day would come ... when she returned from the continent and, instead of Miss, called herself Mlle., like Adeline Genée 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.”