religion, pacifying some angry-eyed idol to the

sound of distant choirs.

While finishing her make-up, Lily continued her stories, talked of her

successes in England and here and there and everywhere ... and the lord

who wanted to marry her and rained down presents upon her: fifty-pound

brooches, diamonds.... Everybody in love with her: to listen to her you

could have followed her traces like the passage of a cyclone ... men gone

mad ... others blinded through weeping ... millionaires ruined in

chocolates and sweets ... and flowers, my!

"You could fill the Colosseum with them, couldn't you, Glass-Eye? I've

been spoiled everywhere," continued Lily, "and I'm known everywhere! Even

in Paris, to-day, there were a lot of ladies and gentlemen under an arcade

and you heard nothing but 'Miss Lily, Miss Lily,' didn't you, Glass-Eye?"

"Yes, Miss Lily."

But these social successes did not make Lily forget her business affairs.

Harrasford's new music-hall worried her: if she could only play there,

only snatch it from the New Trickers! For they would certainly try to get

there; and the architect, of course, knew ...

But Lily was interrupted by the call-boy: time for her to go down to the

stage!

A hurricane came up from the orchestra, muffled, with beats of the big

drum, like distant cannon. The curtain would go up soon; it was the time

when Lily stretched her legs, before giving her performance, and took a

breath of air in the painted forest. A click of the padlock and:

"Come along, Glass-Eye, the bike!"

Lily, in spite of her brilliant successes in England, was dead tired of

tipping the boys; it ran away with all her money. As she allowed herself

the luxury of a maid, by Gollywog, she might as well make use of her; she

wasn't going to feed her to do nothing! And poor Glass-Eye attended to the

bike, at the risk of putting out her other eye. Every day the struggle

between Glass-Eye and the bike formed the joy and the delight of the

passage. There were incredible swervings, scratchings of the wall,

barkings of Glass-Eye's shins. Lily followed behind, bursting with

laughter, warning Glass-Eye to take care or she would put the bike out of

gear by knocking it about with her legs:

"Oh, where's my belt?" she cried, patting the back of her hand.

The artistes, attracted by the noise, half-opened the doors; laughing eyes

gleamed at the spy-holes; voices cried:

"Go it! Never say die!"

Glass-Eye perspired like anything, pursed her eyebrows above her fat, red

cheeks, grumbled, in her Whitechapel slang:

"Kim up, you lousy moke! Igher up, Jerusalem, you pig-headed bag of

tricks!"

Lily lost patience, snatched the machine from her, ran it down the stairs,

pushed the door of the "meat-tray," and found herself behind the scenes,

the drops rising and falling, the nightly spectacle since she had been

"that high," the land of the unreal lights. And the sudden glare from the

reflectors set clusters of shoulders blazing with a silvery glow, brought

up out of the shade the pale flesh of the dancing-girls, heaped up behind

the pillars. It swarmed from every side, right and left--"Hi, there! Meat,

meat!"--under the rush of the stage-hands shifting the wings. There were

fleecy foams of fair wigs, smiles from kiss-me-quick lips, blinkings of

made-up eyelids, a swarm of arms, thighs and necks, preparatory to a

ballet, _Heures d'amour_, in which Poland, the Parisienne, triumphed with

her costumes _Deshabille gallant, Dessous diaphanes, Le tub, Volupte,

Dodo_, eight pantomimic scenes in a sumptuous setting, with girls to

impersonate the Hours, from pale-pink flirtation to scarlet desire.

Lily watched this familiar sight with a wandering eye; and suddenly she

turned pale: what was that? Who was that? In the midst of it all, smiling

to her from a distance, as though laughing at her, stood Trampy! My!

"Here, hold my bike, Glass-Eye!"

It was close on her turn, but, before going on, she had a word to say to

the stage-manager and, walking up to him:

"Do you see that josser looking at me?" said Lily, pointing to Trampy. "If

he stays here, I ... to begin with, I shan't go on. I won't be humbugged

by any one!"

"Who is it?"

"My husband!"

"All right, darling," said the stage-manager and, suddenly, between the

scene which was being hoisted up and the other let down on the silent,

empty stage: "You there! Get out!"

Trampy could not believe that the words were meant for him. He waited

until the order had been twice repeated. He, an artiste, before those

girls! He made a gesture as though to ask:

"Do you mean me?"

"Yes, you! No jossers here," said the stage-manager. "Sling your hook!"

"Gee!" thought Lily, when he had gone. "This time you've been paid back in

your own coin! So you kicked me out at the Horse Shoe, did you? It's my

turn now, you damned tramp!"

She exulted with delight, as she went through her performance. It was her

first revenge! the other's turn would come next.

"I don't forgive and I don't forget," she muttered to herself. "Every dog

has his day."

Oh, how happy she was! She was magnificent on the stage, under the

flashing lights, and the dull sounds in the orchestra were to her as the

throbbing of a riotous heart.

"Well, Trampy, you got soaked to-night, to-night," thought Lily, as she

might have said, "One, two!" to mark her times. "To-night, to-night. And,

if you don't like it--one, two--you've only got to lump it! Divorce was

made for men and women, not for dogs!"

Lily was triumphant, laughed, winked her eye, as she rode past, at the

stage-manager, who threw her a kiss and grinned. Immediately after her

turn, she ran to her dressing-room, poured water on her steaming skin,

while the make-up trickled in pink streaks down her face, and devoted an

hour to the dainty care of her person, like a cat licking itself. And then

Lily, without paint or powder--awfully ugly, not in the least pretty off

the stage, as she said, smiling in her muslin tie with the gold

spots--Lily went out by the front, to avoid the pros' corridor.

The moment she was in the lobby, she assumed the air of a lady accompanied

by her maid. She cast an indifferent eye at the string of carriages, like

one who changes her mind and prefers to walk, a smile to the gentlemen at

the _controle_, a nod to the Roofers going out, two by two, always, a dark

one and a fair one. Lily stopped for a second, to look round....

Then: "Let's go home, Glass-Eye!"

She took a few steps along the street, but a jolly voice behind her

cried:

"Gee, what a spanking walk!"

She turned round; it was Trampy again!

"Ah, this time," thought Lily, "I shall have witnesses!"

She expected blows! She would have given anything to be struck: her

divorce, at last, would be hastened on! Cruelty, public insults! But no:

"How's my dear little wife?" asked Trampy, with outstretched hand.

Lily was so greatly surprised that it took her some seconds to recover her

presence of mind; and then, without turning her head:

"Come away, Glass-Eye," she said. "There are drunkards about."

"Don't let us quarrel, little wifie. Aren't you my dear little wifie?

Well, then...."

And Trampy took her by the arm.

"Let me go, or I'll break your jaw," muttered Lily, under her breath.

Trampy seemed in a jovial mood, with his cigar in his mouth, his cheeks

flushed with insolence, his eyes moist with libations.

"Let's make peace," said Trampy. "Peace in the home: that's my motto!"

"Divorce!" cried Lily.

"Peace in the home for me!" rejoined Trampy, who grew the more radiant as

Lily grew more and more incensed.

"Let me tell you," he continued, puffing luxuriously at his cigar, "that

divorce--why, how can you think of it?--means a public scandal, my name

dragged in the mud...."

"Footy rotter!" roared Lily.

"Dragged in the mud; and my dear little wife left to her own resources,

marrying again, as she feels inclined, marrying some one unworthy of her,

perhaps. I won't have it! I'm responsible for you! I'm your natural

protector! You're not Miss Lily, you're Mrs. Trampy. You've been in the

wrong, certainly; you had me turned off the stage, me, your husband; but I

forgive you."

"And I ... take that!" Lily broke in, spitting in his face. "That's how

_I_ forgive _you_! Take that! And that!"

Trampy reveled with delight:

"You _are_ my dear little wifie, aren't you? And you'll remain so ... and

you'll never belong to any one else, do you hear? I am a faithful husband.

You're trying for a divorce, I know, but you won't get it. The wrong is on

your side and I'm not going to law, and you're Mrs. Trampy and Mrs. Trampy

you'll remain! Will you come and have a drink, Mrs. Trampy?" he continued,

lighting a fresh cigar. "Won't you? Very well. Good night, wifie!"

