o her dresses than to her performance. She was extravagant,
traveled with her maid, put up at the big hotels. She received bouquets,
my, as big as cabs, and invitations to supper and post-cards covered with
x x x x! She had an autograph-book full of declarations of love.
Motor-cars, furnished houses: she was offered everything. The son of a
lord had ruined himself in jewelry for her, the impersonator was nearly
off his head for love of her, gee, she did have a good time! She spent her
life receiving chocolates and sweets and distributing her photograph as
Lady Godiva, with her signature. Lily, according to them, laid waste every
heart; men had left wife and children for her sake; her love affairs were
going the round of the world, like her whippings. Lily was the thing; and
game and mustard for Jim Crow.

These tales left Jimmy very sad. He made allowances for professional
exaggeration in matters of love as of smackings, but, nevertheless, there
must be some truth in what they said, for it reached him from various
sides. Oh, he pitied that dear little Lily from the bottom of his heart!
The harm was done, the theater had spoiled the woman. This time, he felt
that it was finished, between her and him.... He, no doubt--who could
tell?--would continue his forward progress, and, one day, he would have a
wife of his own, a woman without a past, and he would take his stand
firmly on the earth, with a home and love; and Lily, soon, would be little
more than a dead memory....

Meanwhile, his brain, redoubling in vigor amid those stormy squalls, took
in everything, seized everything in a wide sense, became steeped in life,
rejected bitterness and retained enthusiasm. He heaped up personal
observations which he noted every evening, enough to build the ideal
music-hall one day. Harrasford, he knew, was cherishing that plan. Perhaps
they would realize it together? And the retreat for the aged and the home
of rest for the sick, and, in each capital or large town, a local
artistes' home--like the Sailors' Home--a little corner of England,
providing comfort for the man and protection for the girl. And his scheme,
his scheme was ripe now, the bold stroke which would enable him to realize
all the rest later. He felt the strength within him, if not to succeed, at
least to dare everything: "Brass Heart," as he had been christened at
'Frisco. He had served an apprenticeship to will-power: he had bruised his
ribs with a vengeance in a fall a