“There we are again!” said Pa. “Always the same old story! But just tell me, who does she see? Who does she know? Jimmy? You don’t mean him, I suppose? Very well! Trampy, then? A married man, divorced, married again, goodness knows what! and then ... and then ... Oh, well, let’s have peace at home, at any rate! Damn it, Lily may be a bit of a flirt: why shouldn’t she be, a pretty girl like that? Beauty, in the profession, is half the battle.”
And Pa entered into details, comforted Ma with good news: a fresh contract signed with Bill and Boom, after that, the Harrasford tour: big salaries now....
“No, dear, this isn’t the time to worry Lily about trifles. And I don’t want her to be bothered with useless work, either.”
“Call home work useless! A woman’s greatest charm!” exclaimed Ma.
Lily was a subject of friendly discussion to them. Both adored her equally: both were proud of her at heart. For Lily was growing very beautiful; everybody said so at the theater: the stage-manager; the acting manager, down to Jimmy, who stammered things. It was an endless series of compliments; Harrasford’s friend, the architect, who had not seen her for a long time, fell into raptures when he met her on the stage:
“Magneeficent!” he exclaimed, in his Franco-Belgian accent. “How old is she: sixteen? seventeen?”
“Fourteen,” said Ma, with a mincing air, for to that damned “parley-voo” she was as anxious to make Lily out a child now, in order to keep a firmer hold of her, as she had been to increase her age in America, so as to make her work.
“What, fourteen, Ma!” protested Lily.
“Yes, fourteen, of course; do you think you know better than your mother, you little fool? Can’t you see everybody’s laughing at you?”
Ma dreaded those irresponsible jossers, who filled Lily’s head with a pack of false notions, and kept a good watch, in her growing anxiety.