Sylvia demanded where she was living, but Lily would not tell her, because she was afraid of what her lover might do. "He doesn't even let me look out of the window. If I look out of the window he tears his clothes with rage and digs his finger-nails into the palms of his hands. He's very violent. Sometimes he shoots at the chandelier." Sylvia began to laugh. There was something ridiculous in the notion of Lily's leading this kind of lion-tamer's existence. Suddenly the croupier with an angry movement swept a pile of money from the table. "Go away, Sylvia, go away. I know he'll break out in a moment. That was meant for a warning." Sylvia understood that it was hopeless to persist for the moment, and she made her way back to the cabaret. The girls were eager to know what she thought of Lily's protector. _"Elle a de la veine, tu sais, la petite Lili. Elle l'a pris comme ça, et il l'aime à la folie. Et elle gagne! mon Dieu, comme elle gagne! Tout va pour elle. Tu sais, elle a des brillants merveilleux. Ça fait riche, tu sais. Y'a pas de chic, mais il est jaloux! Il se porte comme un fou. Ça me raserait, tu sais, être collée avec un homme pareil. Pourtant, elle est busineuse, la petite Lili! Elle ne lui donne pas un rond. Y'a pas de dos vert. Ah, non, elle est la vraie anglaise sans blague. Et le mec, dis, n'est-ce pas qu'il est maigre comme tout? On dirait un squelette."_ With all their depreciation of the croupier, it seemed to Sylvia that most of the girls would have been well pleased to change places with Lily. But how was she herself to regard the affair? During those long days of illness, when she had lain hour after hour with her thoughts, to what a failure her life had seemed to be turning, and what a haphazard, harborless course hers had seemed to be. Now she must perhaps jettison the little cargo she carried, or would it be fairer to say that she must decide whether she should disembark it? It was absurd to pretend that Michael would have viewed with anything but dismay the surrender of Lily to such a one as that croupier, and if she made that surrender, she would be violating his trust that counted for so much in her aimless career. Yet was she not attributing to Michael the sentiment he felt before Lily's betrayal of him? He had only demanded of Sylvia that she should prevent Lily from drifting downward along the dull road of undistinguished ruin. If this fantastic Brazilian wished to marry her, why should he not do so? Then she herself should be alone indeed and, unless a miracle happened, should be lost in the eternal whirl of vagabonds to and fro across the face of the earth.