... almost ... on
that evening, especially, the evening of the dress-rehearsal: not an
ordinary rehearsal, with the band-parts handed to the conductor across the
footlights--"A march here, please, a waltz there. 'K you"--no, the whole
show, with orchestra and all complete; the stage flooded with light; each
turn in its own setting: corridor, wood, room, palace. Jimmy multiplied
himself in the final fever. The theater, arranged according to his ideas,
was still encumbered with ladders and scaffoldings; but gangs of laborers
were hard at work on every side. The obstructions all disappeared like
magic, were juggled away. Jimmy had made sure that the roof was ready; he
had run from the landing-point, out of sight of the audience, through the
door contrived in the wall of the stage, crossed the fly-galleries, come
down by the pulley-rope; the whole thing, from roof to stage, had taken
him, watch in hand, thirty seconds. And Lily had done it also. It formed
part of the turn, a sensational addition to the aerobike. All would be
ready, all would go well, provided that Lily was not nervous that evening
... and to-morrow especially! Those confounded crazy little girls! Crazy
every one of them: Laurence herself, the bravest of the lot, had just had
an awful fall, at Boston, in her excitement at losing her lucky charm. It
was the event in the profession, the accident of the day. Lily might be
frightened by it. Now it was essential that she should succeed and succeed
at the first attempt. His fortune and hers, his future, the success of the
Astrarium depended on it. And Jimmy, obsessed by his labors, had hardly
time to think of Trampy, in the formidable effort of the eleventh hour.
And yet, sometimes, he felt a pain at his heart. That adorable Lily! Would
he succeed in making her love him? And now there was that impersonator!
Oh, to work, to work! And he went at it, hammer and tongs, to make sure of
the aerobike's success. To make them talk of him ... to achieve fame ...
which was as sweet as love! And he was wanted from one end of the theater
to the other. Oh, he might well look upon the Astrarium as his creation!
Already, a few days before, rumors of a strike were current. The managers
were boycotted by the artistes, in England.... Jimmy feared lest the
Astrarium should feel the consequences, under the pressure of the
Performers' Association, but he had arranged everything, seen each artiste
separately, explained his plans: gala mati