“You can make your mark, before two witnesses. Come along!”
Glass-Eye, dazzled and beglamored, followed Tom. She, an artiste! On the stage! At last! Going round the world with Tom ... living with him ... married ... almost!
“That’s come in the nick of time!” said Jimmy, as he watched her go off the stage. “Lily, perhaps ... in her new position ... will want a real maid, not a Glass-Eye! Lily ... why, she’s perfection! To think of the abysses she has walked along without falling! There’s more merit than one thinks in that kind of life. And how I should like to get hold of the people who talk ill of her. And that ... that ... oh, that one!”
And Jimmy clenched his fists, at the thought of Trampy, and his heart burst forth: all his patient, brave, manly heart, now well nigh exhausted.
CHAPTER IV
Poor Ave Maria, indifferent to what was going on before her, was still waiting on the stage. For that matter, it was but a few minutes since Lily brought her there. Ave Maria felt inclined to go and meet Trampy on the pavement, to throw her arms round his neck as soon as he appeared. But Lily had earnestly recommended her not to move, whatever happened. So she remained in her corner and, under the pale light, with her back to the forest scene, in the shadow, Ave Maria looked like a lurking she-wolf, ready to leap out at any moment.
AVE MARIA