And Trampy, turning his back to her, disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

CHAPTER IV

Lily came home and went straight to bed, without even waiting for supper,

so great was her hurry to forget. It seemed to her that things had

happened, things without end; that this day had been as long as a year.

She simply could not understand Trampy. She could have imagined anything,

except that! She racked her brain to conjecture how, why; and sleep

quieted her till the next morning; and she woke up with teeth clenched and

eyebrows set and ... why? Why? And again why? Did he still want to keep

her?--after realizing in a hundred different ways that she did not love

him, that she loathed him, that she had married him only to escape her

whippings and that she had but one idea in her head: to divorce him!

Now--only Lily could not know this--it was because of that very reason

that Trampy clung to her, like a faithful husband: Jimmy, Jimmy was his

bugbear. He believed Jimmy to be in love with his wife. Once Lily was

divorced, Jimmy could marry her; and Trampy would see him further first!

The greater Jimmy became, the more jealous Trampy grew. He knew the steps

Lily had taken to obtain a divorce, the witnesses she had tried to secure.

She was very keen on a divorce, was she? All the more reason for not

gratifying her; and she wasn't going to get it. The witnesses, Trampy had

just heard, declined to give evidence. They had seen nothing, heard

nothing. A bike at her head? Maybe. They didn't know. A bit of a fuss

between artistes, such as you see every day, and none of their damned

business. Outside that, Lily had nothing to go upon; on the contrary. She

had abandoned the conjugal home; all the wrong, apparently, was on her

side. He, Trampy, alone was entitled to file a petition; but that never!

He considered that Jimmy and Lily had trifled with him sufficiently. He

could not swallow the idea that they were only waiting for the divorce to

get married; the idea that Lily would be Mrs. Jimmy, of her own free

choice, after marrying him, Trampy, to escape her whippings; no, he

couldn't swallow that! Now it rested entirely with him to prevent that

marriage. He had only to keep his dear little wife for himself. In that

case, Jimmy, if he wanted her, would be obliged to do without her or else

to "live with her" and set a bad example, lavish bestower of good advice

that he was, the dirty hypocrite, preaching morality to others! That was

what Trampy had determined to do. As for Lily, Trampy, who was incapable,

at bottom, of either hatred or love, didn't care one way or the other. He

was always sure to want for nothing, so long as there were girls on the

boards and whisky in the bars.

There was another reason still that urged him to let matters rest, without

going further. To embark on a divorce-case, to have his name in the papers

and his story hawked round the four quarters of the globe--"Trampy, you

know. You knew Trampy, didn't you? The husband of Lily?" and so on--was

what he didn't want at any price, for a reason known to himself. He had

made inquiries, quite privately, at the beginning, when he thought of

petitioning for a divorce; and what he had learned had made him prudent:

his marriage in America was valid beyond a doubt. He was well and duly

married, whether he liked it or not. By the common law, two wives meant

bigamy; and bigamy meant prison, which was the last thing he wanted, as he

himself said. But, so long as there was no scandal, he ran no great risk.

He had lived on tenter-hooks at first, in Germany. Chance might have

brought him face to face with Ave Maria, on the stage of a music-hall.

This danger was not to be feared now, so far as he knew. Ave Maria and her

brother Martello were no longer fit stars for Europe, nor for North

America. He was too well known to the agencies; his brutality had produced

too many complaints, too many denunciations to the police; it discredited

any theater employing him. He might have come to Europe--who knew?--to try

to get hold of the Bambinis, now that the old man had not much longer to

live. But that was not very likely, either. An artiste, come across by

accident, had seen the pair at Iquique, in a wretched circus that was

doing the coast of Chili. He gave Trampy details: poor Ave Maria had grown

very ugly; a body all skin and bone and nerves; no hips, no chest; nothing

of the woman about her; in the last stages of consumption; and finished,

as an artiste, done for; no spring left in her overworked thighs, no

suppleness in her loins: even her brother, that brute, could get nothing

out of her now. And Trampy, who knew Chili, followed them, in his mind, on

their tour along the coast, from Iquique to Copiapo, to Valdivia: a trying

climate, biting winds which would kill her on the spot, unless she went

and perished in the fever-stricken plains of the Argentine.... When people

had fallen so low as that, they did not rise again: there was nothing to

fear from that side. But her presence was not necessary; the danger still

existed. There were documents, in black and white. Their names were

bracketed on a register somewhere or other: he knew where. It was better,

therefore, in every way, not to call attention to himself. Meanwhile, he

was playing a nice trick on Lily and her Jimmy. And Lily was Mrs. Trampy

and Mrs. Trampy she would remain; and that was all there was about it.

But it was no use for Lily to give herself a headache trying to make out

why and how. She did not guess Trampy's secret thoughts, any more than he

suspected the actual nature of her relations with Jimmy. For her, too, one

thing was certain: Mrs. Trampy she was and Mrs. Trampy she would remain!

She would never be free; she would always be chained to that tramp

cyclist! And, if a match should happen to turn up for her among her

admirers, the architect, for instance--you can never tell: plenty of

others had already proposed for her hand in marriage, in England--she

would be obliged to refuse! And, if some gentleman were to pay her his

addresses, treat her like a lady, take her to choose a hat or a silk

petticoat in a smart shop, there was somebody who would have the right to

say to her, as she passed:

"How's my little wife getting on?"

Oh, those two Jim Crows round her, spoiling her future! Jimmy and Trampy!

They would end by being the death of her. Oh, if she had had Thea's arm,

what a blow in the jaw for one or both of them! And Lily, when she thought

of it, wore the face which was hers on her bad days, teeth clenched,

stubborn forehead. Glass-Eye shook in her boots when she saw it, for

sometimes Lily vented her anger upon the poor girl with a smack,

considering herself quits if she begged pardon after!

"If it's one of those footy rotters," growled Lily, hearing a knock at the

door, "smash a bottle over his head!"

But no, it was simply her letters, sent on from the theater. Nothing of

importance this morning; prospectuses, mostly: a wig-maker, special

theatrical department; a manufacturer of traveling-hampers, for South

Africa, Australia....

"No use for them," thought Lily, with a sigh.

[Illustration: A ROOFER GIRL]

And, on opening _The Era_, she received that discouraging sensation:

always so many names, and so many tricks, and all "the best;" new ideas

and troupes, troupes, troupes; another new troupe of fat freaks, a very

flood of them; and Roofers, Roofers; "Greater-Greater England Girls,"

words and music guaranteed, with scarlet legs and muslin skirts, complete;

page upon page of pink tights; and national troupes and colonial troupes;

and one had to earn a livelihood and shine among all that! Lily was half

crushed; and everybody she knew was triumphing: the Pawnees,--one hundred

and thirty music-halls, the whole of the Eastern and Western Trusts, the

great two-years' tour! The Three Graces also were continuing their

triumphs. Lily, who felt herself the equal of any of them, held her breath

as she read the news. Laurence had won her terrible bet that she would

ride straight across Manchester and Salford on her bike, hands tied

together, feet fastened to the pedals. At the Art Institute in Chicago,

Marjutti had given a lecture on the art of contortion.

"Some josser of a journalist wrote it for her," thought Lily.

And _The Performer Annual_ had sent Marjutti its set of questions to

answer, she had been published in print! And Lily was still waiting! And

Tom? Tom was in England now, in the De Frece circuit; had had a triumph at

the Portsmouth Hippodrome, as "Topsy Turvy Tommy," dancing a sailor's

hornpipe on his hands. All, all were successful, including others even who

were not so good as she was: one who obtained engagements because she had

a nigger in her show; another because of a monkey.

"And I've done nothing yet!" grumbled Lily.

Oh, to be talked about in her turn, to achieve something, to become "our

Lily!"

"It's twelve o'clock and I'm still in bed!" she cried. "I ought to be

practising!"

It was just a flash of pride, mixed with remorse. She knew it well enough;

often and often, she had reproached herself for her idleness, for her

habit of sleeping till the middle of the day, of taking her meals before

the performance; but she would make up for it to-morrow! It is the usual

refrain of stars who have become detached from their troupes, far removed

from regimental discipline, so to speak: without a Pa, without a boss, you

can do nothing. You must have some one to force you.

