Lily lowered her head, taken aback; excused herself, like a lady who knows her manners:
“And yet,” she said to herself, “if he had had my troubles, that old rogue, perhaps he would have sworn, too!”
For Trampy was becoming terrible: life was impossible with him. All the money which Lily earned went on champagne ... and on girls, probably; and the more she earned the greedier he grew. He wanted money, heaps of money; Lily had nothing left for herself. Trampy sought out new tricks, invented balancing-feats, made her practise them, in the morning, on the stage, with his sleeves turned back and his trousers turned up, absolutely like a Pa. Lily, accustomed to yield obedience, relapsed under the yoke. Bike in the morning, bike at the matinée, bike in the evening; and, with that, the cooking, the washing-up ... and not a farthing in her pocket, though she had made a fortune for her Pa, damn it! Pa living on his income at Kennington, while she continued her life of slavery! Wasn’t it enough to make her send everybody to the devil, and Nunkie, that old rogue, with the rest? A pack of nigger drivers, that’s what they were, every one of them! And what an idiot she was, to keep on barking her shins for other people! Would she go on doing it until she was fifty? And if she didn’t begin now to put money by, who would do it for her later? Not that worthless husband, surely! He, who, that very morning, had dared, the loafer, to tell her of a scheme—a sort of a risky trick which she was to perform, a thing calculated to break your head or make a millionaire of you—for him, of course, just as for Pa! It had come to this, that her turn wasn’t good enough, that it had to be more sensational; and she was expected to make it so for a man she didn’t love! Oh, she had put him nicely in his place! Rather! Thank you for nothing: none of that for her! In the evening Lily was still trembling, with her two elbows on the table, as she sat facing her glass in her dressing-room; angrily she crushed the grease-paint on to her cheeks, which were pale with rage.
Ting! Straight on to the stage, turning round and round, fifty rounds from habit, mechanically, without any “go” in them: an indolent performance, which would have earned her a good smacking in Pa’s time.
“You were shockingly bad!” said Trampy, who was waiting for her in the bar, after watching her from the front. “What’s the matter with you? Are you ill?”
Lily did not even answer.
“I’m speaking to you,” said Trampy crossly. “You did nothing right to-night.”
“Yes, I know; that’ll do,” said Lily.
“It’s not a question of ‘Yes, I know,’ but of doing better next time,” said Trampy.
“I’m not taking any orders to-night,” said Lily.