"They pay to be allowed to sing?" said Mrs. Tremlett. "But why should they do that?"
"Because they can't get into a fashionable programme without; and it's worth paying for. Singers who have been at the game half their lives do it, I tell you. I'm not supposed to know. I don't get their money; I leave the agent to engage the people to support me, and if he makes a bit extra over the affair—well, he forgets to talk to me about it! But it's a usual thing. 'Easy for a woman'?" He turned to Mrs. Harris again, and rolled his black head. "Easy? Poor soul! She looks so fine, doesn't she, when she sweeps down the platform in her satin dress and lays her bouquet on the piano? Oh, dear Lord! if you knew what she has gone through to get there. And what it has cost her to get there. And how she has pigged to buy the bouquet and the satin dress. You think if you can sing, that's all that's wanted, do you? You can wait and beg for years before an agent will hear your singing. And when you are heard at last—if your production is first-rate, and the quality pleases him, and you are a smart and agreeable woman, and you have found him at the right moment—he will ask: 'How many pounds' worth of tickets will you guarantee?'"
"And in spite of everything, some women get on!" she said. "One would think nobody had ever had an immense success, to hear you talk. One would think there had never been a Patti, or——"
"Ah, Jehoshaphat! An immense success? With an immense success—when it comes—you're the cock of the walk. When a woman has made an 'mmense success' she can fill the Albert Hall, and move the world. She can move even the English, and hold them breathless in the gallery, though they have got no chairs and the notices forbid them to sit on the floor. The singers who make 'immense successes' are the kings and queens. They mayn't be able to act, or to talk—they may be as stupid as geese; but God has given them this wonderful power; nobody knows why.... And sometimes with His other hand He gives them a black skin; nobody knows why!"
At the unexpected reference to his colour, Mrs. Tremlett started as if she had been pinched; and her daughter murmured:
"Well, I thought you might be able to do something for me. I see you only think that I'm very foolish."
"I haven't heard you yet. I just warn you what sort of a life it is at the beginning. I'd do any blessed thing I could for you. What is your voice? Come, sing to me now!"
"Oh! not now, Ownie," exclaimed the landlady; "the drawing-room people are in, dear, and you know they complain so of every sound."
"You are still called 'Ownie,' I see," he said.
"Mother used to call me her 'little own, her little ownie,' when I was no higher than that, I believe "—she raised her hand about a foot from the table—"and I have been 'Ownie' ever since; I suppose I shall never be anything else now, though I was christened 'Lilian Augusta.' My voice is contralto. I'll sing to you the next time you are here—if the lodgers are out," she added with a harsh laugh. "One must consider the lodgers. The lodgers heard Baby crying in the night and were surprised we didn't keep it in the coal-cellar. At least that's what they seemed to mean."