"A month on the three years' book before to-night!" prayed Lily, touching

her lucky charm.

And she studied the omens with an expert air, gave an ear to passing

sounds, tried to catch the meaning of them, for she had visits to pay,

letters to write, business, damn it!

That was what Pa used to say before her. And it was not so easy to turn a

letter prettily: that was Trampy's forte. She knew something about it.

Lily, in her night-dress, with her elbows on the table, bit her pen,

reflected, in a mental effort that gave her a headache. And that

note-paper wasn't nice, either, without a heading; true, it only rested

with herself; every day she was approached with offers of artistic

photographs, even of tricks which she did not do: standing with one foot

on the saddle, the other in the air and her arms stretched out before her,

like a flying genius; or as Cupid, with his dart in his hand: impossible

things which neither the Pawnees nor Laurence would have dared to attempt!

But it would look well, with her name in red letters: "Miss Lily," or "La

Belle Lily." Or else a photograph showing her strolling in a great park,

with a palace in the background, taken from nature, followed by her maid,

or by a footman, hired by the hour, for the occasion.

"I think I shall select the governess," said Lily to herself, "because of

my biography; it will be nicer, truer. Or I might be taken riding on the

back-wheel, like a lady just leaving the house and doing that to amuse

herself?"

Lily, still undecided, took up the pen again: one foot on the saddle; six

pairs of tights; three dresses; the theaters at which she had

appeared....

What a pack of jossers! She couldn't forgive the agents for her present

want of success. She was exasperated. She felt inclined to go and see the

managers themselves, those who had made love to her on the stage, and to

send in her card to them--"Miss Lily"--just to teach those jossers of

agents! Her independent ways had already made enemies for her: she knew

that; but how could she help being angry? The tricks they played you, down

to making you miss a marriage, as had happened in London, the other day,

to the Three Graces, to one of them, who had been courted, during Mr.

Fuchs' absence, by the boy-violinist. Their agent had launched into

slanders and even insults to prevent the marriage, which would have split

up the troupe and broken the contract....

"What a pack of nigger-drivers!" thought Lily. "As long as they get their

ten per cent., the rest can go hang, for all they care!"

There was no doubt that Lily had got out of bed on the wrong side, at the

thought of having to climb all those staircases again and to dance

attendance with the rotten lot in the waiting-rooms. But, by Jove, she

could have boxed the ears of the first agent she visited that afternoon!

He had the impudence to offer her a magnificent engagement in the Indian

show at Earl's Court, she to stain her skin brown, dye her hair black,

with rings in her nose, at the wrists, at her ankles; a costume like Miss

Ruth's, all in gauze; the nautch-girl on the bicycle; six times a day, in

the open air, to the sound of tomtoms. Play the negress; that's what he

offered her! She could not help laughing, in spite of her anger. But she

became quite intractable and snubbed another agent who suggested a one

day's billet in a tiny music-hall at a ridiculous price.

"I don't give my performance under five pounds, or on a stage of less than

thirty feet!" cried Lily.

At last, luck seemed to turn; she settled for Spain and Portugal, and that

same evening, at the Bijou Theater, she was offered another engagement,

for three months hence. This contract would procure her others, after her

spell of ill luck. Lily at once took courage again:

"Oh, if I had the Astrarium!" she thought.

Everywhere, at the theater, at the agents, people were talking of the new

music-hall. It even became a current joke. They said, "So-and-So's

performing at the Astrarium," as though to say, "He's not performing! He's

living in a castle in the air!" Every one was talking of the great

music-hall which was to open in a few months and which was not to be seen

building anywhere. Some said that it was serious; they quoted engagements:

Tom; the Three Graces; the impersonator; nothing but turns quite unknown

to Paris; novelties, nothing but novelties: Marjutti; Laurence, perhaps;

or the New Trickers. Lily shivered when she heard that!... She opened wide

eyes, like Alice in Wonderland. Oh, to appear there! But she had performed

in Paris. Then she would change her name; bike mixed with dancing; and her

whole trick done backward, as Pa had once advised Trampy to do in Mexico!

Oh, if she could have that! Lily Godiva, undressed on the bike! She'd show

them she was a lady, not a performing dog! The Astrarium, that was

certain, would open in Paris in a few months. Harrasford had said so

himself. There was no doubt about it. They even told the name of the

stage-manager, Joe Brooks, the cleverest of all. Lily felt herself carried

away with ambition. Oh! to open there! Oh, if it were true! God grant that

it might come true! Oh, if Daisy, their star, could only break a leg! The

few days which Lily was still to remain in Paris, before leaving for

Spain, she employed in obtaining further information. She learned the most

exact particulars. Incredible though it seemed, the Astrarium was to open

quite shortly! The blue-chins discussed the thing, amid clouds of tobacco

smoke, in the bars, after the show. To allude to it now was not like

talking of castles in the air; on the contrary. To tease a pal, one said:

"You're opening at the Astrarium, aren't you? I _don't_ think!"

Which was another way of saying:

"The Astrarium's no place for you! They're taking nothing but bill-toppers

there!"

The new music-hall, even before it came into existence, was beginning to

spread, like the story of the whippings; it would be talked about, all

round the world, as something stunning, a more complete show than the

Tivoli at Sidney or the New York Hippodrome. Harrasford was credited with

designs for a palace in onyx and marble. He had bought or was going to buy

a theater with the object of transforming it; names and prices were given.

Everybody was interested in it. Just now, especially, when the bioscopes

and the gramophones and the singers were taking the bread out of the

"artistes'" mouths, it meant twenty turns more to receive princely

salaries there; and, every month, that galaxy of stars, which Harrasford

would send shooting to Paris, was to disperse toward Brussels, Antwerp,

Marseilles, Hamburg: the European Trust, the Moss and Stoll tour of the

continent, managed by Harrasford, the great English manager.

To open at the Astrarium meant having work insured and your three years'

book filled for ever so long; meant appearing in public, later, wearing on

your chest the medal which they meant to distribute in memory of the

opening. Gee, Lily had a pain in her side at the thought of it! The Three

Graces, it was said, were on the program. Lily would have consulted

them--there was no jealousy about the Graces--but they were not yet in

Paris. Oh, Lily was longing and dying to be settled! Who was Harrasford's

agent? If she had to go to London to see him, she would go.

Why, damn it, she would go to Heaven itself to get the Astrarium!

Anything, anything to open there! That dream of greatness made her endure

her present vexations. Mrs. Trampy ... Mrs. Trampy ... She was addressed

as Mrs. Trampy everywhere. Trampy must be telling the story, taking his

revenge for the whippings, making little of her in his turn. One night

even, the night before her departure for Spain, when the architect was to

wait for her at the door of the theater, Lily, who had dressed herself in

her best, once more had the humiliation of being accosted by Trampy in

front of everybody.

"Hullo, wifie! How are you, darling? All right?"

Lily bristled with rage as she left Paris. Even when she was far away, she

still felt that she was dragging a chain which lengthened out endlessly

without breaking. Never, oh, nothing could ever get her out of that! Yes,

a brilliant triumph. Then, at least, she could crush him from the height

of her success, that footy rotter with his red-hot stove! Oh, what a

grudge she bore him! Jimmy was different: that was a wound of her own and

nobody would ever know; but Trampy, who laughed at her everywhere and

called himself her husband! He would make her lose all her friends. To say

nothing of the fact that those tales perhaps counted for much in her

failure: they were repeated from mouth to mouth. Oh, her profession

disgusted her at times! And to think that she, an English girl, was going

to earn her bread among the Dagoes, instead of starring in England!

Her wandering life continued; her journeys from town to town, in the

Spanish provinces, her arrival in the chill of the morning, her anxiety

about her salary, the hustle and bustle of departure and--trot, trot,

trot!--lugged about in the railway-carriage, like a performing dog in his

box.

