Once more she began. But this time there was no hesitation. From
first to last she did it as Jennings had coached her, did it with all
the beauty and energy of her really lovely voice. As she ended,
Moldini said in a quiet but intense undertone: "Bravo! Bravo! Fresh
as a bird on a bright spring morning." And from the darkness came:
"Ah--that's better, Miss Gower. That was professional work. Now for
the other."
Thus encouraged and with her voice well warmed, she could not but make
a success of the song that was nearer to what would be expected of her
in musical comedy. Crossley called out: "Now, the sight singing,
Moldini. I don't expect you to do this well, Miss Gower. I simply wish
to get an idea of how you'd do a piece we have in rehearsal."
"You'll have no trouble with this," said Moldini, as he opened the
comedy song upon the rack with a contemptuous whirl. "It's the easy
showy stuff that suits the tired business man and his laced-in wife. Go
at it and yell."
Mildred glanced through it. There was a subtle something in the
atmosphere now that put her at her ease. She read the words aloud,
laughing at their silly sentimentality, she and Moldini and Crossley
making jokes about it. Soon she said: "I'm ready."
She sang it well. She asked them to let her try it again. And the
second time, with the words in her mind and the simple melody, she was
able to put expression into it and to indicate, with restraint, the
action. Crossley came down the aisle.
"What do you think, Mollie?" he said to Moldini.
"We might test her at a few rehearsals."
Crossley meekly accepted the salutary check on his enthusiasm. "Do you
wish to try, Miss Gower?"
Mildred was silent. She knew now the sort of piece in which she was to
appear. She had seen a few of them, those cheap and vulgar farces with
their thin music, their more than dubious-looking people. What a
come-down! What a degradation! It was as bad in its way as being the
wife of General Siddall. And she was to do this, in preference to
marrying Stanley Baird.
"You will be paid, of course, during rehearsal; that is, as long as we
are taking your time. Fifty dollars a week is about as much as we can
afford." Crossley was watching her shrewdly, was advancing these
remarks in response to the hesitation he saw so plainly. "Of course it
isn't grand opera," he went on. "In fact, it's pretty low--almost as
low as the public taste. You see, we aren't subsidized by millionaires
who want people to think they're artistic, so we have to hustle to
separate the public from its money. But if you make a hit, you can
earn enough to put you into grand opera in fine style."
"I never heard of anyone's graduating from here into grand opera," said
Mildred.
"Because our stars make so much money and make it so easily. It'll be
your own fault if you don't."
"Can't I come to just one rehearsal--to see whether I can--can do it?"
pleaded Mildred.
Crossley, made the more eager and the more superstitious by this
unprecedented reluctance, shook his head.
"No. You must agree to stay as long as we want you," said he. "We
can't allow ourselves to be trifled with."
"Very well," said Mildred resignedly. "I will rehearse as long as you
want me."
"And will stay for the run of the piece, if we want that?" said
Crossley. "You to get a hundred a week if you are put in the cast.
More, of course, if you make a hit."
"You mean I'm to sign a contract?" cried Mildred in dismay.
"Exactly," said Crossley. A truly amazing performance. Moldini was
not astonished, however, for he had heard the songs, and he knew
Crossley's difficulties through Estelle Howard's flight. Also, he knew
Crossley--never so "weak and soft" that he trifled with unlikely
candidates for his productions. Crossley had got up because he knew
what to do and when to do it.
Mildred acquiesced. Before she was free to go into the street again,
she had signed a paper that bound her to rehearse for three weeks at
fifty dollars a week and to stay on at a hundred dollars a week for
forty weeks or the run of "The Full Moon," if Crossley so desired; if
he did not, she was free at the end of the rehearsals. A shrewdly
one-sided contract. But Crossley told himself he would correct it, if
she should by some remote chance be good enough for the part and should
make a hit in it. This was no mere salve to conscience, by the way.
Crossley would not be foolish enough to give a successful star just
cause for disliking and distrusting him and at the earliest opportunity
leaving him to make money for some rival manager.
Mrs. Belloc had not gone out, had been waiting in a fever of anxiety.
When Mildred came into her sitting-room with a gloomy face and dropped
to a chair as if her last hope had abandoned her, it was all Agnes
Belloc could do to restrain her tears. Said she:
"Don't be foolish, my dear. You couldn't expect anything to come of
your first attempt."
"That isn't it," said Mildred. "I think I'll give it up--do something
else. Grand opera's bad enough. There were a lot of things about it
that I was fighting my distaste for."
"I know," said Agnes. "And you'd better fight them hard. They're
unworthy of you."
"But--musical comedy! It's--frightful!"
"It's an honest way of making a living, and that's more than can be
said of--of some things. I suppose you're afraid you'll have to wear
tights--or some nonsense like that."
"No, no. It's doing it at all. Such rotten music--and what a
loathsome mess!"
Mrs. Belloc's eyes flashed. "I'm losing all patience!" she cried. "I
know you've been brought up like a fool and always surrounded by fools.
I suppose you'd rather sell yourself to some man. Do you know what's
the matter with you, at bottom? Why, you're lazy and you're a coward.
Too lazy to work. And afraid of what a lot of cheap women'll
say--women earning their board and clothes in about the lowest way such
a thing can be done. Haven't you got any self-respect?"
Mildred rose. "Mrs. Belloc," she said angrily, "I can't permit even
you to say such things to me."
"The shoe seems to fit," retorted Mrs. Belloc. "I never yet saw a
lady, a real, silk-and-diamonds, sit-in-the-parlor lady, who had any
self-respect. If I had my way they wouldn't get a mouthful to eat till
they had earned it. That'd be a sure cure for the lady disease. I'm
ashamed of you, Miss Stevens! And you're ashamed of yourself."
