"Don't forget that there have been other singers besides Rivi."
"Not any that I recall who weren't naturally powerful in every way. And how many of them break down? Mildred, please do put the silly nonsense about nerves and temperament and inspiration and overwork and weather and climate—put all that out of your head. Build your temple of a career as high and graceful and delicate as you like, but build it on the coarse, hard, solid rock, dear!"
Mildred tried to laugh lightly. "How Mr. Keith does hypnotize people!" cried she.
Mrs. Brindley's cheeks burned, and her eyes lowered in acute embarrassment. "He has a way of being splendidly and sensibly right," said she. "And the truth is wonderfully convincing—once one sees it." She changed the subject, and it did not come up—or, perhaps, come OUT again—before they went to bed. The next day Mildred began the depressing, hopeless search for a place to live that would be clean, comfortable, and cheap. Those three adjectives describe the ideal lodging; but it will be noted that all these are relative. In fact, none of the three means exactly the same thing to any two members of the human family. Mildred's notion of clean—like her notion of comfortable—on account of her bringing up implied a large element of luxury. As for the word "cheap," it really meant nothing at all to her. From one standpoint everything seemed cheap; from another, everything seemed dear; that is, too dear for a young woman with less than five hundred dollars in the world and no substantial prospect of getting a single dollar more—unless by hook and crook, both of which means she was resolved not to employ.
Never having earned so much as a single penny, the idea of anyone's giving her anything for what she might be able to do was disturbingly vague and unreal. On the other hand, looking about her, she saw scores of men and women, personally known to her to be dull of conversation, and not well mannered or well dressed or well anything, who were making livings without overwhelming difficulty. Why not Mildred Gower? In this view the outlook was not discouraging. "I'll no doubt go through some discomfort, getting myself placed. But somewhere and somehow I shall be placed—and how I shall revenge myself on Donald Keith!" His fascination for her had not been destroyed by his humiliating lack of belief in her, nor by his cold-hearted desertion at just the critical moment. But his conduct had given her the incentive of rage, of stung vanity—or wounded pride, if you prefer. She would get him back; she would force him to admit; she would win him, if she could—and that ought not to be difficult when she should be successful. Having won him, then— What then? Something superb in the way of revenge; she would decide what, when the hour of triumph came. Meanwhile she must search for lodgings.
In her journeyings under the guidance of attractive advertisements and "carefully selected" agents' lists, she found herself in front of her first lodgings in New York—the house of Mrs. Belloc. She had often thought of the New England school-teacher, arrived by such strange paths at such a strange position in New York. She had started to call on her many times, but each time had been turned aside; New York makes it more than difficult to find time to do anything that does not have to be done at a definite time and for a definite reason. She was worn out with her futile trampings up and down streets, up and down stairs. Up the stone steps she went and rang the bell.
Yes, Mrs. Belloc was in, and would be glad to see her, if Miss Stevens would wait in the drawing-room a few minutes. She had not seated herself when down the stairs came the fresh, pleasantly countrified voice of Mrs. Belloc, inviting her to ascend. As Mildred started up, she saw at the head of the stairs the frank and cheerful face of the lady herself. She was holding together at the neck a thin silk wrapper whose lines strongly suggested that it was the only garment she had on.
"Why should old friends stand on ceremony?" said Mrs. Belloc. "Come right up. I've been taking a bath. My masseuse has just gone." Mrs. Belloc enclosed her in a delightfully perfumed embrace, and they kissed with enthusiasm.
"I AM glad to see you," said Mildred, feeling all at once a thrilling sense of at-homeness. "I didn't realize how glad I'd be till I saw you."
"It'd be a pretty stiff sort that wouldn't feel at home with me," observed Mrs. Belloc. "New York usually stiffens people up. It's had the opposite effect on me. Though I must say, I have learned to stiffen with people I don't like—and I'll have to admit that I like fewer and fewer. People don't wear well, do they? What IS the matter with them? Why can't they be natural and not make themselves into rubbishy, old scrap-bags full of fakes and pretenses? You're looking at my hair."