her heart. Jimmy had difficulty in holding her in. She made twenty
flights, thirty flights ... and the twine no longer broke. From that
moment, she was sure of succeeding, always. When you have once succeeded,
even if it be but once, you have no right ever to fail again. She had been
brought up in those principles, had had them rubbed into her skin. She
could not fail now, it was impossible! Even in her flight to the opening
up above! She had learned her "times," she knew how to aim exactly at the
right spot. Jimmy hastened to have the roof arranged for the final exit,
when the aerobike would disappear before the eyes of the audience, in the
star-strewn sky. All that remained was to get everything ready for the
final rehearsal: the complete show, with all lights lit, as for a gala
night. Lily seemed to see it all beforehand. On the day when she realized
that no accident was possible, that it was a trick of which she was
certain, she stifled a cry of triumph in her throat. She was afraid to
believe in it herself, so greatly did it surpass her dreams. She would
have stayed for days on the aerobike to experience the delight of the leap
into space. It seemed to her as though she were becoming a bird and about
to hover in mid-air and leave them all behind her, in the crowd below ...
all, all ... and be a little Lily, flying away on the back-wheel before
their noses.

"You'll make yourself ill," said Jimmy. "Take a rest; there's no need to
tire yourself; you do it as well as I."

For Jimmy, of course, had done the thing too, if only to show Lily;
besides, it was easy for him, who had had so much practice in London and
who knew his machine from end to end. And he appreciated the difficulty
all the more. He admired Lily's incredible pluck, her all-devouring
ambition and that splendid determination to get out of her scrape, to be a
little Lily earning her bread as she knew how, by her work, even if she
had to break her neck in the doing of it! And proud to her finger-tips, in
spite of the dog's life she had led.

"If I had not procured her this delight," thought Jimmy, "I should never
have forgiven myself to the end of my days."

And, from working with her for hours and hours, from holding her by the
waist at the first trials, from feeling that little body quiver under his
hand, from seeing Lily rush at danger, Jimmy became madly in love with her
again ... if he had ever ceased to be so! Ah, if Trampy...! But Lily was
married