"Yes, I am," said Mildred, with a sudden change of mood.
"The best thing you can do is to rest till lunch-time. Then start out
after lunch and hunt a job. I'll go with you."
"But I've got a job," said Mildred. "That's what's the matter."
Agnes Belloc's jaw dropped and her rather heavy eyebrows shot up toward
the low sweeping line of her auburn hair. She made such a ludicrous
face that Mildred laughed outright. Said she:
"It's quite time. Fifty a week, for three weeks of rehearsal. No
doubt _I_ can go on if I like. Nothing could be easier."
"Crossley?"
"Yes. He was very nice--heard me sing three pieces--and it was all
settled. I'm to begin to-morrow."
The color rose in Agnes Belloc's face until she looked apoplectic. She
abruptly retreated to her bedroom. After a few minutes she came back,
her normal complexion restored. "I couldn't trust myself to speak,"
said she. "That was the worst case of ingratitude I ever met up with.
You, getting a place at fifty dollars a week--and on your first
trial--and you come in looking as if you'd lost your money and your
reputation. What kind of a girl are you, anyway?"
"I don't know," said Mildred. "I wish I did."
"Well, I'm sorry you got it so easy. Now you'll have a false notion
from the start. It's always better to have a hard time getting things.
Then you appreciate them, and have learned how to hold on."
"No trouble about holding on to this," said Mildred carelessly.
"Please don't talk that way, child," pleaded Agnes, almost tearful.
"It's frightful to me, who've had experience, to hear you invite a
fall-down."
Mildred disdainfully fluttered the typewritten copy of the musical
comedy. "This is child's play," said she. "The lines are beneath
contempt. As for the songs, you never heard such slop."
"The stars in those pieces get four and five hundred, and more, a
week," said Mrs. Belloc. "Believe me, those managers don't pay out any
such sums for child's play. You look out. You're going at this wrong."
"I shan't care if I do fail," said Mildred.
"Do you mean that?" demanded Mrs. Belloc.
"No, I don't," said Mildred. "Oh, I don't know what I mean."
"I guess you're just talking," said Mrs. Belloc after a reflective
silence. "I guess a girl who goes and gets a good job, first crack out
of the box, must have a streak of shrewdness."
"I hope so," said Mildred doubtfully.
"I guess you'll work hard, all right. After you went out this morning,
I took that paper down to Miss Blond. She's crazy about it. She wants
to make a copy of it. I told her I'd ask you."
"Certainly," said Mildred. "She says she'll return it the same day."
"Tell her she can keep it as long as she likes."
Mrs. Belloc eyed her gravely, started to speak, checked herself.
Instead, she said, "No, I shan't do that. I'll have it back in your
room by this evening. You might change your mind, and want to use it."
"Very well," said Mildred, pointedly uninterested and ignoring Mrs.
Belloc's delicate but distinct emphasis upon "might."
Mrs. Belloc kept a suspicious eye upon her--an eye that was not easily
deceived. The more she thought about Mildred's state of depression and
disdain the more tolerant she became. That mood was the natural and
necessary result of the girl's bringing up and mode of life. The
important thing--and the wonderful thing--was her being able to
overcome it. After a week of rehearsal she said: "I'm making the best
of it. But I don't like it, and never shall."
"I should hope not," replied Mrs. Belloc. "You're going to the top.
I'd hate to see you contented at the bottom. Aren't you learning a
good deal that'll be useful later on?"
"That's why I'm reconciled to it," said she. "The stage director, Mr.
Ransdell, is teaching me everything--even how to sing. He knows his
business."
Ransdell not only knew, but also took endless pains with her. He was a
tall, thin, dark man, strikingly handsome in the distinguished way. So
distinguished looking was he that to meet him was to wonder why he had
not made a great name for himself. An extraordinary mind he certainly
had, and an insight into the reasons for things that is given only to
genius. He had failed as a composer, failed as a playwright, failed as
a singer, failed as an actor. He had been forced to take up the
profession of putting on dramatic and musical plays, a profession that
required vast knowledge and high talents and paid for them in niggardly
fashion both in money and in fame. Crossley owed to him more than to
any other single element the series of successes that had made him
rich; yet the ten thousand a year Crossley paid him was regarded as
evidence of Crossley's lavish generosity and was so. It would have
been difficult to say why a man so splendidly endowed by nature and so
tireless in improving himself was thus unsuccessful. Probably he
lacked judgment; indeed, that lack must have been the cause. He could
judge for Crossley; but not for himself, not when he had the feeling of
ultimate responsibility.
Mildred had anticipated the most repulsive associations--men and women
of low origin and of vulgar tastes and of vulgarly loose lives. She
found herself surrounded by simple, pleasant people, undoubtedly
erratic for the most part in all their habits, but without viciousness.
And they were hard workers, all. Ransdell--for Crossley--tolerated no
nonsense. His people could live as they pleased, away from the
theater, but there they must be prompt and fit. The discipline was as
severe as that of a monastery. She saw many signs that all sorts of
things of the sort with which she wished to have no contact were going
on about her; but as she held slightly--but not at all
haughtily--aloof, she would have had to go out of her way to see enough
to scandalize her. She soon suspected that she was being treated with
extraordinary consideration. This was by Crossley's orders. But the
carrying out of their spirit as well as their letter was due to
Ransdell. Before the end of that first week she knew that there was
the personal element behind his admiration for her voice and her talent
for acting, behind his concentrating most of his attention upon her
part. He looked his love boldly whenever they were alone; he was
always trying to touch her--never in a way that she could have
resented, or felt like resenting. He was not unattractive to her, and
she was eager to learn all he had to teach, and saw no harm in helping
herself by letting him love.
