IX

TWO minutes' walk through to Broadway, and she was at her destination.

There, on the other side of the way, stood the Gayety Theater, with the

offices of Mr. Clarence Crossley overlooking the intersection of the

two streets. Crossley was intrenched in the remotest of a series of

rooms, each tenanted by under-staffers of diminishing importance as you

drew way from the great man. It was next to impossible to get at

him--a cause of much sneering and dissatisfaction in theatrical

circles. Crossley, they said, was exclusive, had the swollen head, had

forgotten that only a few years before he had been a cheap little

ticket-seller grateful for a bow from any actor who had ever had his

name up. Crossley insisted that he was not a victim of folie de

grandeur, that, on the contrary, he had become less vain as he had

risen, where he could see how trivial a thing rising was and how

accidental. Said he:

"Why do I shut myself in? Because I'm what I am--a good thing, easy

fruit. You say that men a hundred times bigger than I'll ever be don't

shut themselves up. You say that Mountain, the biggest financier in

the country, sits right out where anybody can go up to him. Yes, but

who'd dare go up to him? It's generally known that he's a cannibal,

that he kills his own food and eats it warm and raw. So he can afford

to sit in the open. If I did that, all my time and all my money would

go to the cheap-skates with hard-luck tales. I don't hide because I'm

haughty, but because I'm weak and soft."

In appearance Mr. Crossley did not suggest his name. He was a tallish,

powerful-looking person with a smooth, handsome, audacious face, with

fine, laughing, but somehow untrustworthy eyes--at least untrustworthy

for women, though women had never profited by the warning. He dressed

in excellent taste, almost conspicuously, and the gay and expensive

details of his toilet suggested a man given over to liveliness. As a

matter of fact, this liveliness was potential rather than actual. Mr.

Crossley was always intending to resume the giddy ways of the years

before he became a great man, but was always so far behind in the

important things to be done and done at once that he was forced to put

off. However, his neckties and his shirts and his flirtations,

untrustworthy eyes kept him a reputation for being one of the worst

cases in Broadway. In vain did his achievements show that he could not

possibly have time or strength for anything but work. He looked like a

rounder; he was in a business that gave endless dazzling opportunities

for the lively life; a rounder he was, therefore.

He was about forty. At first glance, so vivid and energetic was he, he

looked like thirty-five, but at second glance one saw the lines, the

underlying melancholy signs of strain, the heavy price he had paid for

phenomenal success won by a series of the sort of risks that make the

hair fall as autumn leaves on a windy day and make such hairs as stick

turn rapidly gray. Thus, there were many who thought Crossley was

through vanity shy of the truth by five or six years when he said forty.

In ordinary circumstances Mildred would never have got at Crossley.

This was the first business call of her life where she had come as an

unknown and unsupported suitor. Her reception would have been such at

the hands of Crossley's insolent and ill-mannered underlings that she

would have fled in shame and confusion. It is even well within the

possibilities that she would have given up all idea of a career, would

have sent for Baird, and so on. And not one of those who, timid and

inexperienced, have suffered rude rebuff at their first advance, would

have condemned her. But it so chanced--whether by good fortune or by

ill the event was to tell--that she did not have to face a single

underling. The hall door was open. She entered. It happened that

while she was coming up in the elevator a quarrel between a motorman

and a driver had heated into a fight, into a small riot. All the

underlings had rushed out on a balcony that commanded a superb view of

the battle. The connecting doors were open; Mildred advanced from room

to room, seeking someone who would take her card to Mr. Crossley. When

she at last faced a closed door she knocked.

"Come!" cried a pleasant voice.

And in she went, to face Crossley himself--Crossley, the "weak and

soft," caught behind his last entrenchment with no chance to escape.

Had Mildred looked the usual sort who come looking for jobs in musical

comedy, Mr. Crossley would not have risen--not because he was snobbish,

but because, being a sensitive, high-strung person, he instinctively

adopted the manner that would put the person before him at ease. He

glanced at Mildred, rose, and thrust back forthwith the slangy, offhand

personality that was perhaps the most natural--or was it merely the

most used?--of his many personalities. It was Crossley the man of the

world, the man of the artistic world, who delighted Mildred with a

courteous bow and offer of a chair, as he said:

"You wished to see me?"

"If you are Mr. Crossley," said Mildred.

"I should be tempted to say I was, if I wasn't," said he, and his

manner made it a mere pleasantry to put her at ease.

"There was no one in the outside room, so I walked on and on until your

door stopped me."

"You'll never know how lucky you were," said he. "They tell me those

fellows out there have shocking manners."

"Have you time to see me now? I've come to apply for a position in

musical comedy."

"You have not been on the stage, Miss--"

"Gower. Mildred Gower. I've decided to use my own name."

"I know you have not been on the stage."

"Except as an amateur--and not even that for several years. But I've

been working at my voice."

Crossley was studying her, as she stood talking--she had refused the

chair. He was more than favorably impressed. But the deciding element

was not Mildred's excellent figure or her charm of manner or her sweet

and lovely face. It was superstition. Just at that time Crossley had

been abruptly deserted by Estelle Howard; instead of going on with the

rehearsals of "The Full Moon," in which she was to be starred, she had

rushed away to Europe with a violinist with whom she had fallen in love

at the first rehearsal. Crossley was looking about for someone to take

her place. He had been entrenched in those offices for nearly five

years; in all that time not a single soul of the desperate crowds that

dogged him had broken through his guard. Crossley was as superstitious

as was everyone else who has to do with the stage.

"What kind of a voice?" asked he.

"Lyric soprano."

"You have music there. What?"

"'Batti Batti' and a little song in English--'The Rose and the Bee.'"

Crossley forgot his manners, turned his back squarely upon her, thrust

his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and stared out through the

window. He presently wheeled round. She would not have thought his

eyes could be so keen. Said he: "You were studying for grand opera?"

"Yes."

"Why do you drop it and take up this?"

"No money," replied she. "I've got to make my living at once."

"Well, let's see. Come with me, please."

They went out by a door into the hall, went back to the rear of the

building, in at an iron door, down a flight of steep iron skeleton

steps dimly lighted. Mildred had often been behind the scenes in her

amateur theatrical days; but even if she had not, she would have known

where she was. Crossley called, "Moldini! Moldini!"

The name was caught up by other voices and repeated again and again,

more and more remotely. A moment, and a small dark man with a

superabundance of greasy dark hair appeared. "Miss Gower," said

Crossley, "this is Signor Moldini. He will play your accompaniments."

Then to the little Italian, "Piano on the stage?"

"Yes, sir."