s too."

"Certainly," said Lily. "I'll show them to you: Munich, Berlin, Hamburg.
I've had successes everywhere, engagements everywhere! I make more by
myself than all Pa's troupe put together!"

"Yes, but how do you get your engagements?" said Ma, pale with anger,
seeing that Lily was escaping them and, this time, for good. "Tell me how
you get them?"

"Why, through my talent, I suppose."

"Your talent! Pooh! You've none left! You get them through your friends:
through your Jimmy, your gentlemen friends...."

"That's a lie!"

"You get them ... by looking pretty and getting round the men ... you ...
you ... you...."

"Mother!"

Lily drew back her shoulder, her arm stiff, ready to strike; but a sense
of respect withheld her.

"Stop!" she cried to the cabman, in a hoarse voice.

And, without even waiting for the cab to pull up beside the curb, Lily
jumped out in the roadway, into the mud.

"Mother," she said to Mrs. Clifton, "mother, I shall never forget this!"

And, mechanically, in her haste to get away, she handed the man what money
she had left, made a sign to him to go on and, without saying good-by,
Lily saw the cab drive off. It was evening, in a quiet street: where was
she? Lily did not know; her head was in a whirl. She recognized Old
Compton Street: had they gone no farther? It seemed to her that she had
been riding for an hour ... but no, barely a few minutes....

Alone in London, without money, in the mud, in the dark, oh! she wished
she could be swallowed up in the sewer. She felt like killing herself.

"If I walk toward the Thames," she muttered, "I am done for!"

And she took a street on the left, leading in the direction of the
embankment. The movement restored her to her self-consciousness.

An idea came to her, a distant hope, a glimmer, very faint at first, which
suddenly grew in dimensions within her and lit her up in every particle.
Jimmy! He appeared to her, all at once, like a giant eight feet high, as
on his posters. Ah, people seemed to associate her life with his, to
presume all sorts of things ... though he had never even kissed her! Yes,
he had ... on the stage ... in Berlin, but that was before everybody! And
everything drove her toward him, she always found herself on his path:
Jimmy was everywhere, always. And Jimmy was powerful and he was
good-looking and he loved her! He loved her! To keep straight was no use.
Why, all of them, all of them, including her husband, that fo