"Audition?"
"One of the big opera directors to hear you. It's not easy to arrange at the Metropolitan. Ballman has no pull. It takes a man like Auchinloss or Trieste or one of the big guns."
"If only I could get started, Miss Neugass, on the right track!"
"I'll tell you what I'll do. When Auchinloss comes this winter I'll have him hear you. That may pave the way to something. He's the prince of them all. His judgment never fails. He's only stamped his approval on five or six, but he's never missed. They say he heard Paula Anchutz singing her baby to sleep one night as he happened to pass her cottage, and he rang her door bell."
"Auchinloss discovered Paula Anchutz!"
"He decided her greatness after a few bars. Some day I'll read you Millie's letter home about her audition in Vienna. After about six bars of the 'Jewel Song' he leaped up over the footlights, screamed at her, kissed her, drew up a chair, and began to plan out the entire campaign of her future, so rapidly that the poor child said everything was swinging in circles before her."
Her eyes two flaming orbits, Lilly sat staring, her lips slightly open.
"And that was the beginning."
"Yes, that was the beginning of—everything," said Miss Neugass, with a twist on her lips.
"Oh, I—Even to hear it thrills me so that I—Thrills me so! But what,
Miss Neugass—what if he hadn't—"