t for India and Australia as calmly as she might have taken the
omnibus to Earl's Court.

Oh yes, she had done a deal in those few days and, above all, she had got
out of her difficulties, thanks, to a certain extent, to Glass-Eye, who
had comforted her. And besides, hang it, that was all over now! The
worries were forgotten, and, as the train emerged from the tunnel, Lily,
with her arm round Glass-Eye's waist, was patting that decent girl and
Glass-Eye lifted her one good eye to Lily, while the other, the glass one,
gazing fixedly at the door, reflected the thinly scattered houses and the
beginning of the country.

Lily, when she had recovered a little from her mad rush, lay down at full
length among her bags, parcels and bandboxes. She laughed with the Three
Graces; and there was no one there to interfere with them; there they
were, by themselves, among themselves, alone in the compartment, a
regular, rollicking school-girls' picnic. Lily made them scream by telling
them about her life since they had last seen her. She felt a need for a
reaction of gaiety, after her sadness of the days just past. The Graces
fixed their round eyes upon her, upon that Lily who was so thoroughly up
in all sorts of things which they knew only by hearsay: men, love. A life
fit to kill a horse; and a very nice girl, for all that: a kind of
forbidden fruit, pink and fair-haired, soft to the touch; and no jealousy
between them, friendship rather, a rare thing, in the "Profession"....

Lily grew excited in talking, told of her successes, the receptions, the
teas she used to give in her drawing-room, in Berlin, when she was ill.
Jossers, according to her, would have paid any price to have been there!
It would form a subject of conversation over there for many a long day to
come. And then her journeys, her impressions of the continent--"Jam with
your meat, my dear!"--and such clean dressing-rooms in Germany; very
severe managers, though: gee, harder than Pas. But very good to her, all
the same. The Battenberg at Leipzig: nothing but leading turns; and she
had topped the bill at Leipzig! And to see all those people eating, during
the show, when you were hungry yourself, had a very funny effect upon you.
By the way, she didn't like that system of being lodged and boarded by the
management; it was all very well for those people; but none of that for
her: give her a nice flat in town or a smart hotel! Once she was started,
Lily never stopped, calle