“Four,” Anna decided firmly. “I shall not agree to six.”
“It scarcely gives me a chance,” Mr. Earles said, with a resigned sigh, “but I shall rely upon you to stick to me so long as I do the right thing by you. You can’t do without an agent, and there’s no one can run you better than I can.”
“You must also put in the agreement,” Anna said, “that I do not represent myself to be ‘Alcide,’ and that I am not advertised to the public by that name.”
Mr. Earles threw down his pen with a little exclamation.
“Come this way,” he said.
He opened the door of still another room, in one corner of which was a grand piano. He seated himself before it.
“Go to the far corner,” he said, “and sing the last verse of Les Petites.”
He struck a note, and Anna responded. Playing with one hand he turned on his stool to glance at her. Instinctively she had fallen into the posture of the poster, her hands behind her, her head bent slightly forward, her chin uplifted, her eyes bright with the drollery of the song. Mr. Earles closed the piano with a little bang.
“You are a funny, a very funny young lady,” he said, “but we waste time here. You do not need my compliments. We will get on with the agreement and you shall have in it whatever rubbish you like.”