Toward the middle of the second week, when they were alone in her
dressing-room, he--with the ingenious lack of abruptness of the
experienced man at the game--took her hand, and before she was ready,
kissed her. He did not accompany these advances with an outburst of
passionate words or with any fiery lighting up of the eyes, but calmly,
smilingly, as if it were what she was expecting him to do, what he had
a right to do.
She did not know quite how to meet this novel attack. She drew her hand
away, went on talking about the part--the changes he had suggested in
her entrance, as she sang her best solo. He discussed this with her
until they rose to leave the theater. He looked smilingly down on her,
and said with the flattering air of the satisfied connoisseur:
"Yes, you are charming, Mildred. I can make a great artist and a great
success out of you. We need each other."
"I certainly need you," said she gratefully. "How much you've done for
me."
"Only the beginning," replied he. "Ah, I have such plans for you--such
plans. Crossley doesn't realize how far you can be made to go--with
the right training. Without it--" He shook his head laughingly. "But
you shall have it, my dear." And he laid his hands lightly and
caressingly upon her shoulders.
The gesture was apparently a friendly familiarity. To resent it, even
to draw away, would put her in the attitude of the woman absurdly
exercised about the desirability and sacredness of her own charms.
Still smiling, in that friendly, assured way, he went on: "You've been
very cold and reserved with me, my dear. Very unappreciative."
Mildred, red and trembling, hung her head in confusion.
"I've been at the business ten years," he went on, "and you're the
first woman I've been more than casually interested in. The pretty
ones were bores. The homely ones--I can't interest myself in a homely
woman, no matter how much talent she has. A woman must first of all
satisfy the eye. And you--" He seated himself and drew her toward
him. She, cold all over and confused in mind and almost stupefied,
resisted with all her strength; but her strength seemed to be oozing
away. She said:
"You must not do this. You must not do this. I'm horribly
disappointed in you."
He drew her to his lap and held her there without any apparent tax upon
his strength. He kissed her, laughingly pushing away the arms with
which she tried to shield her face. Suddenly she found strength to
wrench herself free and stood at a distance from him. She was panting a
little, was pale, was looking at him with cold anger.
"You will please leave this room," said she.
He lit a cigarette, crossed his legs comfortably, and looked at her
with laughing eyes. "Don't do that," he said genially. "Surely my
lessons in acting haven't been in vain. That's too obviously a pose."
She went to the mirror, arranged her hat, and moved toward the door. He
rose and barred the way.
"You are as sensible as you are sweet and lovely," said he. "Why
should you insist on our being bad friends?"
"If you don't stand aside, I'll call out to the watchman."
"I'd never have thought you were dishonest. In fact, I don't believe
it yet. You don't look like one of those ladies who wish to take
everything and give nothing." His tone and manner were most
attractive. Besides, she could not forget all he had done for her--and
all he could do for her. Said she:
"Mr. Ransdell, if I've done anything to cause you to misunderstand, it
was unconscious. And I'm sorry. But I--"
"Be honest," interrupted he. "Haven't I made it plain that I was
fascinated by you?"
She could not deny it.
"Haven't I been showing you that I was willing to do everything I could
for you?"
"I thought you were concerned only about the success of the piece."
"The piece be jiggered," said he. "You don't imagine YOU are necessary
to its success, do you? You, a raw, untrained girl. Don't your good
sense tell you I could find a dozen who would do, let us say, ALMOST as
well?"
"I understand that," murmured she.
"Perhaps you do, but I doubt it," rejoined he. "Vanity's a fast growing
weed. However, I rather expected that you would remain sane and
reasonably humble until you'd had a real success. But it seems not.
Now tell me, why should I give my time and my talent to training
you--to putting you in the way of quick and big success?"
She was silent.
"What did you count on giving me in return? Your thanks?"
She colored, hung her head.
"Wasn't I doing for you something worth while? And what had you to give
in return?" He laughed with gentle mockery. "Really, you should have
been grateful that I was willing to do so much for so little, for what
I wanted ought--if you are a sensible woman--to seem to you a trifle in
comparison with what I was doing for you. It was my part, not yours,
to think the complimentary things about you. How shallow and vain you
women are! Can't you see that the value of your charms is not in them,
but in the imagination of some man?"
"I can't answer you," said she. "You've put it all wrong. You
oughtn't to ask payment for a favor beyond price."
"No, I oughtn't to HAVE to ask," corrected he, in the same pleasantly
ironic way. "You ought to have been more than glad to give freely.
But, curiously, while we've been talking, I've changed my mind about
those precious jewels of yours. We'll say they're pearls, and that my
taste has suddenly changed to diamonds." He bowed mockingly. "So,
dear lady, keep your pearls."
And he stood aside, opening the door for her. She hesitated, dazed
that she was leaving, with the feeling of the conquered, a field on
which, by all the precedents, she ought to have been victor. She
passed a troubled night, debated whether to relate her queer experience
to Mrs. Belloc, decided for silence. It drafted into service all her
reserve of courage to walk into the theater the next day and to appear
on the stage among the assembled company with her usual air. Ransdell
greeted her with his customary friendly courtesy and gave her his
attention, as always. By the time they had got through the first act,
in which her part was one of four of about equal importance, she had
recovered herself and was in the way to forget the strange stage
director's strange attack and even stranger retreat. But the situation
changed with the second act, in which she was on the stage all the time
and had the whole burden. The act as originally written had been less
generous to her; but Ransdell had taken one thing after another away
from the others and had given it to her. She made her first entrance
precisely as he had trained her to make it and began. A few seconds,
and he stopped her.
