n himself when he
wedded a wife. Trampy was certainly not made for marriage: having a wife
was a different thing from having thirty-six girls. His heart, weakened
with premature enjoyment, was no longer made for real love. All this he
too now perceived; and, in spite of himself, realizing his unworthiness,
he felt overcome by an ever-increasing jealousy.

Those were melancholy weeks in the small room. He sat for hours brooding
over his disgrace. Lily silently turned this time of rest to account and
mended her costumes, sewed spangles on her bodices, beside the earthenware
stove, on which the stew was bubbling; and then came the meal, on the
table hastily cleared of the mass of ribbons, thread and needles, to make
room for the plates. Trampy choked as he swallowed that dinner which he
had not earned, sighed sadly for the good cheer of his dreams, the
champagne suppers with girls. He gulped down his meagre fare in silence,
he who had known the gay junketings, the noisy laughter and the "Roman
nights!" To go from there and drown his sorrows in the bar next door was
but a step. And Trampy had sorrows outside his recent defeat: sorrows
which were even more bitter. He felt that, this time, he was losing Lily.

Lily was surrounded with sympathy. When she went the round of the
agencies, the pros courted her. They looked upon Lily in the light of a
wife tired of her husband. They prowled round that possible prey. A Lily
was worth the having, meant an assured income for whoever succeeded in
winning her affections and managing her properly: not with brutality, no,
rather not; home joys, like Mr. Fuchs! Who was destined one day to own
those full-blown seventeen years, those twinkling legs, that lissom body,
trained to spin round and round, unerring and exact? What lucky dog would
have her for himself, would succeed in making her love him? They pitied
Lily openly, to disgust her with her husband and hasten on the
catastrophe. Trampy? He was no husband for her! They, ah, yes, now that
was a different matter! And they talked of the dangers attendant upon
Trampy's mode of life; the impersonator told her of the terrible diseases
brought on by constant tippling; they exaggerated it all on purpose,
amused themselves by frightening her; until Lily, sometimes, would look
upon herself as a pretty little gazelle chained to a mangy bear.

Trampy suspected all this, having himself, in the old days, in the time of
his glory, been one of those w