og, she resembled the officiating
priestess of a strange religion, pacifying some angry-eyed idol to the
sound of distant choirs.

While finishing her make-up, Lily continued her stories, talked of her
successes in England and here and there and everywhere ... and the lord
who wanted to marry her and rained down presents upon her: fifty-pound
brooches, diamonds.... Everybody in love with her: to listen to her you
could have followed her traces like the passage of a cyclone ... men gone
mad ... others blinded through weeping ... millionaires ruined in
chocolates and sweets ... and flowers, my!

"You could fill the Colosseum with them, couldn't you, Glass-Eye? I've
been spoiled everywhere," continued Lily, "and I'm known everywhere! Even
in Paris, to-day, there were a lot of ladies and gentlemen under an arcade
and you heard nothing but 'Miss Lily, Miss Lily,' didn't you, Glass-Eye?"

"Yes, Miss Lily."

But these social successes did not make Lily forget her business affairs.
Harrasford's new music-hall worried her: if she could only play there,
only snatch it from the New Trickers! For they would certainly try to get
there; and the architect, of course, knew ...

But Lily was interrupted by the call-boy: time for her to go down to the
stage!

A hurricane came up from the orchestra, muffled, with beats of the big
drum, like distant cannon. The curtain would go up soon; it was the time
when Lily stretched her legs, before giving her performance, and took a
breath of air in the painted forest. A click of the padlock and:

"Come along, Glass-Eye, the bike!"

Lily, in spite of her brilliant successes in England, was dead tired of
tipping the boys; it ran away with all her money. As she allowed herself
the luxury of a maid, by Gollywog, she might as well make use of her; she
wasn't going to feed her to do nothing! And poor Glass-Eye attended to the
bike, at the risk of putting out her other eye. Every day the struggle
between Glass-Eye and the bike formed the joy and the delight of the
passage. There were incredible swervings, scratchings of the wall,
barkings of Glass-Eye's shins. Lily followed behind, bursting with
laughter, warning Glass-Eye to take care or she would put the bike out of
gear by knocking it about with her legs:

"Oh, where's my belt?" she cried, patting the back of her hand.

The artistes, attracted by the noise, half-opened the doors; laughing eyes
gleamed at the spy-holes; voices cried:

"Go i