And what theaters! It was worse than Germany or even Paris. In England, on

the Harrasford tour or the Bill and Boom, they had nice dressing-rooms,

with a carpet, water hot and cold, quick attendance, stairs swept every

day. Here, old plaster and those idiots who looked as if they understood

nothing--it took three of them to shift a scene--Dagoes who asked her

straight out, in Pidgin-English, if she was alone:

"No man viz you?"

It touched her on the raw. Lily lost all her cheerfulness: to begin with,

that engagement was not a particularly brilliant one; it was not at all

calculated to prompt her to do better, to introduce novelties into her

turn. Besides, on stages not yet overrun with Roofers or fat freaks, an

artiste performing by herself made an impression. Her old tricks sufficed;

sometimes she topped the bill:

"Theaters are the same everywhere; artistes the same everywhere, from New

York to Bilbao. Topping the bill in one means topping the bill in the

others ... doesn't it, Glass-Eye?"

But she knew quite well that it didn't; and, besides, that satisfaction of

her vanity put no money in her pocket. The amount she owed, my! She

thought of the past, of what she had earned for "them" since Mexico. If

she had only had half of it, a quarter, a quarter of a quarter, damn it!

Meantime, she had to make herself respected. In those countries, where

people used gestures when they spoke to you, a lady could not be too

careful. Why, the men treated an English girl just as they treated their

own women. She could have flung her bike at their heads! And they kept it

up all night, as in Russia, all except the jewels; you had to stay till

morning and were expected to accept invitations for supper, so as to keep

the customer there and push business! A little more and she would have had

to sleep there! She had threatened to tear up her contract, to complain to

the consul. And what annoyed her also was being in the same dressing-room

with singers who undressed without shame, while receiving their friends,

and made eyes at Lily worse than the impersonator.

And she had to have her food at the theater, no dessert, nothing but a

biscuit or an apple; and, if she asked for a pear, it caused a terrible

to-do. Rather than stand that, Lily went to the hotel, which put her to

double expense, for the board at the theater was compulsory. She had to

pay in any case; so that she went away without a farthing, thinking

herself very lucky if the manager did not try to kiss her in his office.

Oh, the things she saw, the things she rubbed shoulders with, the vice,

the promiscuity, the rushes of girls in the passages before the onslaughts

of footy rotters, direct propositions, with eyes looking straight into

eyes, brief wooings on the stairs, behind the properties, between people

just about to take the train, one east, the other west, and in a hurry to

have done with it; a silent embrace in the dressing-room, a neigh, a kiss;

and _au revoir_, ta-ta!

And the conversations between the stage-girls, who were always surrounded

by legends of the white slave-trade; stories of disappearances; of

"engagements for Caracas" and finding one's self over there without

resources, stranded in a bad house: like that poor girl, a Roofer, who had

received a letter and some sweets in her slipper, which she had sent

flying into the audience with a high kick--Lily remembered--well, she had

disappeared in South America, somewhere; one or two despairing letters and

then silence. And that other one, at Alexandria, who had called out for

help, behind her green blinds; and ever and ever so many others, whom she

had known slightly. Lily shivered: brrrrrr!

She was sick to death of it. She had had enough of it, was fed up with it.

She aspired to better things. Lily had hoped that her engagement in Spain

would have marked the end of her bad luck; but no, nothing offered. She

was sour, bitter, fierce; a wild bull, a stallion, as Ma used to say. And

she became especially terrible now, when her energy was spent in neither

work nor love, so much so that there was a cross against her name in the

agents' books.

Oh, she had often felt inclined to send them all to the devil: the made-up

eyes, the kiss-me-quick lips, the tow wigs, the low jokes, the

monkey-claws! There were some who had merit, no doubt, like that boy who

was all over scratches, from head to foot, through training cats; but the

rest, almost all of them, were a pack of good-for-nothings who copied

their betters: amateurs, jossers all; and they had more work than she, who

had taken such pains and who had made a fortune for her Pa. Oh, if that

wasn't enough to make her chuck everything and see life, in her turn. She

had only to choose ...

These reflections came to her more particularly when she returned to

Paris, after Brussels and Copenhagen, and was again performing at the

Bijou Theater, where she had already appeared.

"To make all that money," thought Lily, when she saw Poland again, "and

never to have been through the mill!"

She admired Poland for that, envied her good manners, her grace, the way

she slipped on her dressing-wrap in the living picture, _The Bath_. She

turned green with jealousy at the sight of Poland's motor-car, her

thousand-pound ear-rings, her sable furs. It was not that Lily lacked

admirers or sympathizers. She even had a little triumph at the Bijou

Theater, one day when she passed round the hat for old Martello, who was

ill in bed and penniless. Lily topped the bill in her own fashion, by

putting her name at the head of the list, and the collection was a

success, everybody contributed ... including the architect, who was still

prowling round her, in the passages, on the stage, everywhere. Lily was

decidedly courted: the rich bookmaker who ran the theater as his private

harem, he, too, patted her cheek in a funny way, complimented her on her

firm, round hips before the group of dancing-girls packed like poultry, in

the shadow of the pillars. Gee, it only rested with herself to have as

much of that as Poland! And everything reeked with love, amid the

cannonade of the big drums and the clash of the cymbals, while the sudden

flashes of the reflectors, moonlight-blue on one side, bright-red on the

other, lit up all around her the herd of the languid Hours. But her heart

swelled and puffed with pride. No, no, not that! She would succeed by her

talent, damn it, not by getting round men! She, an English girl; she, Pa's

daughter; she, who had gone through the mill, to sell herself like cat's

meat! Never! And her Ma should beg her pardon on her knees, on her knees,

damn it! The thought infuriated her.

She was quite sincere with herself. It was all her fault. She ought to

have worked and practised, practised every day, improved and improved her

turn; but she would do so now, to-morrow. It was her last chance. She had

hardly any money left; her three years' book was virgin once again,

unsoiled by contracts; but she had a stage to practise on and she was

going to practise to-morrow even if she had to pay somebody to run after

her, with the belt, if need be! Lily had nothing but that in her head now:

to get out of her present life, to get out of the mud, to reach the summit

at a bound. Was it possible? She consulted the Zanzigs; she spent a

fortune in penny-in-the-slot machines to learn the future, but always

received the same reply:

"You will marry the man who loves you. You will be very happy."

She smiled with pity when she read that nonsense; to prophesy her

marriage: how silly! She was only too much married! That was not what she

wanted to know; but the Astrarium! the Astrarium! Would she be there or

would she not? The New Trickers were plotting to get there, with a turn

which she had given them, goose that she was; and Cousin Daisy, that

farthing dip, would triumph and not she, a star, a real one! Lily was

rather in the position of Pa, when he arrived in London from New York ...

with this difference, that Pa had money and Lily had none. But there was

the same display of energy, once her pride was aroused. Lily also had run

round Paris like a mad thing: not to the agents!--with them it was: "Lily?

Lily Clifton? nothing your way to-day!"--but to her friends and

acquaintances, to find out about the Astrarium. Lily grew crazy at the

idea that she might perform there, be there at the opening, ride over all

of them, treat the New Trickers like so many fat freaks!

"Oh, God, if it were true!" she cried, with her hand on her lucky charm.

"God above grant that it may come true!"

She was at the end of her tether. Nothing short of the Astrarium could set

her on her legs again. She had no choice; it was either that or an

absolute come-down: the nautch-girl on the bike, at Earl's Court, or else

nights of dissipation, champagne and diamonds, like Poland; and Lily, like

her Pa in the old days, clenched her fists and gnawed her lip as she went

off to the Three Graces, who had their engagement and who would be able to

give her some hints.

Lily knew their hotel by reputation. Nothing but pros; a rallying-point of

troupes, an hotel where nobody's skin was free from bruises and where,

from morning until night, you heard the clatter of the clog-dancers'

heels. It reeked of potatoes, of sleepers three in a bed; chests,

strange-shaped packing-cases, ticketed with distant labels, made the yard

look like the stage-entrance of a music-hall. Lily did not care for that

sort of place: no matter; besides, the Bambinis were there and their mad

rushes, their yells of mirth filled the gloomy house with gaiety. And Lily

did not mind walking in with her gold-tasseled hat on. All those heads at

the windows: it was just like a fine lady visiting the poor. And yet she

was not proud now. Formerly, she would have laughed on learning the kind

of life led by the Three Graces, those three girls who remained good so as

not to break up the troupe and annoy Nunkie and who were said to spend

their spare time in sewing and cooking and doing Sandow exercises and

measuring one another round the biceps and the chest: simple joys, the

only true ones.

