“And I would have given my life, yes, given my life to perform here! However, it’s done now, isn’t it? And it can’t be undone,” said Lily, more calmly, and two tears sprang to her eyelids.... Then, while Jimmy, plunged in his own thoughts, watched her without speaking and listened to her like a judge, “You’ve nothing to say to me, eh?” she continued, closing her trunk with a thump of the fist. “Nor I either. Then help me to carry down my hamper: you haven’t helped me to get into the Astrarium; at least you can help me to get out of it. No? You refuse? And you so generous!” she said, with a scornful laugh. “Well, then, help me take it on my shoulders. No? Not even that? Then I must try by myself ... and never mind if I do get crushed! That’s all I care for my life now!” added Lily, snapping her fingers.
“But, Lily,” said Jimmy, taking up the hamper. “You’re going out of your sense; you know that ...”
Jimmy could find nothing to say. He was pained to the bottom of his heart ... for the grief which he was causing her. The tone of feverish banter which Lily was adopting upset him more than her anger had done. He felt himself filled with pity for that poor little creature standing at bay.
With a turn of the hip, Jimmy jerked to his shoulder the great basket trunk which contained all Lily’s fortune. It was not very heavy: tights, spangled skirts, faded flowers. And, in the passage down-stairs, the astounded stage-doorkeeper saw the famous bill-topper submissively carrying the trunk of the bicyclist, who walked in front of him, wheeling her machine beside her.
CHAPTER VI
The fortnight that followed upon this meeting was such a strenuous one for Jimmy, with eighteen hours out of the twenty-four spent at the Astrarium, among the day and night gangs; his life was such a slavery that he had hardly time to think of Lily. But he did think of her, for all that. He seemed to hear her still. Yes, he confessed to himself, he had, perhaps, believed ... he had, in fact, been told that Lily was Lily no longer ... But he had just been admiring her magnificent anger. He had seen her eaten up with ambition, quivering from head to foot, and that brave face lifted up to his. Twenty times over he was on the point of saying something to her; but he must see first ... Would she herself be willing? Even though she had seemed resolved to do anything?
“Meanwhile,” thought Jimmy, as on the former occasion, when she was ill, in Berlin, “how are we to help her out of this ... how?”
And he was caught in the whirlwind again: it was Jimmy here, Jimmy there. He had to be in ten places at once. Not that he was manager or stage-manager: his was a special case. Since his return from America, Jimmy possessed an even more thorough knowledge of all the machinery of the theater. He had his memorandum-books filled with notes, his head crammed with new ideas. He had a smattering of everything, a vast amount of experience picked up in rushing about the world. After his triumphs with “Bridging the Abyss,” the managers, knowing that he had prepared something different, something strange and terrible, without knowing exactly what, the managers had bombarded him with offers: Chicago, Berlin, London. A conversation with Harrasford, whom the Astrarium held body and soul, had determined the matter otherwise: he would open the Astrarium with Jimmy and remodel the theater from top to bottom in view of the new trick, the most sensational that had ever been seen. And Jimmy should make the necessary alterations, he should have a free hand.