ut of ten: the fourth and seventh from
the right. Result: he was still in bed when the matinee began. And his
performance went so badly that they had to drop the curtain on him. That
would pass for once: an illness was allowable; but it couldn't go on at
that rate. He was becoming worse than the head-balancer who tumbled off
his perch, without having his excuse of sorrow, the loss of a beloved
wife, seeing that he, Trampy, had a dear little wife and very much alive,
this one!

Lily, in her calmer moments, foresaw that they would soon have to face
hard times, flat poverty. She felt her contempt for Trampy increase. Those
sketch-comedians, those tramp cyclists, pooh, they were less than nothing,
bluff, that's all, as old Martello said!

She saw her dreams flung to the ground. At first, it had been charming for
her, so full of novelty, but, after all, she had only changed masters. She
ended by considering herself more unhappy than she had been with Pa and
Ma. To begin with, Pa always had money. She brought them in a lot. She
lived much less comfortably with Trampy. She used to think that being a
married woman would change everything, whereas--not a bit of it!--there
was no change at all: potatoes, coal, all sorts of dirty, messy things;
and no Maud to help her. And it was always as in the old days: damp
sheets, dirty glasses, rickety tables, beds with worn-out mattresses; and
the nights were dull as ditch-water. Trampy had hoped for something
different, expected to find a whole harem in Lily, his thirty-six girls in
one, including Ave Maria, with her body like a wildcat's. Alas, it was far
from that!

Lily loathed those nights. Love, yes, but not that, not that! Sacred love,
not profane love (Lily had seen paintings of it in museums and remembered
the title). Love, that is to say, to lie ever so nicely on the breast of
the dear one, yes, as with Glass-Eye, and dream of hats and diamonds. No
doubt, it was ambitious to want so much. She, who had seen everything, had
never come across that; but it was what she wanted, what she had been
promised, damn it! Things were going from bad to worse. Memories of her
childhood moved her almost to tears, when she thought of it: those happy
times in Africa, on the straw beside the horses, the stars seen through
the tent and the smell of the elephants. When she was there, perhaps that
had seemed less sweet to her: the hard ground, the noise of the chains;
but everything was made more poe