"But one day the whole staff went on strike, and left at a moment's notice, and there we were. The manager—you remember him, I dare say, Sonnenthal; man with a black waxed moustache and a big diamond pin—he came running in to me and said I must sing myself; it would never do to close down altogether in the height of the season. He thought he would get at least a couple of other turns, and if I would help it would get us over the difficulty.
"I told him I couldn't think of it—said I had no talent for that sort of thing; but he insisted, and offered me fifty marks a night if I would.
"Fifty marks was a fabulous sum to me for one night, then, after living on a franc and a half a day in Paris, and it meant so much for Betty. I began to think it over.
"And really I felt sure myself that I could do better than these half-civilised cabaret singers, from Lord knows where, that I'd been playing to for so long. But the parson's daughter found it hard to come down to performing like that.
"Then Sonnenthal offered me sixty marks. He thought, of course, it was only a question of money. It was too good to refuse, and I agreed.
"He got out new posters, with big lettering:
'SIGNORA BIANCA
The World-renowned Singer from Milan now Appearing.'
"I remember how furious I was when the dresser came in to make me up, and I flung her paints and powders across the room. Sonnenthal came round and wanted me to go on in short skirts, but I told him in so many words that I was going to do it my own way or not at all; and, knowing how he was situated, of course he had to give in.
"I think he was impressed by the way I stood up to him. A little Roumanian girl, a pale, dark-eyed creature, who was simply terrified of Sonnenthal, like all the rest of them, came in to me afterwards and threw her arms round my neck and thanked me for having given him a lesson at last.