And the evening came. Lily did not leave the theater. She walked nervously from her dressing-room to the stage, inspected the final operations, interested herself in everything, stopped the boy-violinist, who was crossing the stage with the other members of the band, congratulated him on his approaching marriage with one of the Graces. She talked to the artistes going up to their dressing-rooms, bestowed a smile upon Jimmy, another on the stage-manager, joked with the limelight-men working their apparatus on either side of the stage. The footlights lit up with a row of flames, the storm approached. There was a ringing of electric bells—“Ting! Ting! Ting!”—as in the machine-room of a ship before the tempest; the orchestra roared; and, as though at a thunder-clap, the velvet curtain split asunder: Patti-Patty was revealed on the stage, while the band played as if possessed. Lily, in the shadow of the wings, put her hand to her heart; her veins were ablaze. And that audience, at which she peeped through a crack in the scenery; that audience was hers, with its rustling silks, its bare shoulders, its diamonds, its flowers! She would have liked to step forward, to say:
“Here I am!”
She felt herself excited by a curious feeling; an aggressive mood, which, no doubt, came from all the healths she had drunk: to the Astrarium, to this one, to that one, to all of us! Gee, what fun it had been: champagne, cakes, my, tons of cakes! And Lily, who had long been unused to any such excess, felt her head splitting. A fever seemed also to reign all over the dressing-rooms and passages. They talked of front boxes reserved at a thousand francs by the Aero Club; stalls at fifty francs; every seat in the house filled; and the best people, nothing but the best! Lily, in her exalted condition, took it that they had all come for her; and she had to dazzle them all! And soar above them all! To a hurricane of applause from “her favorite audience,” the Astrarium audience, on a first night!
And she felt so gay that she was not angry when Glass-Eye asked her, now that she was an artiste, too, to teach her her stage-smile.
“Why, of course, Glass-Eye! I owe you that, to say nothing of the rest! But you won’t lose by waiting! Take my word for it: among friends, you know!...”
And she kissed her maid, felt inclined to cry, became quite sentimental at her going....
She was less amiable to Nunkie, who was prowling around near her. Oh, how angry she felt with that old rogue! Because of Thea, first of all; and then it was he who gave her away, not Jimmy! Tom had told her. Nunkie mumbled something to her: his dear girls; ungrateful creatures who were leaving him! His poor life shattered! His pigeons, he had his pigeons left; yes, and his home; but what was that compared with loving hearts? And, as she was on such good terms with Jimmy and everybody, couldn’t she use her influence? Oh, if he could have the Bambinis, be appointed their guardian! “He would bring together such a nice little family troupe: all the joys of home!
“You old wretch!” cried Lily, in a threatening voice. “Just go and look, at the corner of Oxford Street and Newman Street, if you can see me! You old snaky! You old bromide merchant! Hiding letters, too, you nigger-driving humbug! Oh, you’re sure to get the Bambinis, I don’t think!”
“Ver-r-rdammt!”
Nunkie turned on his heel, shaking the passage with tremendous oaths.