"Please try again, Miss Gower," said he. "I'm afraid that won't do."
She tried again; again he stopped her. She tried a third time. His
manner was all courtesy and consideration, not the shade of a change.
But she began to feel a latent hostility. Instinctively she knew that
he would no longer help her, that he would leave her to her own
resources, and judge her by how she acquitted herself. She made a
blunder of her third trial.
"Really, Miss Gower, that will never do," said he mildly. "Let me show
you how you did it."
He gave an imitation of her--a slight caricature. A titter ran through
the chorus. He sternly rebuked them and requested her to try again.
Her fourth attempt was her worst. He shook his head in gentle
remonstrance. "Not quite right yet," said he regretfully. "But we'll
go on."
Not far, however. He stopped her again. Again the courteous, kindly
criticism. And so on, through the entire act. By the end of it,
Mildred's nerves were unstrung. She saw the whole game, and realized
how helpless she was. Before the end of that rehearsal, Mildred had
slipped back from promising professional into clumsy amateur, tolerable
only because of the beautiful freshness of her voice--and it was a
question whether voice alone would save her. Yet no one but Mildred
herself suspected that Ransdell had done it, had revenged himself, had
served notice on her that since she felt strong enough to stand alone
she was to have every opportunity to do so. He had said nothing
disagreeable; on the contrary, he had been most courteous, most
forbearing.
In the third act she was worse than in the second. At the end of the
rehearsal the others, theretofore flattering and encouraging, turned
away to talk among themselves and avoided her. Ransdell, about to
leave, said:
"Don't look so down-hearted, Miss Gower. You'll be all right
to-morrow. An off day's nothing."
He said it loudly enough for the others to hear. Mildred's face grew
red with white streaks across it, like the prints of a lash. The
subtlest feature of his malevolence had been that, whereas on other
days he had taken her aside to criticize her, on this day he had spoken
out--gently, deprecatingly, but frankly--before the whole company.
Never had Mildred Gower been so sad and so blue as she was that day and
that night. She came to the rehearsal the following day with a sore
throat. She sang, but her voice cracked on the high notes. It was a
painful exhibition. Her fellow principals, who had been rather glad of
her set-back the day before, were full of pity and sympathy. They did
not express it; they were too kind for that. But their looks, their
drawing away from her--Mildred could have borne sneers and jeers
better. And Ransdell was SO forbearing, SO gentle.
Her voice got better, got worse. Her acting remained mediocre to bad.
At the fifth rehearsal after the break with the stage-director, Mildred
saw Crossley seated far back in the dusk of the empty theater. It was
his first appearance at rehearsals since the middle of the first week.
As soon as he had satisfied himself that all was going well, he had
given his attention to other matters where things were not going well.
Mildred knew why he was there--and she acted and sang atrociously.
Ransdell aggravated her nervousness by ostentatiously trying to help
her, by making seemingly adroit attempts to cover her
mistakes--attempts apparently thwarted and exposed only because she was
hopelessly bad.
In the pause between the second and third acts Ransdell went down and
sat with Crossley, and they engaged in earnest conversation. The
while, the members of the company wandered restlessly about the stage,
making feeble attempts to lift the gloom with affected cheerfulness.
Ransdell returned to the stage, went up to Mildred, who was sitting
idly turning the leaves of a part-book.
"Miss Gower," said he, and never had his voice been so friendly as in
these regretful accents, "don't try to go on to-day. You're evidently
not yourself. Go home and rest for a few days. We'll get along with
your understudy, Miss Esmond. When Mr. Crossley wants to put you in
again, he'll send for you. You mustn't be discouraged. I know how
beginners take these things to heart. Don't fret about it. You can't
fail to succeed."
Mildred rose and, how she never knew, crossed the stage. She stumbled
into the flats, fumbled her way to the passageway, to her
dressing-room. She felt that she must escape from that theater
quickly, or she would give way to some sort of wild attack of nerves.
She fairly ran through the streets to Mrs. Belloc's, shut herself in
her room. But instead of the relief of a storm of tears, there came a
black, hideous depression. Hour after hour she sat, almost without
motion. The afternoon waned; the early darkness came. Still she did
not move--could not move. At eight o'clock Mrs. Belloc knocked.
Mildred did not answer. Her door opened--she had forgotten to lock it.
In came Mrs. Belloc.
"Isn't that you, sitting by the window?" she said.
"Yes," replied Mildred.
"I recognized the outline of your hat. Besides, who else could it be
but you? I've saved some dinner for you. I thought you were still
out."
Mildred did not answer.
"What's the matter?" said Agnes? "Ill? bad news?"
"I've lost my position," said Mildred.
A pause. Then Mrs. Belloc felt her way across the room until she was
touching the girl. "Tell me about it, dear," said she.
In a monotonous, lifeless way Mildred told the story. It was some time
after she finished when Agnes said:
"That's bad--bad, but it might be worse. You must go to see the
manager, Crossley."
"Why?" said Mildred.
"Tell him what you told me."
Mildred's silence was dissent.
"It can't do any harm," urged Agnes.
"It can't do any good," replied Mildred.
"That isn't the way to look at it."
A long pause. Then Mildred said: "If I got a place somewhere else,
I'd meet the same thing in another form."
"You've got to risk that."
"Besides, I'd never have had a chance of succeeding if Mr. Ransdell
hadn't taught me and stood behind me."
It was many minutes before Agnes Belloc said in a hesitating,
restrained voice: "They say that success--any kind of success--has its
price, and that one has to be ready to pay that price or fail."
