Lily, on her rickety chair, made as it were a little center at which the news was exchanged; to think that, instead of being there, at the top of the profession, she might have been at Glasgow, some twopenny theater, where ladies are admitted without shoes or stockings, or playing the darky at Earl’s Court! Yes, but for Jimmy, that’s where she would have been! Or else the Parisienne, in Russia! She, an English girl, my! And Lily fervently touched her lucky charm: oh, work, work, thank goodness for it! And Lily rendered homage to work and sprang from her chair to shake hands with Tom, who had come to see his palace unpacked:
“Good morning, Tom! Welcome!”
This Tom, who now topped the bill everywhere and had a permanent address and his own scenery: wasn’t it wonderful? He was no longer her Pa’s old servant: genius removes all distances; a man is what he makes himself! And they shook hands warmly, like equals.
Lily, as a sensational bill-topper and a friend of Jimmy’s, was always in great request. She talked nicely, without pose of any kind, like a woman who is sure of herself and knows things. The Astrarium ... the Astrarium ... what did that mean? They asked Lily:
“It’s like ... a palmarium,” she explained, “with sunflowers in it, all sorts of things ... girls ... stars ...”
She described her journeys, storms, gee! Weren’t there, Glass-Eye? People who had never been outside Europe and the States had no idea! Lily talked of India, Africa, Australia; talked of lions, which stand on their hind-legs when they’re angry, and tigers, which lie down flat; mentioned stage friendships between elephants and camels and herself in the midst of it all: “That high!” lowering her hand to six inches from the floor; talked of animal-training: dogs, cats, sea-lions and that “great, big, wicked Australian rabbit” which boxed like a man. She was a well-informed person, was Lily. And a providence for her family also, to listen to her. When any one brought news of her Pa and the New Trickers, with Daisy as a statue on her pedestal, one of the successes of the year:
“Yes,” Lily replied, in a patronizing tone, “I know. It was my idea. I gave it to them!”
They thought it very nice of her. She listened with great dignity to what they said about the New Trickers. They would not be at the Astrarium on the opening night. They were finishing an engagement on the Bill and Boom that same evening. They would be in Paris the next day. Mr. Clifton was reckoning on this appearance for the final triumph of his troupe ... and he deserved it. What a man, Mr. Clifton, what a man! “Not easy to please, eh, Lily?” And the inevitable gesture followed. But Lily would have none of that now, she would not hear her Pa spoken of as a brute! Did they take her for a performing dog? One was born with the gift or else one remained all one’s life a Daisy or a fat freak! She was proud to have a Pa like hers. She wasn’t a mountebank picked up on the road! Lily had a Pa and a Ma: a Ma of her own, a Ma whom she was certain about. She bore a well-known name. She belonged to the “father and son” aristocracy of the music-hall. She had never needed “that” to make her practice, she an artiste, brought up like a lady:
“Wasn’t I, Glass-Eye? Tom, wasn’t I?”
And the jewelry and the sweets her Pa bought her, my! Tons of it! Of course, he would stand no nonsense about behavior; and Lily made them all laugh till the tears came about that footy rotter who made love to her in London, before the time when drink made him look so disgusting, and, when she loitered in the street with him, Pa, the moment she reached the door, caught her such a blow that she took all the steps to the basement at one jump; and there found her Ma waiting for her ... gee!