nees, creation of an asylum, a
home of rest ... a glory to help in such a task ... who could tell but
that they were working for themselves by adding their stone to the
edifice? He quoted the Para-Paras and their wretched end; old Martello,
dead without leaving a penny; the Bambinis, homeless; Ave Maria,
unprotected. The men listened, with serious faces. As for the girls, his
words came straight from the heart. Those decent girls, who earned their
living as they knew how and the living of others besides, they understood
him at once; and Lily no longer laughed; on the contrary:

"Me? Whatever you like! For nothing, if you like; rely on me, Jimmy!"

And now the hour had come; they were to appear under the critical eye of
Harrasford. The acting-manager had arrived from England that same day with
the stage-manager, who was "behind." It made a strange impression, that
huge red-and-gold house, glittering with light and sounding curiously
empty to the thunder of the band. Everybody was at his post: the tall
flunkeys stood motionless at the entrance-doors, in the promenades, as if
the audience had been there, whereas there was practically nobody except
Harrasford and the manager. And on the stage, which had been cleared of
every superfluous piece of property, splendid order reigned: the
scene-shifters, up above, had their hands on the windlasses; the two
electricians, on their perches, turned the lime-light where it was to
fall; the drops rose and fell without a hitch; the scenes slipped into
their places, shifted, in the English fashion, by one man. For each turn
on the stage, the next was ready to come on, no more; all the rest were in
the dressing-rooms. But there, behind the iron curtain, one could picture
staircases crowded with people running up and down, passages full of
light, a flurried ant-hill, and feel that a ring of bells would be enough
to bring tumbling on to the stage a whole glittering, grotesque or radiant
world of people, from the monkey-faced comedian to Lily, in her pink
tights, an image of Venus. There was electricity in the air of that empty
house, in which all felt the presence of the powerful master, harder to
please than a crowd! And rays of light ran along the stage, the back-drop
seemed a cloud ready to split in the crash of the thunder, under the storm
of the raging brasses. On the stage, the turns defiled in their order,
under the shimmering lights: the Bambinis, brother and sister, supple
grace an