f man I am. I don't
talk of '_my_ money!'"

* * * * *

Lily was left alone in Berlin.

Generally, she hated the hotels frequented by artistes, but she was very
glad to be in one this time. She, poor little broken-down thing, was not
left to the care of a common servant; she had nice, kind nurses.... And
she had no lack of friends who took interest in her, very sincerely, for
that matter, for she was a favorite with all of them, that pretty Miss
Lily, who would soon be free....

Lily let herself be coddled. Pending the arrival of the money which Trampy
was to send, she wanted for nothing, especially in the way of luxuries:
chocolates, sweets, flowers, they brought her everything. Her friends
passing through Berlin, the impersonator, the Paras, many others, hearing
that she was ill, came to see her, treated her as a lady, cried out how
well she was looking, how pretty she was and how it suited her to be ill
in bed.

Lily thought that very nice, put on a languid air, like a poor little
jaded thing that had got out of gear:

"I shall die of overdoing it, I know I shall," she said. "I've been at the
bike ever since I was that high"--raising her hand twelve inches above the
bed--"and my heart's worn out by the hard work. My knees, too. Sit down
there on the basket trunk. You at the foot of the bed. Have a chocolate."

Then she turned over in her sheets, which molded her firm, plump shape,
took a bag of sweets from the chair beside her and offered it round. Poor
little martyr, she had been forbidden them by the doctor, because of a
cough.... But she took them all the same, merely for the sake of taking
them, with a graceful movement, her bare arm outstretched, her wrist
making a supple curve, like a swan's neck, as she dipped her pretty hand
into the bag.

* * * * *

In addition to her regular friends, such as the impersonator or the Paras,
others, the people staying in the hotel, would tap discreetly at the glass
door between her room and the passage, come in on tip-toe, speak in a
whisper.

"What nonsense!" Lily would say. "I'm not dead yet, you know!"

And she laughed, and "Ugh! Ugh!" a cough or so, a matter of lifting her
embroidered handkerchief to her mouth, a favorite gesture. And there were
stories from all parts, the cackle of the profession. The Paras were
living together now, as they explained to her. The parrots? No