"That is, what I've done doesn't amount to anything? Mr. Jennings doesn't agree with you."
"Doubtless he's right," said Mrs. Brindley. "At any rate, we all agree that you have shown that you have a voice."
She said this so simply and heartily that Mildred could not but be mollified. Mrs. Brindley changed the subject to the song Mildred had sung, and Mildred stopped puzzling over the mystery of what she had meant by her apparently enthusiastic words, which had yet diffused a chill atmosphere of doubt.
She was doing her scales so well that she became impatient of such "tiresome child's play." And presently Jennings gave her songs, and did not discourage her when she talked of roles, of getting seriously at what, after all, she intended to do. Then there came a week of vile weather, and Mildred caught a cold. She neglected it. Her voice left her. Her tonsils swelled. She had a bad attack of ulcerated sore throat. For nearly three weeks she could not take a single one of the lessons, which were, nevertheless, paid for. Jennings rebuked her sharply.
"A singer has no right to be sick," said he.
"You have a cold yourself," retorted she.
"But I am not a singer. I've nothing that interferes with my work."
"It's impossible not to take cold," said Mildred. "You are unreasonable with me."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Go get well," he said.
The sore throat finally yielded to the treatment of Dr. Hicks, the throat-specialist. His bill was seventy-five dollars. But while the swelling in the tonsils subsided it did not depart. She could take lessons again. Some days she sang as well as ever, and on those days Jennings was charming. Other days she sang atrociously, and Jennings treated her as if she were doing it deliberately. A third and worse state was that of the days when she in the same half-hour alternately sang well and badly. On those days Jennings acted like a lunatic. He raved up and down the studio, all but swearing at her. At first she was afraid of him—withered under his scorn, feared he would throw open his door and order her out and forbid her ever to enter again. But gradually she came to understand him—not enough to lose her fear of him altogether, but enough to lose the fear of his giving up so profitable a pupil.