to pay somebody to run after
her, with the belt, if need be! Lily had nothing but that in her head now:
to get out of her present life, to get out of the mud, to reach the summit
at a bound. Was it possible? She consulted the Zanzigs; she spent a
fortune in penny-in-the-slot machines to learn the future, but always
received the same reply:

"You will marry the man who loves you. You will be very happy."

She smiled with pity when she read that nonsense; to prophesy her
marriage: how silly! She was only too much married! That was not what she
wanted to know; but the Astrarium! the Astrarium! Would she be there or
would she not? The New Trickers were plotting to get there, with a turn
which she had given them, goose that she was; and Cousin Daisy, that
farthing dip, would triumph and not she, a star, a real one! Lily was
rather in the position of Pa, when he arrived in London from New York ...
with this difference, that Pa had money and Lily had none. But there was
the same display of energy, once her pride was aroused. Lily also had run
round Paris like a mad thing: not to the agents!--with them it was: "Lily?
Lily Clifton? nothing your way to-day!"--but to her friends and
acquaintances, to find out about the Astrarium. Lily grew crazy at the
idea that she might perform there, be there at the opening, ride over all
of them, treat the New Trickers like so many fat freaks!

"Oh, God, if it were true!" she cried, with her hand on her lucky charm.
"God above grant that it may come true!"

She was at the end of her tether. Nothing short of the Astrarium could set
her on her legs again. She had no choice; it was either that or an
absolute come-down: the nautch-girl on the bike, at Earl's Court, or else
nights of dissipation, champagne and diamonds, like Poland; and Lily, like
her Pa in the old days, clenched her fists and gnawed her lip as she went
off to the Three Graces, who had their engagement and who would be able to
give her some hints.

Lily knew their hotel by reputation. Nothing but pros; a rallying-point of
troupes, an hotel where nobody's skin was free from bruises and where,
from morning until night, you heard the clatter of the clog-dancers'
heels. It reeked of potatoes, of sleepers three in a bed; chests,
strange-shaped packing-cases, ticketed with distant labels, made the yard
look like the stage-entrance of a music-hall. Lily did not care for that
sort of place: no matter; besides, the Bambinis were there a