Again the profound silence. Into it gradually penetrated the soft,
insistent sound of the distant roar of New York--a cruel, clamorous,
devouring sound like a demand for that price of success. Said Agnes
timidly:
"Why not go to see Mr. Ransdell."
"He wouldn't make it up," said Mildred. "And I--I couldn't. I tried
to marry Stanley Baird for money--and I couldn't. It would be the same
way now--only more so."
"But you've got to do something."
"Yes, and I will." Mildred had risen abruptly, was standing at the
window. Agnes Belloc could feel her soul rearing defiantly at the city
into which she was gazing. "I will!" she replied.
"It sounds as if you'd been pushed to where you'd turn and make a
fight," said Agnes.
"I hope so," said Mildred. "It's high time."
She thought out several more or less ingenious indirect routes into Mr.
Crossley's stronghold, for use in case frontal attack failed. But she
did not need them. Still, the hours she spent in planning them were by
no means wasted. No time is wasted that is spent in desperate,
concentrated thinking about any of the practical problems of life. And
Mildred Gower, as much as any other woman of her training--or lack of
training--was deficient in ability to use her mind purposefully. Most
of us let our minds act like a sheep in a pasture--go wandering hither
and yon, nibbling at whatever happens to offer. Only the superior few
deliberately select a pasture, select a line of procedure in that
pasture and keep to it, concentrating upon what is useful to us, and
that alone. So it was excellent experience for Mildred to sit down and
think connectedly and with wholly absorbed mind upon the phase of her
career most important at the moment. When she had worked out all the
plans that had promise in them she went tranquilly to sleep, a stronger
and a more determined person, for she had said with the energy that
counts: "I shall see him, somehow. If none of these schemes works,
I'll work out others. He's got to see me."
But it was no occult "bearing down" that led him to order her admitted
the instant her card came. He liked her; he wished to see her again;
he felt that it was the decent thing, and somehow not difficult gently
but clearly to convey to her the truth. On her side she, who had
looked forward to the interview with some nervousness, was at her ease
the moment she faced him alone in that inner office. He had
extraordinary personal charm--more than Ransdell, though Ransdell had
the charm invariably found in a handsome human being with the
many-sided intellect that gives lightness of mind. Crossley was not
intellectual, not in the least. One had only to glance at him to see
that he was one of those men who reserve all their intelligence for the
practical sides of the practical thing that forms the basis of their
material career. He knew something of many things, had a wonderful
assortment of talents--could sing, could play piano or violin, could
compose, could act, could do mystifying card tricks, could order
women's clothes as discriminatingly as he could order his own--all
these things a little, but nothing much except making a success of
musical comedy and comic opera. He had an ambition, carefully
restrained in a closet of his mind, where it could not issue forth and
interfere with his business. This ambition was to be a giver of grand
opera on a superb scale. He regarded himself as a mere
money-maker--was not ashamed of this, but neither was he proud of it.
His ambition then represented a dream of a rise to something more than
business man, to friend and encourager and wet nurse to art.
Mildred Gower had happened to set his imagination to working. The
discovery that she was one of those whose personalities rouse high
expectations only to mock them had been a severe blow to his confidence
in his own judgment. Though he pretended to believe, and had the habit
of saying that he was "weak and soft," was always being misled by his
good nature, he really believed himself an unerring judge of human
beings, and, as his success evidenced, he was not far wrong. Thus,
though convinced that Mildred was a "false alarm," his secret vanity
would not let him release his original idea. He had the tenacity that
is an important element in all successes; and tenacity become a fixed
habit has even been known to ruin in the end the very careers it has
made.
Said Mildred, in a manner which was astonishingly unemotional and
businesslike: "I've not come to tattle and to whine, Mr. Crossley.
I've hesitated about coming at all, partly because I've an instinct
it's useless, partly because what I have to say isn't easy."
Crossley's expression hardened. The old story!--excuses, excuses,
self-excuse--somebody else to blame.
"If it hadn't been for Mr. Ransdell--the trouble he took with me, the
coaching he gave me--I'd have been a ridiculous failure at the very
first rehearsal. But--it is to Mr. Ransdell that my failure is due."
"My dear Miss Gower," said Crossley, polite but cold, "I regret hearing
you say that. The fact is very different. Not until you had done
so--so unacceptably at several rehearsals that news of it reached me by
another way--not until I myself went to Mr. Ransdell about you did he
admit that there could be a possibility of a doubt of your succeeding.
I had to go to rehearsal myself and directly order him to restore Miss
Esmond and lay you off."
Mildred was not unprepared. She received this tranquilly. "Mr.
Ransdell is a very clever man," said she with perfect good humor. "I've
no hope of convincing you, but I must tell my side."
And clearly and simply, with no concealments through fear of disturbing
his high ideal of her ladylike delicacy, she told him the story. He
listened, seated well back in his tilted desk-chair, his gaze upon the
ceiling. When she finished he held his pose a moment, then got up and
paced the length of the office several times, his hands in his pockets.
He paused, looked keenly at her, a good-humored smile in those eyes of
his so fascinating to women because of their frank wavering of an
inconstancy it would indeed be a triumph to seize and hold. Said he:
"And your bad throat? Did Ransdell give you a germ?"
She colored. He had gone straight at the weak point.
"If you'd been able to sing," he went on, "nobody could have done you
up."
She could not gather herself together for speech.
"Didn't you know your voice wasn't reliable when you came to me?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"And wasn't that the REAL reason you had given up grand opera?" pursued
he mercilessly.
