“I know,” said Lily. “I quite understand. It’s like this, like this, yes, I know. It’s only a matter of trying! It’s a trick I’ve got to do and that’s all about it! Daisy would kill herself on it and so would the fat freaks, but I shan’t! I shall succeed.”
“Well, then, steady!” cried Jimmy, and his voice rang through the empty theater. “Go!”
The machine ran down with a swoop, the propeller whirred, Lily gave a magnificent back push, when she reached the bottom of the inclined plane; then she went straight up and the two pieces of twine snapped in two. Lily found herself hanging fifty feet in the air, the two pulleys glided slowly backward toward the stage. Jimmy stopped the machine.
“That’s wrong!” cried Lily. “Let’s try again. I see what it was: I forgot to push down my foot to point the machine up. It was a slip.”
However, at the next attempt, it went better. The twine broke each time, but Lily rectified her movements:
“It’s my back push! It’s the propeller! It’s the front-wheel!”
And, in fact, that was what it was. Jimmy and his assistants, who followed her with their eyes, had noted the fault and Lily, too, had observed it, in spite of the giddy flight. She was extraordinarily plucky and cool, her eight stone of flesh and bone, unerring and exact, seemed made for the aerobike.
“Bravo, Lily! Hurrah!” cried Jimmy.
She could have screamed for joy in the street, as she went out.
Her unparalleled stroke of luck in being chosen tickled her heart. She felt her sense of responsibility increase and also her wish to do well; no sooner had she left off practising than she was seized with but one idea, to begin again: