o
worshiped Lily, in spite of her abominable tricks, raised their glasses to
her health, crowded round her, smiled merrily at her with their white
teeth, congratulated her for sending that footy rotter packing:

"Here's to Miss Lily! And a round on the thumbnail in honor of Miss
Lily!"

This christening of the Astrarium was turning into a triumph for her; and
there was the evening to come ... the evening! It made her forget Trampy,
Jimmy, Glass-Eye, everybody. And ... the next day ... her Pa, her Ma, the
New Trickers would be at her feet! Oh, she would give ten years of her
life if to-morrow could be there now!

And the evening came. Lily did not leave the theater. She walked nervously
from her dressing-room to the stage, inspected the final operations,
interested herself in everything, stopped the boy-violinist, who was
crossing the stage with the other members of the band, congratulated him
on his approaching marriage with one of the Graces. She talked to the
artistes going up to their dressing-rooms, bestowed a smile upon Jimmy,
another on the stage-manager, joked with the limelight-men working their
apparatus on either side of the stage. The footlights lit up with a row of
flames, the storm approached. There was a ringing of electric
bells--"Ting! Ting! Ting!"--as in the machine-room of a ship before the
tempest; the orchestra roared; and, as though at a thunder-clap, the
velvet curtain split asunder: Patti-Patty was revealed on the stage, while
the band played as if possessed. Lily, in the shadow of the wings, put her
hand to her heart; her veins were ablaze. And that audience, at which she
peeped through a crack in the scenery; that audience was hers, with its
rustling silks, its bare shoulders, its diamonds, its flowers! She would
have liked to step forward, to say:

"Here I am!"

She felt herself excited by a curious feeling; an aggressive mood, which,
no doubt, came from all the healths she had drunk: to the Astrarium, to
this one, to that one, to all of us! Gee, what fun it had been: champagne,
cakes, my, tons of cakes! And Lily, who had long been unused to any such
excess, felt her head splitting. A fever seemed also to reign all over the
dressing-rooms and passages. They talked of front boxes reserved at a
thousand francs by the Aero Club; stalls at fifty francs; every seat in
the house filled; and the best people, nothing but the best! Lily, in her
exalted condition, took it that they had all come for