"The reason was what I told you--lack of money," replied she. "I did
not go into the reason why I lacked money. Why should I when, even on
my worst days, I could get through all my part in a musical
comedy--except songs that could be cut down or cut out? If I could
have made good at acting, would you have given me up on account of my
voice?"
"Not if you had been good enough," he admitted.
"Then I did not get my engagement on false pretenses?"
"No. You are right. Still, your fall-down as a singer is the
important fact. Don't lose sight of it."
"I shan't," said she tersely.
His eyes were frankly laughing. "As to Ransdell--what a clever trick!
He's a remarkable man. If he weren't so shrewd in those little ways,
he might have been a great man. Same old story--just a little too
smart, and so always doing the little thing and missing the big thing.
Yes, he went gunning for you--and got you." He dropped into his chair.
He thought a moment, laughed aloud, went on: "No doubt he has worked
that same trick many a time. I've suspected it once or twice, but this
time he fooled me. He got you, Miss Gower, and I can do nothing. You
must see that I can't look after details. And I can't give up as
invaluable a man as Ransdell. If I put you back, he'd put you
out--would make the piece fail rather than let you succeed."
Mildred was gazing somberly at the floor.
"It's hard lines--devilish hard lines," he went on sympathetically.
"But what can I do?"
"What can I do?" said Mildred.
"Do as all people do who succeed--meet the conditions."
"I'm not prepared to go as far as that, at least not yet," said she
with bitter sarcasm. "Perhaps when I'm actually starving and in rags--"
"A very distressing future," interrupted Crossley. "But--I didn't make
the world. Don't berate me. Be sensible--and be honest, Miss Gower,
and tell me--how could I possibly protect you and continue to give
successful shows? If you can suggest any feasible way, I'll take it."
"No, there isn't any way," replied she, rising to go.
He rose to escort her to the hall door. "Personally, the Ransdell sort
of thing is--distasteful to me. Perhaps if I were not so busy I might
be forced by my own giddy misconduct to take less high ground. I've
observed that the best that can be said for human nature at its best is
that it is as well behaved as its real temptations permit. He was
making you, you know. You've admitted it."
"There's no doubt about that," said Mildred.
"Mind you, I'm not excusing him. I'm simply explaining him. If your
voice had been all right--if you could have stood to any degree the
test he put you to, the test of standing alone--you'd have defeated
him. He wouldn't have dared go on. He's too shrewd to think a real
talent can be beaten."
The strong lines, the latent character, in Mildred's face were so
strongly in evidence that looking at her then no one would have thought
of her beauty or even of her sex, but only of the force that resists
all and overcomes all. "Yes--the voice," said she. "The voice."
"If it's ever reliable, come to see me. Until then--" He put out his
hand. When she gave him hers, he held it in a way that gave her no
impulse to draw back. "You know the conditions of success now. You
must prepare to meet them. If you put yourself at the mercy of the
Ransdells--or any other of the petty intriguers that beset every avenue
of success--you must take the consequences, you must conciliate them as
best you can. If you don't wish to be at their mercy, you must do your
part."
She nodded. He released her hand, opened the hall door. He said:
"Forgive my little lecture. But I like you, and I can't help having
hope of you." He smiled charmingly, his keen, inconstant eyes dimming.
"Perhaps I hope because you're young and extremely lovely and I am
pitifully susceptible. You see, you'd better go. Every man's a
Ransdell at heart where pretty women are concerned."
She did not leave the building. She went to the elevator and asked the
boy where she could find Signor Moldini. His office was the big room
on the third floor where voice candidates were usually tried out, three
days in the week. At the moment he was engaged. Mildred, seated in
the tiny anteroom, heard through the glass door a girl singing, or
trying to sing. It was a distressing performance, and Mildred wondered
that Moldini could be so tolerant as to hear her through. He came to
the door with her, thanked her profusely, told her he would let her
know whenever there was an opening "suited to your talents." As he
observed Mildred, he was still sighing and shaking his head over the
departed candidate.
"Ugly and ignorant!" he groaned. "Poor creature! Poor, poor creature.
She makes three dollars a week--in a factory owned by a great
philanthropist. Three dollars a week. And she has no way to make a
cent more. Miss Gower, they talk about the sad, naughty girls who sell
themselves in the street to piece out their wages. But think, dear
young lady, how infinitely better of they are than the ugly ones who
can't piece out their wages."
There he looked directly at her for the first time. Before she could
grasp the tragic sadness of his idea, he, with the mobility of candid
and highly sensitized natures, shifted from melancholy to gay, for in
looking at her he had caught only the charm of dress, of face, of
arrangement of hair. "What a pleasure!" he exclaimed, bursting into
smiles and seizing and kissing her gloved hands. "Voice like a bird,
face like an angel--only not TOO good, no, not TOO good. But it is so
rare--to look as one sings, to sing as one looks."
For once, compliment, sincere compliment from one whose opinion was
worth while, gave Mildred pain. She burst out with her news: "Signor
Moldini, I've lost my place in the company. My voice has gone back on
me."
Usually Moldini abounded in the consideration of fine natures that have
suffered deeply from lack of consideration. But he was so astounded
that he could only stare stupidly at her, smoothing his long greasy
hair with his thin brown hand.
"It's all my fault; I don't take care of myself," she went on. "I
don't take care of my health. At least, I hope that's it."
"Hope!" he said, suddenly angry.
"Hope so, because if it isn't that, then I've no chance for a career,"
explained she.
He looked at her feet, pointed an uncannily long forefinger at them.
"The crossings and sidewalks are slush--and you, a singer, without
overshoes! Lunacy! Lunacy!"
"I've never worn overshoes?" said Mildred apologetically.
