This created a circle of admirers around her: all, besides, agreed in saying that you had to have the business “rubbed into your skin” to be as clever as she was.
“’K you!” said Lily, with a stage bow.
It was certain that she made a hit. They wanted her everywhere. She was asked to appear in tights. The engagements grew better and better. “Miss Lily” was more and more talked about. It was no longer a Trampy Wheel-Pad on a rusty bike: it was grace, youth ... and stage-smiles fit to turn the heads in the front boxes. When Lily appeared on the stage, she transfixed every white shirt-front, every opera-glass. She took a real delight in it all. Her beauty captivated the audience. In her pink tights, Lily turned and turned and turned, to the hum of the orchestra, against the “wood” back-drop of purple and gold. Then she returned to the wings, all excited by her show, received bouquets, chatted freely with the comrades. She met old friends: the green-eyed female-impersonator, for instance, pressed her closely. He, too, was touring Germany: a week here, a week there. Chance brought them together again. He was enraptured by Lily: how lovely she had grown! He would have liked to adopt her.... Lily threw her head back, laughed and repelled him with a thump in the ribs when he tried to kiss her.
Another time, she saw the Bambinis, who were playing, by a lucky accident, at matinées only and by special permission, because of their age. She larked with them like a child. Elsewhere, it was Nunkie Fuchs, on his way to Vienna, where he was going to see to the building of his pigeon-house, leaving the Three Graces for a few weeks on the Harrasford tour. He had seen Lily’s name on the posters and had come to say, “How do you do?” to her.
And, amid the thunder of the band or the lull of the entr’actes, Lily received tidings of her Pa and Ma and details of what happened after her flight, as reported by Glass-Eye Maud. After Lily’s departure, they had hunted everywhere. Then Ma thought of looking in the trunk: the pretty dress was gone. Then they had rushed to the theater: no Lily. Then they had guessed: Lily had run away. Ma fell on her knees and cried and cried. Pa seized his revolver and spoke of going to shoot the man who had robbed him of his child! His little Lily gone! And the contracts had to be canceled and Pa did not go out for a week and the house remained still and silent for a month. Pa, thoroughly upset, cried whenever Lily’s name was mentioned and was near dying of shame when he felt himself blamed, even by those who used to congratulate him on his way of turning out an artiste. And Nunkie himself maintained that one must know how to handle young girls: gentleness above all.
Lily bit her lips when she heard that. Her little nose tingled. She hardened her features, wrinkled her obstinate forehead, lest she also should cry:
“If I had to do it again, I would!” she said quickly, just like that, without reflecting, in the way one says a thing to one’s self which one knows to be untrue.
They also told her things that made her laugh. Glass-Eye Maud no longer left her hole, cried like a tap, so much so that one day, Ma, noticing an insipid taste in the porridge, threatened her with the sack if that sort of thing went on.
As for business, people did not know exactly. Pa, they said, had written to a Hauptmann’s “fat freak” to take Lily’s place. The reply ran:
“No, thanks, I’m all right where I am.