"They may be right, after all," thought Lily, who envied them from the

bottom of her heart for having the Astrarium. "If I had only practised

too! Practising is certainly better than attaching all that importance to

dresses or sending those puff photographs to the agents!"

A surprise awaited Lily when she entered the hotel; pros were talking with

a mysterious air. There was muttering in the corners, a piece of news was

going round: the Bijou Theater had closed, that very day; the treasury was

empty, bankrupt; everything sealed up; just on the eve of pay-day too!

[Illustration: THE BAMBINIS]

"My! Is it possible?" thought Lily, distracted and forgetting the

Astrarium and the Three Graces. "And what am I to do for food to-morrow?

Come, quick, Glass-Eye!" she whispered, catching her a thump in the ribs.

"To the theater, quick!"

For Lily knew by experience that it was a good thing to be first. Her Pa

had saved his salary once, in a similar case, at Perth, in Australia; but

one must arrive in time.

CHAPTER V

There was a crowd in front of the Bijou when she arrived. They were

commenting on a notice pasted on the door:

"_Ferme_."

What could that mean? Lily had not provided for this in her vocabulary of

the French language; but the theater was closed until new arrangements

could be made. It meant complete ruin, enforced idleness....

"The rotten lot!" growled Lily. "Money, damn it, money! Pay up, you pack

of thieves!"

But Lily soon recovered herself, when she saw that there was nothing to be

done. She had been through worse than that, when the iron curtain all but

smashed her to a jelly, at Milwaukee, and when she tumbled into the

orchestra, at Glasgow! Notwithstanding the anguish that wrung her inside

and heralded the coming hunger, Lily put a good face on the matter before

all those people, like a lady who is above that sort of thing: a

disappointment, that was all.

"But how will those small artistes manage?" she seemed to say. "Those

families with babies?"

Lily declared that it was very sad, called Glass-Eye to witness, as usual;

but poor Glass-Eye remained dumb, reflected that she would never, never be

paid, if this went on. Lily owed her eighteen months' wages now! True, she

got enough to eat, or nearly; she traveled with Lily; and she wore her old

hats.

Meanwhile, the door opened; the artistes were allowed to take away the

implements of their work, before the final closing. The move began: they

fetched out basket trunks, hoisted packing-cases on to cabs. It was a

heartrending sight, all those things, made for the glitter of the

footlights, now displayed in the street. And everybody made such haste as

he could, under the eyes of the inquisitive passers-by, for fear of a

general execution, with every door sealed up and days to wait before one

could recover one's property. Fellow-artistes from other theaters came to

look on. Some were indignant that the Artistes' Federation could not take

up the matter and hurl the experience of its lawyers at the heads of the

proprietor or syndicate responsible, to say nothing of the moral weight of

its five thousand members, who had already made the English music-halls

come to terms by means of a wholesale strike. Others observed that it was

a private theater, one of those theaters run, for the fun of it, by some

prosperous gambler or lucky bookmaker; a sort of harem theater, with

almost empty houses, but with swells on the stage, among the swarm of

half-naked women; and no one responsible, the old boy ruined, the treasury

empty, bankruptcy; couldn't be helped; take in your belt a peg, that's

all!

"What do you think of this, eh, Lily?" asked a voice. "Only yesterday we

were passing the hat for others!"

Lily still had the list; and the money was locked up in one of the

dressing-rooms. Then it passed from mouth to mouth, like a watchword: they

would give back the collection; but not in the street, not before

everybody, for the honor of the profession. Lily, quite excited, entered

the passage and there, in the dim light, assisted by two one-legged

artistes, who called out the amounts and ticked off the names, she handed

back the collection of the previous day. Some received their share with an

air of furious determination; others looked shy and blushed; others,

again, refused, Lily among them; and it was decided to go to the "Pros'

Corner," or artistes' bar, near the stage entrance, to drink up what

remained: the ups and downs of life, damn it! Your turn to-day, mine

to-morrow; jolly lucky not to break a leg, after all! And their gaiety

returned, amid the smoke and the glasses, through a need of reaction; and,

after the first drink or two, came jokes, after-dinner stories, impromptus

which had traveled ten times round the world and brought tears of laughter

to the eyes of the audiences in thousands of music-halls, not to speak of

the second-class cabins of every ship of every line and the

smoking-carriages of every train, from the G. I. P. R. of Bombay to the S.

F. of Buenos Ayres.

"Owen Moore went West one day,

Owing more than he could pay.

Owen Moore came back to-day--

Owing more!"

And they joined in the chorus and they sang, "We all came into this world

with nothing!" and the one-legged artistes beat time with their crutches,

my! the pink Hour and the scarlet Hour, who were there, got a stitch in

their sides. Lily, with her head flung back, full-throated, laughed

nervously. Besides, as she said, artistes did as they pleased and didn't

care a hang for anybody! All made plans for the morrow, all had been

through that sort of thing before and much worse, too: six stories cleared

at a bound, to escape from a theater in flames! Falls of seventy feet on

one's head! And wrecks! And waves miles high! Already they began to talk

of going away, of traveling; traced the route with their finger on the

table: Cape Town, Australia, the States. To listen to them, those

everlasting wanderers seemed to have pretty nearly the whole world under

their hands. They spoke of taking a rest at their permanent addresses:

good old London; good old Manchester; there was nothing like good old

England, after all, eh? They'd had enough of the Dago countries!

But enthusiasm broke out when the great news arrived, brought by some one

straight from the agencies: Harrasford--"Guess, boys!"--Harrasford had

bought the Bijou Theater! It was all signed and sealed. He was carrying

out his program: and he wanted to open at once. For three months, it

appeared, there had been a silent struggle between him and the unlucky

bookmaker, who did not want to sell; and Harrasford had got it almost for

nothing; he had practically won it, yesterday, at the races,--with Dare

Devil, his wonderful horse. Dare Devil had beaten Cataplasm, his rival's

colt, and the smash had followed at once: the Bijou closed; a forced sale;

Harrasford had bagged it; and that was one, with more to come!

The artistes were carried away by this daring stroke! Harrasford, a son of

a gun, who could put them all in his pocket! The one-legged artistes

fought a mock duel between France and England, the victor to marry Lily:

what did they think of that? Hurrah!

"Say, boys, which is the quickest way of dropping money?"

"Fast women!"

"No, slow horses!"

It was grand. They drank to everybody's health. They drank to Harrasford;

they drank to the Astrarium! They counted the money on the bar-counter;

the amount of the collection had been greatly exceeded and somebody

suggested that it was a nice thing, upon my word, yes, a very nice thing,

what they were doing: having a good time, while the Bambinis, perhaps,

were going to bed without any supper! The whiskies and sodas had warmed

their hearts: my turn to-day, yours to-morrow, damn it! It might happen to

any of them, to hop the twig and leave Bambinis behind him.

"Lily, the hat!"

And Lily handed round the hat again and collected more than on the day

before, even among those who had had their money back.

"Take that to the Bambinis," they said. "We've been behaving like Dagoes,

damn it! Artistes ought not to act as such!"

"'K you! 'K you!"

And Lily Clifton walked off, very proudly, with her maid, to hand the

money to Nunkie, who was acting as treasurer.

"And, meantime, one's got to live," said Lily to herself, when she was

outside.

After the spurious gaiety of the moment, she seemed to be returning to her

distress, with no work, no money, the Bijou closed, Harrasford taking

possession of the theater. She revolved all this in her head, without

succeeding in connecting the whole: rags of ideas hung in her brain, like

the strips of scenery at the back of the stage. She had not even the

courage to go and take her bike ... to-morrow ... to-morrow. The Hours,

the pink one and the scarlet one, who came out of the bar also, resigned

themselves gaily. Their salary mattered so little. As they explained to

Lily, you're always well paid, when you have rich friends, and, if you

haven't, all you have to do is to look out for them:

"Like Poland, what! A fat lot she cares the old boy's ruined! All she will

do is to find another, change her owner!"