"Don't tell me! I wish not to hear. It makes me--like madness here."
He struck his low sloping brow with his palm. "What vanity! That the
feet may look well to the passing stranger, no overshoes! Rheumatism,
sore throat, colds, pneumonia. Is it not disgusting. If you were a
man I should swear in all the languages I know--which are five,
including Hungarian, and when one swears in Hungarian it is 'going
some,' as you say in America. Yes, it is going quite some."
"I shall wear overshoes," said Mildred.
"And indigestion--you have that?"
"A little, I guess."
"Much--much, I tell you!" cried Moldini, shaking the long finger at
her. "You Americans! You eat too fast and you eat too much. That is
why you are always sick, and consulting the doctors who give the
medicines that make worse, not better. Yes, you Americans are like
children. You know nothing. Sing? Americans cannot sing until they
learn that a stomach isn't a waste-basket, to toss everything into. You
have been to that throat specialist, Hicks?"
"Ah, yes," said Mildred brightening. "He said there was nothing
organically wrong."
"He is an ass, and a criminal. He ruins throats. He likes to cut, and
he likes to spray. He sprays those poisons that relieve colds and
paralyze the throat and cords. Americans sing? It is to laugh! They
have too many doctors; they take too many pills. Do you know what your
national emblem should be? A dollar-sign--yes. But that for all
nations. No, a pill--a pill, I tell you. You take pills?"
"Now and then," said Mildred, laughing. "I admit I have several kinds
always on hand."
"You see!" cried he triumphantly. "No, it is not mere art that America
needs, but more sense about eating--and to keep away from the doctors.
People full of pills, they cannot make poems and pictures, and write
operas and sing them. Throw away those pills, dear young lady, I
implore you."
"Signor Moldini, I've come to ask you to help me."
Instantly the Italian cleared his face of its half-humorous,
half-querulous expression. In its place came a grave and courteous
eagerness to serve her that was a pleasure, even if it was not
altogether sincere. And Mildred could not believe it sincere. Why
should he care what became of her, or be willing to put himself out for
her?
"You told me one day that you had at one time taught singing,"
continued she.
"Until I was starved out?" replied he. "I told people the truth. If
they could not sing I said so. If they sang badly I told them why, and
it was always the upset stomach, the foolish food, and people will not
take care about food. They will eat what they please, and they say
eating is good for them, and that anyone who opposes them is a crank.
So most of my pupils left, except those I taught for nothing--and they
did not heed me, and came to nothing."
"You showed me in ten minutes one day how to cure my worst fault. I've
sung better, more naturally ever since."
"You could sing like the birds. You do--almost. You could be taught to
sing as freely and sweetly and naturally as a flower gives perfume.
That is YOUR divine gift, young lady song as pure and fresh as a bird's
song raining down through the leaves from the tree-top."
"I have no money. I've got to get it, and I shall get it," continued
Mildred. "I want you to teach me--at any hour that you are free. And
I want to know how much you will charge, so that I shall know how much
to get."
"Two dollars a lesson. Or, if you take six lessons a week, ten
dollars. Those were my terms. I could not take less."
"It is too little," said Mildred. "The poorest kinds of teachers get
five dollars an hour--and teach nothing."
"Two dollars, ten dollars a week," replied he. "It is the most I ever
could get. I will not take more from you."
"It is too little," said she. "But I'll not insist--for obvious
reasons. Now, if you'll give me your home address, I'll go. When I
get the money, I'll write to you."
"But wait!" cried he, as she rose to depart. "Why so hurried? Let us
see. Take of the wrap. Step behind the screen and loosen your corset.
Perhaps even you could take it off?"
"Not without undressing," said Mildred. "But I can do that if it's
necessary." She laughed queerly. "From this time on I'll do ANYTHING
that's necessary."
"No,--never mind. The dress of woman--of your kind of women. It is
not serious." He laughed grimly. "As for the other kind, their dress
is the only serious thing about them. It is a mistake to think that
women who dress badly are serious. My experience has been that they
are the most foolish of all. Fashionable dress--it is part of a
woman's tools. It shows that she is good at her business. The women
who try to dress like men, they are good neither at men's business nor
at women's."
This, while Mildred was behind the screen, loosening her
corset--though, in fact, she wore it so loose at all times that she
inconvenienced herself simply to show her willingness to do as she was
told. When she came out, Moldini put her through a rigid physical
examination--made her breathe while he held one hand on her stomach,
the other on her back, listened at her heart, opened wide her throat
and peered down, thrust his long strong fingers deep into the muscles
of her arms, her throat, her chest, until she had difficulty in not
crying out with pain.
"The foundation is there," was his verdict. "You have a good body,
good muscles, but flabby--a lady's muscles, not an opera singer's. And
you are stiff--not so stiff as when you first came here, but stiff for
a professional. Ah, we must go at this scientifically, thoroughly."
"You will teach me to breathe--and how to produce my voice naturally?"
"I will teach you nothing," replied he. "I will tell you what to do,
and you will teach yourself. You must get strong--strong in the supple
way--and then you will sing as God intended. The way to sing, dear
young lady, is to sing. Not to breathe artificially, and make faces,
and fuss with your throat, but simply to drop your mouth and throat
open and let it out!"
Mildred produced from her hand-bag the Keith paper. "What do YOU think
of that?" she asked.
Presently he looked up from his reading. "This part I have seen
before," said he. "It is Lucia Rivi's. Her cousin, Lotta Drusini,
showed it to me--she was a great singer also."
"You approve of it?"
