ad heard wonders--Poland, the
Parisienne, had just returned from there covered with diamonds--theaters
that played all night and did not close till dawn, to the clicking of
champagne-glasses. Lily dreamed of it, ecstatically: England was no good
to her now. The New Trickers, with their own cheap Lily, were working her
idea on the Bill and Boom Tour! If only she could have the continent! They
were talking of a new music-hall which Harrasford was to open in Paris. He
meant to make a palace of it, they said, and he was also stretching out
his arm toward Antwerp, Cologne, Lyons, Marseilles, a continental
trust....

"That's what I ought to have," thought Lily.

Her present life seemed empty, notwithstanding its excitement: it was like
the sound of a band; nothing remained of it. Departures, constant
departures from one town to another, always leaving, never staying. But
for Glass-Eye's company she would have cried, sometimes, for sheer
melancholy, as at the sight of those really loving couples in the
boarding-houses, on the stage itself; those babies in the arms of their
Mas; it made her heart ache; the thought of it pursued her like the call
of distant bells, while the train rushed into the darkness.

CHAPTER III

"May joy and pleasure be your lot
As through this world you trot, trot, trot.

"X."

"In the golden chain of friendship, regard me as a link.

"Loving Pal (Palace, Sheffield)."

There were pages and pages like this in Lily's autograph book. The last
entry was that of a couple of friends, the dark one and the fair one:

"May success always follow you, and eventually a good
fellow collar you, is the sincere wish of the

"Sisters Arriett and Nancy--The ideal pair (of legs!)"

Since Miss Lily's arrival in Paris, her collection had been increased by
the addition of a fervent declaration from her friend, the architect. This
had been her welcome in Paris, the good fellow, no doubt, prophesied by
the ideal pair of legs; yes, she had hardly reached Paris and already
there were people dying of love around her, already a man at her feet.

Lily was delighted to meet this sincere friend again, a friend of her
childhood, who, she said, had known her when she was "that high": one poor
devil the more ready to leave wife and children for her sake. The evening
befo