few dark groups, in ordinary walking dress;
others, in their shirt sleeves, are opening boxes, and no mystery, no
shifting lights: the stage and the house one wan hole, except the red and
gold note of the curtain and the black mass of the musicians, with the
gleaming brasses.

The artistes went up to the conductor, one after the other, and explained
their "turns:"

"When I come on, this tune, soft, six times, to begin with; then, once,
loud. When I go off ... a roll of drums."

The band, each time, played two or three bars, mechanically, at sight;
then it was understood and ... next, please.

Lily had seen this before, but not under these conditions; not dressed as
at present; not accompanied by a maid. She listened as hard as she could
when she walked on to the stage, caught the remarks, enjoyed the
impression which she produced. They seemed to ask:

"Who is it? A singer? A dancer?"

"No, Lily; Miss Lily, you know."

She guessed all that. Then:

"My score, Maud!"

And, leaning toward the orchestra, she explained, in her turn: pizzicati,
mazurka, frog, swan, back-wheel, the waltz for the twirls, the march for
the exit. And Lily withdrew with a half-curtsey and a pretty smile. Next,
she put out her things in her dressing-room, on the table, before the
looking-glass: brushes, pencils, grease-paints, strings of pearls for her
hair. She hung a cord from the door to the window, to dry her tights on,
when she washed a pair in the basin. She got out her little work-box, in
case of anything tearing, threaded a needle, freshened up the knots of her
ribbons, pinned photographs and p.-c.'s on the wall. And, over all, she
hung her gollywog, a hairy doll, white-collared, red-waistcoated, with, in
its black face, under the bristling hair, two shining tacks by way of
eyes. It was the protecting idol. Not that Lily, ever faithful to the
Church of England, believed much in gollywogs; but, like most music-hall
people, she felt safer when she knew it was there. And her dressing-room,
with the spangled skirts and the tights hanging down like flayed skins,
suggested some strange, exotic chapel in which a fetish sat enthroned.

After that, Lily had nothing left to do. She went out with Glass-Eye and
walked round to the front to look at her lithos. She saw to her annoyance
that a serio was topping the bill--and a comic singer middling it and a
cinematograph bottoming it. But no matter, she had a good place, just
under the bill-to