The Price She Paid Part 44

"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 rehea.r.s.e 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 rehea.r.s.e 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 ingrat.i.tude 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 n.i.g.g.ardly fas.h.i.+on 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.