She was at the end of her tether. Nothing short of the Astrarium could set her on her legs again. She had no choice; it was either that or an absolute come-down: the nautch-girl on the bike, at Earl’s Court, or else nights of dissipation, champagne and diamonds, like Poland; and Lily, like her Pa in the old days, clenched her fists and gnawed her lip as she went off to the Three Graces, who had their engagement and who would be able to give her some hints.
Lily knew their hotel by reputation. Nothing but pros; a rallying-point of troupes, an hotel where nobody’s skin was free from bruises and where, from morning until night, you heard the clatter of the clog-dancers’ heels. It reeked of potatoes, of sleepers three in a bed; chests, strange-shaped packing-cases, ticketed with distant labels, made the yard look like the stage-entrance of a music-hall. Lily did not care for that sort of place: no matter; besides, the Bambinis were there and their mad rushes, their yells of mirth filled the gloomy house with gaiety. And Lily did not mind walking in with her gold-tasseled hat on. All those heads at the windows: it was just like a fine lady visiting the poor. And yet she was not proud now. Formerly, she would have laughed on learning the kind of life led by the Three Graces, those three girls who remained good so as not to break up the troupe and annoy Nunkie and who were said to spend their spare time in sewing and cooking and doing Sandow exercises and measuring one another round the biceps and the chest: simple joys, the only true ones.
“They may be right, after all,” thought Lily, who envied them from the bottom of her heart for having the Astrarium. “If I had only practised too! Practising is certainly better than attaching all that importance to dresses or sending those puff photographs to the agents!”
A surprise awaited Lily when she entered the hotel; pros were talking with a mysterious air. There was muttering in the corners, a piece of news was going round: the Bijou Theater had closed, that very day; the treasury was empty, bankrupt; everything sealed up; just on the eve of pay-day too!
THE BAMBINIS
“My! Is it possible?” thought Lily, distracted and forgetting the Astrarium and the Three Graces. “And what am I to do for food to-morrow? Come, quick, Glass-Eye!” she whispered, catching her a thump in the ribs. “To the theater, quick!”
For Lily knew by experience that it was a good thing to be first. Her Pa had saved his salary once, in a similar case, at Perth, in Australia; but one must arrive in time.