"If you will follow that for two years, faithfully, you will be
securely great, and then you will follow it all your singing life--and
it will be long. But remember, dear young lady, I said IF you follow
it, and I said faithfully. I do not believe you can."
"Why not?" said Mildred.
"Because that means self-denial, colossal self-denial. You love things
to eat--yes?"
Mildred nodded.
"We all do," said Moldini. "And we hate routine, and we like foolish,
aimless little pleasures of all kinds."
"And it will be two years before I can try grand opera--can make my
living?" said Mildred slowly.
"I did not say that. I said, before you would be great. No, you can
sing, I think, in--wait."
Moldini flung rapidly through an enormous mass of music on a large
table. "Ah, here!" he cried, and he showed her a manuscript of scales.
"Those two papers. It does not look much? Well, I have made it up,
myself. And when you can sing those two papers perfectly, you will be
a greater singer than any that ever lived." He laughed delightedly.
"Yes, it is all there--in two pages. But do not weep, dear lady,
because you will never sing them perfectly. You will do very well if--
Always that if, remember! Now, let us see. Take this, sit in the
chair, and begin. Don't bother about me. I expect nothing. Just do
the best you can."
Desperation, when it falls short of despair, is the best word for
achievement. Mildred's voice, especially at the outset, was far from
perfect condition. Her high notes, which had never been developed
properly, were almost bad. But she acquitted herself admirably from
the standpoint of showing what her possibilities were. And Moldini,
unkempt, almost unclean, but as natural and simple and human a soul as
ever paid the penalties of poverty and obscurity and friendlessness for
being natural and simple and human, exactly suited her peculiar
temperament. She knew that he liked her, that he believed in her; she
knew that he was as sympathetic toward her as her own self, that there
was no meanness anywhere in him. So she sang like a bird--a bird that
was not too well in soul or in body, but still a bird out in the
sunshine, with the airs of spring cheering his breast and its foliage
gladdening his eyes. He kept her at it for nearly an hour. She saw
that he was pleased, that he had thought out some plan and was bursting
to tell her, but had forbidden himself to speak of it. He said:
"You say you have no money?"
"No, but I shall get it."
"You may have to pay high for it--yes?"
She colored, but did not flinch. "At worst, it will be--unpleasant,
but that's all."
"Wait one--two days--until you hear from me. I may--I do not say will,
but may--get it. Yes, I who have nothing." He laughed gayly. "And
we--you and I--we will divide the spoils." Gravely. "Do not
misunderstand. That was my little joke. If I get the money for you it
will be quite honorable and businesslike. So--wait, dear young lady."
As she was going, she could not resist saying:
"You are SURE I can sing?--IF, of course--always the if."
"It is not to be doubted."
"How well, do you think?"
"You mean how many dollars a night well? You mean as well as this
great singer or that? I do not know. And you are not to compare
yourself with anyone but yourself. You will sing as well as Mildred
Gower at her best."
For some reason her blood went tingling through her veins. If she had
dared she would have kissed him.
X
THAT same afternoon Donald Keith, arrived at the top of Mrs. Belloc's
steps, met Mildred coming out. Seeing their greeting, one would have
thought they had seen each other but a few minutes before or were
casual acquaintances. Said she:
"I'm going for a walk."
"Let's take the taxi," said he.
There it stood invitingly at the curb. She felt tired. She disliked
walking. She wished to sit beside him and be whirled away--out of the
noisy part of the city, up where the air was clean and where there were
no crowds. But she had begun the regimen of Lucia Rivi. She hesitated.
What matter if she began now or put off beginning until after this one
last drive?
"No, we will walk," said she.
"But the streets are in frightful condition."
She thrust out a foot covered with a new and shiny storm-rubber.
"Let's drive to the park then. We'll walk there."
"No. If I get into the taxi, I'll not get out. Send it away."
When they were moving afoot up Madison Avenue, he said: "What's the
matter? This isn't like you."
"I've come to my senses," replied she. "It may be too late, but I'm
going to see."
"When I called on Mrs. Brindley the other day," said he, "she had your
note, saying that you were going into musical comedy with Crossley."
"That's over," said she. "I lost my voice, and I lost my job."
"So I heard," said he. "I know Crossley. I dropped in to see him this
morning, and he told me about a foolish, fashionable girl who made a
bluff at going on the stage--he said she had a good voice and was a
swell looker, but proved to be a regular 'four-flusher.' I recognized
you."
"Thanks," said she dryly.
"So, I came to see you."
She inquired about Mrs. Brindley and then about Stanley Baird. Finding
that he was in Italy, she inquired: "Do you happen to know his
address?"
"I'll get it and send it to you. He has taken a house at Monte Carlo
for the winter."
"And you?"
"I shall stay here--I think."
"You may join him?"
"It depends"--he looked at her--"upon you."
He could put a wonderful amount of meaning into a slight inflection.
She struggled--not in vain--to keep from changing expression.
"You realize now that the career is quite hopeless?" said he.
She did not answer.
"You do not like the stage life?"
"No."
"And the stage life does not like you?"
"No."
"Your voice lacks both strength and stability?"
"Yes."
"And you have found the one way by which you could get on--and you
don't like it?"
"Crossley told you?" said she, the color flaring.
"Your name was not mentioned. You may not believe it, but Crossley is
a gentleman."
She walked on in silence.
"I did not expect your failure to come so soon--or in quite that way,"
he went on. "I got Mrs. Brindley to exact a promise from you that
you'd let her know about yourself. I called on Mrs. Belloc one day
when you were out, and gave her my confidence and got hers--and assured
myself that you were in good hands. Crossley's tale gave me--a shock.
I came at once."
"Then you didn't abandon me to my fate, as I thought?"