winners on
the boards. She mingled with them, or else sat down prettily in a corner,
talked to the artistes: other Martellos, other Nunkies; new faces every
week, according to the theaters they were at: owners of troupes; sketch
comedians, serio-comics; dancers of the Roofer class; laced-up, glittering
"Mdlles.;" or else, from time to time, some josser, a friend of the
manager's or an agent, prowling around among the flesh-colored tights.
Lily had seen all this a hundred times, a thousand times before, when she
was with her parents; and the mere thought of Ma made her talk nicely,
from bravado, to all of them, though she was married now. Lily bore Pa no
malice, in spite of the buckled belt. Pa was a man, with hair on his chest
and harsh like all of them ... no, not all ... and not so bad, perhaps ...
not always ... no; however, a man.... But her Ma, a lady, ought to have
stood up for her! If Ma could see her now, gee! Lily felt a lump in her
throat at the notion. And it was their fault that she had run away! It
served them right! She was much happier, now, when she was a lady in her
turn. Her talent and her beauty received the homage due to them. Lily
Clifton, the New Zealander, what ho! A famous name in the profession! She
was one of those whom the stage people point out to one another:

"Gee!" she sometimes heard a voice say behind her. "Fancy owning a girl
like that and not having the sense to keep her!"

Lily was flattered to the core at hearing her parents blamed; she felt
inclined to rise and say, "'K you," with the great stage bow: her right
hand on her heart, the other raising her dress, her body bent forward in a
sweeping curtsey.

She took part in the conversations: she knew a little Spanish, which she
had learned in Mexico, and a little German, which she had picked up in
America from the Three Graces; and besides they all jabbered English, they
were all "families," "misses," "the's," with impossible accents,
suggesting some of those cosmopolitan towns beyond the "Rockies." In this
medley, she was at her ease; but she did not at all like being called
Lily, now that she was a lady:

"Call me Mrs. Trampy," she said.

After the show, she would sit in the restaurant with Trampy. There, amid
clouds of tobacco-smoke, they all supped in a crowd. There were separate
tables, at which silent little parties gobbled down their cutlets and
compote in ten minutes and then slipped away quietly. Sometimes, a whole
band o