Lily had knocked up against everything, seen everything, heard everything,

in her adventurous life; but this way of getting out of a difficulty

always made her blush to her eyes. No, a triumph at the Astrarium: that

was the only solution for her, Lily Clifton! She was eager also to hand

the money to Nunkie. The Bambinis' money was a different matter from

Jimmy's: they were hungry children. Nunkie must be at the theater now,

with his Three Graces, quite close, and they were going to perform at the

Astrarium. So it was not essential never to have appeared in Paris! That

meant one more chance for her!

"Come along, Glass-Eye!"

They now passed into the noisy quarters. The Olympia opened its furnace of

light before them. The Three Graces stood displayed in life-size on

posters, with others beside them, names which Lily knew vaguely, as she

knew them all, from seeing them somewhere,--as she knew the stage-entrance

of the Olympia, by instinct, in the dark street, at the side: the mouth by

which the monster nightly swallowed and rejected its fill of meat. A

courtyard ... three steps up ... turn to the right ... Lily was at home

again, amid rainbow lights.

"Hullo, Lily!"

It was Nunkie greeting her on the stage, while his dear girls were

dressing in their room. He took the money for the Bambinis, congratulated

Lily on the result of her collection, thanked her.

"And what about the Astrarium?" asked Lily. "Do you know...?"

Of course, Nunkie knew. His dear girls were engaged to perform there. And

he had seen some one on his way to the theater: the opening would take

place in a month ... in six weeks at the latest....

The architect--"You know, Lily?" said Nunkie--the architect who used to

hang about on the stage, in the passages, on some pretext or other--to

make love to girls, apparently--was minding everything for Harrasford! He

was taking measurements, drawing out plans:

[Illustration: THE ARCHITECT]

"Everything is ready in advance, everything's ordered; they've only got to

put things in their places; the workmen will start to-morrow."

"So that's what he came for!" thought Lily angrily. "The damned

_parley-voo_!"

"And your Pa, you know," continued Nunkie, "will be there too, with his

New Trickers: it would have been easy for you to get there first," he

added, with a meaning smile.

"The New Trickers! Daisy Woolly-legs!" stammered Lily, turning pale. "Who

told you so?"

"I'm sure of it, I had it from Jimmy himself," replied Nunkie.

"Jimmy told you? And what has Jimmy to do with it?" asked Lily,

anguish-stricken.

"What has he to do with it? Why, he's simply going to top the bill," said

Nunkie. "And, besides, Harrasford has left it to him to make out the

program. Why, didn't you know?... Your friend Jimmy...?"

She was in the street once more, feeling weak-kneed and light-headed. She

leaned on Glass-Eye's arm; she had a pain in her side from the emotion.

She felt inclined to enter a cafe, to get drunk on champagne, to forget.

The next day an awful headache made her keep her room.

"To-morrow," she said to Glass-Eye, "to-morrow I will fetch my bike."

She dared not go out; she felt as if it was written on her forehead:

"The New Trickers at the Astrarium! Daisy Woolly-legs at the Astrarium and

not you!"

And, "to-morrow," again she spent the day stretched on her bed. And the

next day, well, as she had to ... as her bike was her bread-winner, after

all ... her only bread-winner, whatever happened!...

"Come on, Glass-Eye! Let's go for the bike! I don't care if I do play the

darky at Earl's Court!"

But, on reaching the Bijou, she could not restrain a cry. Nunkie had

spoken the truth; they were at work everywhere, unloading joists, running

up scaffoldings, attacking the theater from every side. Her friend, the

architect, passed, looking very busy, greeted her with a "Hullo, Lily!"

But Lily did not even see him.

"I hope our things are still in the dressing-room. Hurry up, Glass-Eye!"

And Lily ran along the passage, where already sacks of plaster had taken

the place of the velvet and nickel properties. She crossed the stage,

which was still untouched, took the dressing-room corridor and there,

almost before her door, met Jimmy! She felt like turning her back on him,

after spitting on the floor, as a mark of contempt; but, after all, no!

The coward! They'd see which of them should lower eyes first! And she

planted hers straight in his face, like a blow of the fist!

Jimmy, who was coming toward her, had a moment of hesitation ... but it

did not last. He soon recovered himself. It would have been obvious to any

one seeing that masterful face that here was a man cured of his love, a

strong man and sure of himself, a man whom a kid like Lily--Lily had

always remained a kid to him, and not Mrs. Trampy, not the wife of Trampy,

that thief in the night!--a man whom a kid like Lily could not have at her

beck and call. And he held out his hand, like a good friend, simply, among

artistes:

"How do you do, Lily? Delighted to see you."

"Glass-Eye," said Lily, opening the door of her dressing-room, "Glass-Eye,

my bag ... the key of my trunk ... get out the bike first. One can't turn

in this rotten hole," she added, as she entered.

And, as Glass-Eye seemed all day releasing the bike from the hooked-up

skirts and tights hanging from the wall, to say nothing of the kicks which

she received from the pedals, Lily, grumbling, snatched it out of her

hands, and ordered her maid to go and wait for her in the street, great

good-for-nothing that she was!

"So you refuse to speak to me?" asked Jimmy.

Lily lowered her head, took no more notice of him than if he had not been

there, collected her clothes, pulled the gollywog from the wall without

the slightest regard, heaped up everything promiscuously in the trunk,

thumping it down with her fists, as though eager to have done with it.

"Come, Lily, are you still angry with me?" asked Jimmy, quite at a loss.

"When you took me by surprise that day, at Whitcomb Mansions ..."

"A lot I care for your love!" growled Lily contemptuously.

"But my friendship, Lily ..."

"Your friendship," said Lily, "your friendship ... a rag! I'll show you

how I value your friendship!" she said, flinging a dirty towel on the

floor and stamping on it in her rage.

"And that Daisy Woolly-legs!" resumed Lily, with an unspeakable expression

of scorn on her face.

"What do you mean?" asked Jimmy, who did not understand.

"Giving that shop to the New Trickers!" she continued violently. "You who

always used to talk of my talent! Giving a shop like that to those New

Trickers, who haven't as much talent among the six of them as I have in my

little finger!... You! To treat me like that!... When I think," cried

Lily, beside herself, "when I think that Pa and Ma will be here ... with

tricks stolen from me! footy rotter that you are!"

Jimmy understood that the engagement of the New Trickers exasperated Lily:

a question of outraged pride, of professional jealousy. He tried to

explain: she had already performed in Paris and Harrasford insisted on

that. He, Jimmy, wasn't altogether the master. The New Trickers were very

clever, very original, very new ...

"And I'm only fit to throw to the dogs, eh?" cried Lily furiously. "And

that rot about having performed in Paris. The Graces have performed in

Paris and they're to be at the Astrarium and why not I? Because you're my

friend, perhaps. Such a friend! When it would have been so easy for you to

give me that pleasure. But no one will ever do anything to please me! Yes,

strangers, gentlemen in the front boxes; but not friends like you! You

always bore me a grudge for marrying Trampy.... And who knows what people

say of me behind my back!... that I cut my turn ... that I do less than I

might. You know what I can do, damn it! But it's work I want, do you hear,

work! I'm not what you think!... One of those ... not I! I'd rather chew

glass than take any of that!"

And Lily spoke with nervous movements of the shoulder and fiery glances

and she forced Jimmy to lower his eyes and she told him what she thought

of him straight out, told him all her heaped-up, rankling spite, told him

all she had at heart, in words round and solid enough to build a tower of

Babel on!

"And I would have given my life, yes, given my life to perform here!

However, it's done now, isn't it? And it can't be undone," said Lily, more

calmly, and two tears sprang to her eyelids.... Then, while Jimmy, plunged

in his own thoughts, watched her without speaking and listened to her like

a judge, "You've nothing to say to me, eh?" she continued, closing her

trunk with a thump of the fist. "Nor I either. Then help me to carry down

my hamper: you haven't helped me to get into the Astrarium; at least you

can help me to get out of it. No? You refuse? And you so generous!" she

said, with a scornful laugh. "Well, then, help me take it on my shoulders.

