for he was said to be preparing
a new turn, a turn which would make him famous, unless it killed him.

"If only it would!" Trampy hoped.

Jimmy was Trampy's bugbear. He had flattered himself that he had snatched
Lily from Jimmy by sheer prowess; and not a bit of it! The recollection of
that drove him mad, the sense of his powerlessness exasperated him, he had
but one idea left: to show Lily ... and Jimmy ... the sort of man he was;
to take his revenge. That great scheme of his, that discovery that would
show what he was made of, the invention which he had patented in America
with Poland's money--oh, she had revenged herself finely, had that
Parisienne!--well, the time to apply himself to that trick had come. Lily
had refused to do it. All right, he would do it himself!

But, if he was to succeed, it was necessary that Lily should supply him
with money, more money, lots of money. The apparatus was incomplete and
had probably got damaged in the London warehouse; it would need repairs,
improvements. Now Lily seemed intractable. She was vexed at having to earn
money for two, pretended to have none too much for herself; it was her
costumes now: six sets of tights, one for each evening, pink, green, red,
blue, gray, white and assorted ornaments, silk ribbons....

She didn't want to kill herself with work for nothing, as she had been
doing up to now:

"A lady isn't a performing dog!" she said.

Trampy swallowed his bitterness when he heard that. Lily was escaping him
altogether. Sometimes, he would go on the stage, sit down in a corner and,
from there, see Lily, a shawl over her shoulders, her throat wrapped in a
scarf, walk up and down, behind the back-drop, like a passenger on the
deck of a ship, at one time with a monkey-faced, red-whiskered
sketch-comedian; at others, according to the chances of the week, with the
female-impersonator, the boy with the green eyes. There was no harm in
that: they were at home, among themselves, Lily was no damned
lalerperlooser, he wouldn't have had her so. And Trampy did not dare say
anything, for fear of being made a laughing stock and also lest he should
offend "Miss Lily." But he was tormented with jealousy nevertheless,
merely at seeing her talk pleasantly with her acquaintances. And yet it
was innocent enough, a mere "Hullo, Lily!" "Hullo, old boy!" by way of
keeping herself in touch with the news, for Lily hardly ever looked into
_The Era_ or _Das Program_; all those names, all