And she continued her weary pilgrimage of stairs, from agent to agent.
“I must have six months filled up in my book before to-night!” she said, determined to visit them all, small and large, rather than go back empty-handed.
There were some who suggested to her that ten per cent. was really very little....
“I like their style!” thought Lily. “They want an extra sop thrown to them: one might as well work for nothing!”
She thanked them, nevertheless, so as not to make enemies of them—one never knows—and the agent doesn’t matter so much; but the assistant, who happens to have known you when you were “that high” ... better give him a tip, lest he should round on you.
She also saw a former artiste, a friend of Pa’s, who had become an agent.
“Miss Lily? Lily Clifton? What are you doing now? Won’t you see my secretary? Leave your address with him.”
“Fellows whom Pa helped!” she grumbled angrily, as she went down the stairs. “They’re the worst of all! They make you pay for the humiliation of their own failure on the stage!”
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.”