``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 Icould 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 Ican't help having hope of you.'' He smiled charmingly, his keen, inconstant eyes dimming.``Perhaps Ihope because you're young and extremely lovely and Iam 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.''
