"What do you think, Mollie?" he said to Moldini.
"We might test her at a few rehearsals."
Crossley meekly accepted the salutary check on his enthusiasm. "Do you wish to try, Miss Gower?"
Mildred was silent. She knew now the sort of piece in which she was to appear. She had seen a few of them, those cheap and vulgar farces with their thin music, their more than dubious-looking people. What a come-down! What a degradation! It was as bad in its way as being the wife of General Siddall. And she was to do this, in preference to marrying Stanley Baird.
"You will be paid, of course, during rehearsal; that is, as long as we are taking your time. Fifty dollars a week is about as much as we can afford." Crossley was watching her shrewdly, was advancing these remarks in response to the hesitation he saw so plainly. "Of course it isn't grand opera," he went on. "In fact, it's pretty low—almost as low as the public taste. You see, we aren't subsidized by millionaires who want people to think they're artistic, so we have to hustle to separate the public from its money. But if you make a hit, you can earn enough to put you into grand opera in fine style."
"I never heard of anyone's graduating from here into grand opera," said Mildred.
"Because our stars make so much money and make it so easily. It'll be your own fault if you don't."
"Can't I come to just one rehearsal—to see whether I can—can do it?" pleaded Mildred.
Crossley, made the more eager and the more superstitious by this unprecedented reluctance, shook his head.
"No. You must agree to stay as long as we want you," said he. "We can't allow ourselves to be trifled with."