ck, threw out
her chest to draw breath more easily and rode round the stage with a
pretty smile on her lips, Ma saw no harm in it, even rejoiced within
herself at her daughter's beauty. Ma knew how to be just and not to be
angry for nothing. But what she could not forgive, what exasperated her
was, just that very evening, with her own eyes, to see Lily smile at some
person unknown and shoot fiery glances at the front boxes, the little
devil, who would bring them to the grave with shame!

For Lily, it must be confessed, flung prudence to the winds that night.
Her head was turned with all those love stories. They sang in her ears,
they distended her nostrils. Oppressed on every side, she escaped in
imagination toward that spacious house, toward the confused mass in which
her lover sat hidden. And, in spite of Pa and in spite of Ma, who stood
watching her in the wings, Lily searched the audience with her eyes. Was
it really Trampy? Had he come back? She had not met him for some time. She
wanted to know and he would surely reveal himself. Ma might say what she
pleased. Even in the final pyramid, she looked, while, with one apprentice
on her shoulders, another forked before her, another standing behind, two
others on either side, she twice went round the stage, with flags waving,
to the hurricane of the orchestra. And then ting! And darkness anew, the
stage suddenly invaded by scene-shifters dragging heavy sets along; and
Lily, passing out, was seized by her Ma, who said:

"Who were you laughing at?"

"I wasn't laughing, Ma!"

"I'll teach you to make eyes at gentlemen, you baggage you! I saw you this
time! I saw you!" grumbled Ma, who had the engagement ring still upon her
mind. "You shall pay for this, Lily; we'll see if I can drive the devil
out of you or not!"

And Ma squeezed Lily's arm as if she meant to break it, but all this
noiselessly, in the shadow, behind the scenery, for fear of the stage
manager. Besides, it was nobody's business what a mother thought fit to
say to her daughter, and Lily, when people passed, pluckily tried to
smile, so as to put them off, not to let them know that she was being
beaten, a big girl like her; but, as soon as they were gone, she resumed
her rebellious face.

"I wasn't laughing, I wasn't laughing, Ma!"

"That's to teach you to lie!" said Ma, catching her a blow in the back of
the neck.

The door of the staircase had swung to behind them; and, in the empty
passage, the thump