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 Déshabillé gallant, Dessous diaphanes, Le tub, Volupté, 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?”