The Price She Paid

by David Graham Phillips

Mildred showed how this depressed her.

"But don't you fret about that till you have to," advised Mrs. Belloc. "I've a notion that, even if it's true, it may not apply to you. Where a woman offers for a place that she can fill about as well as a hundred other women, she's at the man's mercy; but if she knows that she's far and away the best for the place, I don't think a man's going to stand in his own light. Let him see that he can make money through YOU, money he won't make if he don't get you. Then, I don't think you'll have any trouble."

But Mildred's depression did not decrease. "If my voice could only be relied on!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it exasperating that I've got a delicate throat!"

"It's always something," said Mrs. Belloc. "One thing's about as bad as another, and anything can be overcome."

"No, not in my case," said Mildred. "The peculiar quality of my voice—what makes it unusual—is due to the delicateness of my throat."

"Maybe so," said Mrs. Belloc.

"Of course, I can always sing—after a fashion," continued Mildred. "But to be really valuable on the stage you've got to be able always to sing at your best. So I'm afraid I'm in the class of those who'll suit, one about as well as another."

"You've got to get out of that class," said Mrs. Belloc. "The men in that class, and the women, have to do any dirty work the boss sees fit to give 'em—and not much pay, either. Let me tell you one thing, Miss Stevens. If you can't get among the few at the top in the singing game, you must look round for some game where you can hope to be among the few. No matter WHAT it is. By using your brains and working hard, there's something you can do better than pretty nearly anybody else can or will do it. You find that."

The words sank in, sank deep. Mildred, sense of her surroundings lost, was gazing straight ahead with an expression that gave Mrs. Belloc hope and even a certain amount of confidence. There was a distinct advance; for, after she reflected upon all that Mildred had told her, little of her former opinion of Mildred's chances for success had remained but a hope detained not without difficulty. Mrs. Belloc knew the human race unusually well for a woman—unusually well for a human being of whatever sex or experience. She had discovered how rare is the temperament, the combination of intelligence and tenacity, that makes for success. She had learned that most people, judged by any standard, were almost total failures, that most of the more or less successful were so merely because the world had an enormous amount of important work to be done, even though half-way, and had no one but those half-competents to do it. As incompetence in a man would be tolerated where it would not be in a woman, obviously a woman, to get on, must have the real temperament of success.

She now knew enough about Mildred to be able to "place" her in the "lady" class—those brought up not only knowing how to do nothing with a money value (except lawful or unlawful man-trapping), but also trained to a sensitiveness and refinement and false shame about work that made it exceedingly difficult if not impossible for them to learn usefulness. She knew all Mildred's handicaps, both those the girl was conscious of and those far heavier ones which she fatuously regarded as advantages. How was Mildred ever to learn to dismiss and disregard herself as the pretty woman of good social position, an object of admiration and consideration? Mildred, in the bottom of her heart, was regarding herself as already successful—successful at the highest a woman can achieve or ought to aspire to achieve—was regarding her career, however she might talk or might fancy she believed, as a mere livelihood, a side issue. She would be perhaps more than a little ashamed of her stage connections, should she make any, until she should be at the very top—and how get to the top when one is working under the handicap of shame? Above all, how was this indulgently and shelteredly reared lady to become a working woman, living a routine life, toiling away day in and day out, with no let up, permitting no one and nothing to break her routine? "Really," thought Agnes Belloc, "she ought to have married that Baird man—or stayed on with the nasty general. I wonder why she didn't! That's the only thing that gives me hope. There must be something in her—something that don't appear—something she doesn't know about, herself. What is it? Maybe it was only vanity and vacillation. Again, I don't know."