Shoe. Who were you waiting for?"

"I wasn't waiting for any one!" cried Lily, her eyes blazing with anger.

"You devil!" said Ma, looking round for a stick, an umbrella....

And, when she saw nothing within reach, her anger increased. Then she
stiffened her arm and made for Lily, who sprang behind the table....

But Ma, tripping on the carpet, fell at full length, dragging down with
her the table-cloth and two cups that were on it.

"My two china cups! You viper!" she yelled.

At that moment, the door opened; Clifton entered. He seemed preoccupied;
looked at his watch:

"Nine o'clock. We ought to be at the theater! Where are the girls? And
what ... what's all this?" he asked, on seeing the disorder, Mrs. Clifton
scrambling up from the floor, Lily scowling in a corner.

Ma grunted an explanation. Two cups broken, Lily a gadabout who would
bring them to the grave with shame!

"But, Pa, I was only looking at the posters."

"Posters?" repeated Clifton. "Which posters? What's all this nonsense?"

And, when Ma had told him, interrupted by despairing "But, Pas," and "No,
Pas," from Lily, he very calmly asked, was he going to have peace in his
own house, or was he not? All this fuss about two broken cups; beating
Lily for nothing!

Never, in any circumstances, would Clifton have snubbed Mrs. Clifton like
this before Lily. He would have waited until she had gone. But to come
upon all this rot when there were so many serious things to discuss! The
sisters Pawnee whom he had seen last night: Polly, Edith, Lillian. Yes,
that Lillian, damn it, a winged rose! And the things they did on their
bike without seeming to touch it!

"My poor Lily," Pa went on, going up to his daughter and stroking her
hair. "I'm not saying it to vex you; but you're not in it with the
Pawnees! Come on! Beg your Ma's pardon; and let's be off to the theater.
I'm in form this morning. We shall have a great practice."

CHAPTER III

A few minutes later, Pa was hustling his herd before him:

"Quicker, my Woolly-legs! No time to lose!"

He thought of the tricks which he had jotted down the evening before in
his note-book. Lily would learn them quick enough: she was as clever as
the Pawnees, when all was said, only less graceful. She had the balancing
power all right; but grace, grace, damn it, to do a thing like that as
though it were child's play: that's what she hadn't got! You saw the
effort. And the apprentices had no precision in the