“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 contrôle, 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: