"No. I've heard almost nothing about her, except that she was famous."
"She was more than that," said Mrs. Brindley. "She was great, a great personality. She was an almost sickly child and girl. Her first attempts on the stage were humiliating failures. She had no health, no endurance, nothing but a small voice of rare quality." Cyrilla held up the paper. "This tells how she became one of the surest and most powerful dramatic sopranos that ever lived."
"She must have been a dull person to have been able to lead the kind of life that's described there," said Mildred.
"Only two kinds of persons could do it," replied Cyrilla—"a dull person—a plodder—and a genius. Middling people—they're the kind that fill the world, they're you and I, my dear—middling people have to fuss with the trifles that must be sacrificed if one is to do anything big. You call those trifles your freedom, but they're your slavery. And by sacrificing them the Lucia Rivis buy their freedom." Cyrilla looked at the paper with a heavy sigh. "Ah, I wish I had seen this when I was your age. Now, it's too late."
Said Mildred: "Would you seriously advise me to try that?"
Cyrilla came and sat beside her and put an arm around her. "Mildred," she said, "I've never thrust advice on you. I only dare do it now because you ask me, and because I love you. You must try it. It's your one chance. If you do not, you will fail. You don't believe me?"
In a tone that was admission, Mildred said: "I don't know."
"Keith has given you there the secret of a successful career. You'll never read it in any book, or get it from any teacher, or from any singer or manager or doctor. You must live like that, you must do those things or you will fail even in musical comedy. You would fail even as an actress, if you tried that, when you found out that the singing was out of the question."
Mildred was impressed. Perhaps she would have been more impressed had she not seen Keith and Mrs. Brindley in the taxi, Keith talking earnestly and Mrs. Brindley listening as if to an oracle. Said she: "Perhaps I'll adopt some of the suggestions."
Cyrilla shook her head. "It's a route to success. You must go the whole route or not at all."