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
LILY