"I know you have not been on the stage."
"Except as an amateur—and not even that for several years. But I've been working at my voice."
Crossley was studying her, as she stood talking—she had refused the chair. He was more than favorably impressed. But the deciding element was not Mildred's excellent figure or her charm of manner or her sweet and lovely face. It was superstition. Just at that time Crossley had been abruptly deserted by Estelle Howard; instead of going on with the rehearsals of "The Full Moon," in which she was to be starred, she had rushed away to Europe with a violinist with whom she had fallen in love at the first rehearsal. Crossley was looking about for someone to take her place. He had been entrenched in those offices for nearly five years; in all that time not a single soul of the desperate crowds that dogged him had broken through his guard. Crossley was as superstitious as was everyone else who has to do with the stage.
"What kind of a voice?" asked he.
"Lyric soprano."
"You have music there. What?"
"'Batti Batti' and a little song in English—'The Rose and the Bee.'"
Crossley forgot his manners, turned his back squarely upon her, thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and stared out through the window. He presently wheeled round. She would not have thought his eyes could be so keen. Said he: "You were studying for grand opera?"
"Yes."
"Why do you drop it and take up this?"