No? Not even that? Then I must try by myself ... and never mind if I do

get crushed! _That's_ all I care for my life now!" added Lily, snapping

her fingers.

"But, Lily," said Jimmy, taking up the hamper. "You're going out of your

sense; you know that ..."

Jimmy could find nothing to say. He was pained to the bottom of his heart

... for the grief which he was causing her. The tone of feverish banter

which Lily was adopting upset him more than her anger had done. He felt

himself filled with pity for that poor little creature standing at bay.

With a turn of the hip, Jimmy jerked to his shoulder the great basket

trunk which contained all Lily's fortune. It was not very heavy: tights,

spangled skirts, faded flowers. And, in the passage down-stairs, the

astounded stage-doorkeeper saw the famous bill-topper submissively

carrying the trunk of the bicyclist, who walked in front of him, wheeling

her machine beside her.

CHAPTER VI

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!

Depechez_!"

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:

"_Depechez! 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 Opera 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, cafe, 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 cafe 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! Depechez_!"

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 aesthetic, 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!"

AMONG THE STARS

I

Jimmy was greatly excited when Lily had given him her answer and he led

her to the Astrarium. To understand his feelings fully, one would have to

know his life since the evening when, at Whitcomb Mansions, he had looked

Lily in the face and told her no. He realized then, from the emotion which

he experienced, how great a place Lily had filled in his heart, the little

passenger from New York to Liverpool; the girl who came to see him in his

shop in Gresse Street; the Lily whom he dreamed of "helping out of that"

when he saw her on the stage, from up in the fly-galleries; the one whom

he had tried to take away from Trampy; the poor sick girl in Berlin; those

Lilies whom he felt moving inside him, around him, like a breath of April;

all those Lilies, he had broken with them all! Oh, it was hard! Lily

should never, never know what courage he had needed to keep silent, he,

the man she thought so cold, nor what a tempest ... oh, if she could only

have seen into him! And then ... he had not met her again....

He, after his engagement at the Hippodrome, went off to America; Lily

traveled on her part. Also, he was a prey to his fixed idea, his great

project, always: his ambition increased, the same longing for success

which, formerly, in Gresse Street, had made him spend nights in study

after days of toil, at the time when, under Lily's influence, his roaming

thoughts built castles in the air, when he felt awakening within himself

his racial instinct as an heroic seeker after profitable adventures.

And his ambition took great strides forward, was not limited, as in

Clifton's case, to upsetting the fat freaks or training New Zealanders to

spin round and round. He dreamed of a useful life, based upon his own

efforts. He wished to found his future upon a discovery of his own, which

had long haunted him and which had ripened in Berlin, between his flights

in "Bridging the Abyss," a thing at which he worked incessantly in

Whitcomb Mansions; and, this time, the stage prowlers, should not steal

his idea. To begin with, apart from a few pieces of technical advice which

he received from a friend of his, an engineer, nobody knew about it; and

Jimmy felt sure that, even when the apparatus was at work, he would not

fall a victim to the confraternity who, ever on the watch for new tricks,

study them, judge of the weak points, copy whatever suits them, including

scenery and music, and, sometimes, succeed in earning more money than the

inventor himself; he would have nothing to fear from the Trampies, the

pirates, the plagiarists, those plagues of the profession. Certainly,

there were great bill-toppers, creators of sensations who discovered new

things--terrifying feats of gyroscopic balancing, or flights through

space, based upon principles of ballistics, assisted by the spiral

spring--daring risk-alls, nerve-shakers, purveyors of thrills, turning to

intelligent account the seductive power which dangerous feats exercise

upon the public. Jimmy knew all about that. He was not the only one; but,

this time, it was a question of a scientific application which would,

beyond a doubt, place him at the head of that pick of the music-hall. It

would be pure science and patient calculation: an algebraical hippogriff,

with pluck in the saddle.

Jimmy's plans resulted from intuition rather than real knowledge; but

learning has nothing to do with the creative spirit. Now Jimmy, although

he was unaware of it, possessed the genius that invents; and his

comparative ignorance did him no great harm: his imagination, unhampered

by theories, was all the freer for it. Jimmy had the higher instinct of

the born machinist, who is content to use a bit of string where a

school-bred engineer will cram every manner of gear, chains, pulleys and

windlasses. It is true that he was assisted in his research by many

experiments already tried elsewhere; but he dreamed of something different

and, in the calm of Whitcomb Mansions, had studied without respite.

"Pooh!" he reflected. "All those sails, all that weight! Boxes heaped one

on the top of the other--cubes to catch the air--a man sitting inert in a

basket, with his hand on a lever and a crank: it's as though one tried to

make a stuffed bird fly! And what becomes of the man in all that: the back

push, the daring stroke? The man has got to be the backbone of the

machine, with his quick balancings, his bendings, which are worth more

than any wheelwork."

And, always, his inventive imagination built on without respite, pulled

down, built up again.

His daily success at the Hippodrome did not divert him from the end he had

in view. "Bridging the Abyss," for him, was but a means of making money,

to enable him to climb higher. He thought of nothing but that: getting on,

climbing higher; and this obsession of the future made him scorn or rather

overlook the temptations of the stage. He would only have had to choose

among the lot. All, down to the great Parisienne, would have jumped at a

champagne supper with Jimmy, the famous bill-topper, the man who looked

like the swells in the front boxes and who made such a "pile." But Jimmy

knew all about that: he left the theater in the quietest way, took a glass

of ale with the boys or girls at the Crown, had a light supper and went

home. And sometimes a frenzy for work made him rush to his table, as

though the band of the Hippodrome were shaking his nerves:

"Get to work," he would growl, "get to work, cheesy brain!"

"But, Pa, I can't!"

"But you've got to, my little siree!" he insisted, with a flickering

smile.

And he read treatises, made diagrams; took up his compasses again ... or

else stayed as he was, with his chin in his hand, plunged in his thoughts,

his mind soaring above London.... He seemed to fly over the huge city,

whose distant rumbling rose up to him, similar to the roar of the sea....

Oh, he would succeed, he knew he would! And he felt within himself an

increasing will of so tenacious a character that he could have swung it,

so it seemed to him, like a battering-ram against the obstacle to be

overcome and then:

"Damn it!" he would growl, banging his fist on the table. "That thief in

the night! What a sweet wife he got hold of! Poor Lily, to fall into such

hands! Ah, yes, she would have done better to stay at home!"

And Jimmy got to work again, to forget Lily; and he kept on thinking of

her:

"Damn that girl!"

What on earth did he think of her for ... when he didn't love her, after

all?

Even during his triumphal tour of the Eastern and Western Trust, that

Lily, whom he did not love, haunted his memory. At first, he hoped to

forget her in his life of excessive activity. And he saw so many theaters,

as many as Lily did in England: so many artistes, on so many stages ...

faces whom he had already met in England: fair wigs, scarlet legs, boyish

voices; "Roofers," "brothers" and "sisters," returning from London,

Manchester, or Glasgow. He would have ended by seeing them all again in

time. There were other Lilies shooting up, Lilies "that high," elbowed by

every vice, petted by every hand, kissed by every pair of lips. His

sympathy went out to them all; and Lily had lived amid all that; it was

just her life. He found something to remind him of her at every turn, on

those stages on which she had performed. He seemed to see her near him,

with her light walk, in her little black dress, looking so nice in her

"performing-dog" toque: the poor little silly thing, running away with

that thief in the night and left alone now, quite alone, it appeared,

among the "rotten lot." The thought drove him mad:

"Damn that girl!" he said to himself. "I don't love her. Then why am I

always thinking about her?"

And he rushed into work, into danger, when he thought of that; risked

terrible leaps in "Bridging the Abyss." He sometimes felt as though he

were rushing toward oblivion, into the jaws of death! And his great

project also nearly outweighed Lily's influence:

"What are the leaps in 'Bridging the Abyss,'" he thought, "if not a

fractional flight? If I had two flat surfaces, one on either side, and a

motor behind me, it seems to me that I should continue to go upward; and

the best rudder would be the man riding it, with his flexible body, his

springy back: a live weight is less heavy than a dead weight. How many

hundred volts does pluck stand for ... or skill ... or hatred ... or

love?"

