And, more
and more excited, he built up his dream; his imagination gave itself scope
amid the unreal scenery, the forest depths, the green and gold sky and his
Lily, his faultless Lily, haloed in light! Every hope was permissible when
he looked at his Lily, his joy, his handiwork! His New Zealander on
Wheels! That india-rubber suppleness, those little nerves of iron, his
Lily, his glory, his star, his own star! He romanced about her, dreamed of
an imperial tour, a steamer of his own, a floating Barnum's show, with
Roofers, elephants, rhinoceroses, Ave Marias, dogs, monkeys, the whole
boiling; and Lily starring on her bike, stopping in every port, from
Liverpool to Suez, from Suez to Yokohama: down to the desert, damn it, to
show the whole world what an artiste he, Clifton, he, the father, had made
of his Lily! And he looked at her with loving eyes, applauded her with a
smile, restored her self-possession with a twitch of the eyebrow and
counted her twirls on the back-wheel--O pride unspeakable!--a dozen!

[Illustration: SHE NEVER LOST SIGHT OF LILY]

Ma, standing by him, interested herself less in the show and, neglecting
the artiste, watched the daughter and the faces she made at the gentlemen:
the brazen flapper, whose sole attraction lay in the wickedness in her
blood! She never lost sight of Lily and watched her closely, for Ma seemed
always to catch her throwing an appealing glance to the seducers in the
front boxes, to some St. George in full dress who would dart across the
footlights to carry off her daughter.

Thus caught between Pa and Ma, Lily's situation was hard indeed. As for
the audience, she never troubled about it, from custom, like a true
professional, who gives her performance mechanically, without minding
about the rest. The audience, to Lily, was, behind a streak of flame, in
the semi-darkness, a confused mass of black and gray. All this had no
existence for Lily or the apprentices. The audience didn't pay them! The
audience wouldn't give her a whacking if the show went badly! Pa, in the
wings, frightened her much more than all the audiences in the world; and
Ma was worse still, when a gentleman smiled at her from a box. Then Lily
would stare at her Ma with the terrified eye of a parrot contemplating
Para's whip. She even exaggerated, pinched her lips, like a school-girl
applying herself to her book for fear of the ferule. Ma did not ask so
much as that. Sometimes, when Lily, after a successful tri