By dint of composing his machine in his head and studying it on paper,

Jimmy grew calmer. He thought less about Lily, or, at least, thought about

her only in her interest, not his. For instance, in that little town in

the West which was not on his tour, but in which Trampy had appeared,

Jimmy tried to obtain information. He went out of his way in order to make

inquiries. A marriage with Trampy Wheel-Pad? It was impossible to discover

anything; and he would not be able to make Lily the magnificent present

which he had dreamed of: her divorce from Trampy!

And "Miss Lily," Miss Lily, always; he was not satisfied with thinking of

her, he heard her name mentioned. Boys and girls who had seen Lily in

England and whom the chances of travel brought across his path in America

told him with many amplifications, of her outrageous adventures, her

passion for flirting. She no longer did all her turn. She paid more

attention to her dresses than to her performance. She was extravagant,

traveled with her maid, put up at the big hotels. She received bouquets,

my, as big as cabs, and invitations to supper and post-cards covered with

x x x x! She had an autograph-book full of declarations of love.

Motor-cars, furnished houses: she was offered everything. The son of a

lord had ruined himself in jewelry for her, the impersonator was nearly

off his head for love of her, gee, she did have a good time! She spent her

life receiving chocolates and sweets and distributing her photograph as

Lady Godiva, with her signature. Lily, according to them, laid waste every

heart; men had left wife and children for her sake; her love affairs were

going the round of the world, like her whippings. Lily was the thing; and

game and mustard for Jim Crow.

These tales left Jimmy very sad. He made allowances for professional

exaggeration in matters of love as of smackings, but, nevertheless, there

must be some truth in what they said, for it reached him from various

sides. Oh, he pitied that dear little Lily from the bottom of his heart!

The harm was done, the theater had spoiled the woman. This time, he felt

that it was finished, between her and him.... He, no doubt--who could

tell?--would continue his forward progress, and, one day, he would have a

wife of his own, a woman without a past, and he would take his stand

firmly on the earth, with a home and love; and Lily, soon, would be little

more than a dead memory....

Meanwhile, his brain, redoubling in vigor amid those stormy squalls, took

in everything, seized everything in a wide sense, became steeped in life,

rejected bitterness and retained enthusiasm. He heaped up personal

observations which he noted every evening, enough to build the ideal

music-hall one day. Harrasford, he knew, was cherishing that plan. Perhaps

they would realize it together? And the retreat for the aged and the home

of rest for the sick, and, in each capital or large town, a local

artistes' home--like the Sailors' Home--a little corner of England,

providing comfort for the man and protection for the girl. And his scheme,

his scheme was ripe now, the bold stroke which would enable him to realize

all the rest later. He felt the strength within him, if not to succeed, at

least to dare everything: "Brass Heart," as he had been christened at

'Frisco. He had served an apprenticeship to will-power: he had bruised his

ribs with a vengeance in a fall at the Columbia Theater at Cincinnati; he

had nearly split his skull at the Milwaukee Majestic; he had shed his

blood at the Washington Orpheum; and he was going to risk more with his

new invention. No matter, he had now but one idea, to return to England,

in spite of magnificent offers from Australia.

The moment he reached London, he set to work. And he fixed up the whole

apparatus at his leisure, in the shed which he had kept, notwithstanding

the expense: a sort of large hall in which he had already rehearsed his

"Bridging the Abyss." Here, with a couple of confidential assistants who

had traveled with him in America, he worked from morning till night,

correcting, revising, improving, in the midst of stretched cords and nets.

And then came his interview with Harrasford, his engagement at the

Astrarium, his meeting with Lily, in the dressing-room passage....

And it was untrue! What they had said about her was a lie! Lily had not

fallen! Jimmy, merely at that moment's sight of her, would have sworn it

in the face of the whole world: the tales about Lily, due probably to

professional boasting on her own part,--were false! He knew it, because he

had seen her magnificent anger and the flash from her chaste eyes. And he

would give Lily that joy--he owed at least as much as that to his dead

love--and he would see that it was all right. It would not be a question

of:

"Pa, I can't!"

"But you've got to, my little lady!"

She would have to dare of her own accord, with a will of adamant, and Lily

would do it, Jimmy was sure of that. He had found the partner wanted for

his success and he rejoiced to the bottom of his heart as he led Lily to

the stage of the Astrarium.

Lily, on the other hand, felt an anxiety which made her sides ache and her

heart beat:

"What on earth can it be?" she asked herself.

But, whatever it was, she would do it if it cost her her skin! And Lily

did not even take the stage oath, so sincere and spontaneous was her

resolve.

"I'll show you, Lily," said Jimmy, seeing her look at the hall and the

opening in the ceiling as she passed. "It's a new trick."

"Yes," said Lily, "new: it'll be like the last, they'll take it from you

as soon as it's out. It's like me, the tricks which Pa invented and which

the fat freaks cribbed from me. Tricks are always copied, you know they

are," continued Lily, who trembled at the thought of seeing others beside

herself topping the bill with that.

"You needn't be afraid," said Jimmy, "they won't take this one from me;

and yet I hope, in a few years' time, to see it all over the place."

"You hope to have it taken from you in a few years only, eh? But why?"

"For all the world to profit by it."

"All the world on the back-wheel!" protested Lily, who was always thinking

bikes. "Then what will become of the artistes?"

"In a few years, Lily, people won't go about on wheels," said Jimmy

jokingly.

"What will they do then?"

"They'll fly!"

Lily would have burst out laughing, in other circumstances; but they had

now reached the stage. The iron curtain was down. She looked round with

scared eyes for something out of the common. Jimmy, after making sure that

they were quite alone, walked up to the monster's cage, slid back the door

...

The aerobike, with wings wide open, seemed to loom out of the darkness.

"My!" cried Lily. "It's a bird! So that was your brain-work in Berlin and

in ... What is it?"

It was, in any case, a strange creature, with two inclined planes, one on

either side, that looked like wings; and, at the back, it showed a

screw-propeller sticking up in the air, like a tail. The whole thing

rested on two wheels.

"And it's a bike, too! I knew it!" cried Lily, clapping her hands. "Well

done, Jimmy! And do you want me to get up on it? Come along! Just wait

till I take my hat off," she went on, drawing out the hat-pins from under

her big feathers.

"Not so fast!" said Jimmy, laughing. "Keep calm! We'll start next week.

There are a good many little things to make sure of first; and then I must

put up a cable in case of a fall."

"I don't care a hang for a fall," cried Lily, immensely excited. "You'll

soon see if I'm afraid!"

"Be serious, Lily. Listen to me," replied Jimmy. "Yes, you will have to

stand on the back-wheel, but not to ride round the stage. You will have to

start up at full speed and then go up and up, straight up, into space and

then shoot out through a hole which they are making in the roof."

"Yes," said Lily, "I saw. . . . My, that makes a good distance! And, when

I'm through the hole, what do I do up there? Go on...!"

"I'll explain all that to you," said Jimmy.

"Dive into the street, eh?" asked Lily, in her Spartan voice. "Well, I

don't care! Anything! I'll do anything! And I'll show them," she added, to

herself, "if you can do _that_ through your gentlemen friends!"

But she calmed herself: after all, she was going to top the bill; have her

name in all the papers, with her portrait; see the walls covered with her

posters. What a revenge for her! That was enough, for the moment. She did

not want to appear surprised before Jimmy. The right thing was to take it

as something very natural, like a lady who is used to the best.

Jimmy, meanwhile, was explaining his trick:

"We shan't fly at once," he said. "We shall practise on the stand to learn

how the handles work. Oh, you'll have to think of everything during the

few seconds that the flight lasts! The machine isn't perfect, it's a first

attempt, it can only be ridden by a professional and a very clever one.

Look here," he continued, "it's the principle of the back-wheel; you'll

have to keep your side-balance and front and back, but you'll do it, I'm

sure. _I've_ done it."

"What you can do, a man," Lily interrupted, "I can do too. One can do

anything on the bike!"