The Price She Paid [96]
``Certainly.''
``If I did not catch colds--if I kept perfectly well --could I rely on my voice?''
``But that's impossible,'' said he.
``Why?''
``You're not strong enough.''
``Then I haven't the physical strength for a career?''
``That--and also you are lacking in muscular development. But after several years of lessons--''
``If I developed my muscles--if I became strong--''
``Most of the great singers come from the lower classes--from people who do manual labor. They did manual labor in their youth. You girls of the better class have to overcome that handicap.''
``But so many of the great singers are fat.''
``Yes, and under that fat you'll find great ropes of muscle--like a blacksmith.''
``What Keith meant,'' she said. ``I wonder-- Why do I catch cold so easily? Why do I almost always have a slight catch in the throat? Have you noticed that I nearly always have to clear my throat just a little?''
Her expression held him. He hesitated, tried to evade, gave it up. ``Until that passes, you can never hope to be a thoroughly reliable singer,'' said he.
``That is, I can't hope to make a career?''
His silence was assent.
``But I have the voice?''
``You have the voice.''
``An unusual voice?''
``Yes, but not so unusual as might be thought. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of fine voices. The trouble is in reliability. Only a few are reliable.''
She nodded slowly and thoughtfully. ``I begin to understand what Mr. Keith meant,'' she said. ``I begin to see what I have to do, and how--how impossible it is.''
``By no means,'' declared Jennings. ``If I did not think otherwise, I'd not be giving my time to you.''
She looked at him gravely. His eyes shifted, then returned defiantly, aggressively. She said:
``You can't help me to what I want. So this is my last lesson--for the present. I may come back some day--when I am ready for what you have to give.''
``You are going to give up?''
``Oh, no--oh, dear me, no,'' replied she. ``I realize that you're laughing in your sleeve as I say so, because you think I'll never get anywhere. But you--and Mr. Keith--may be mistaken.'' She drew from her muff a piece of music--the ``Batti Batti,'' from ``Don Giovanni.'' ``If you please,'' said she, ``we'll spend the rest of my time in going over this. I want to be able to sing it as well as possible.''
He looked searchingly at her. ``If you wish,'' said he. ``But I doubt if you'll be able to sing at all.''
``On the contrary, my cold's entirely gone,'' replied she. ``I had an exciting evening, I doctored myself before I went to bed, and three or four times in the night. I found, this morning, that I could sing.''
And it was so. Never had she sung better. ``Like a true artist!'' he declared with an enthusiasm that had a foundation of sincerity. ``You know, Miss Stevens, you came very near to having that rarest of all gifts-- a naturally placed voice. If you hadn't had singing teachers as a girl to make you self-conscious and to teach you wrong, you'd have been a wonder.''
``I may get it back,'' said Mildred.
``That never happens,'' replied he. ``But I can almost do it.''
He coached her for half an hour straight ahead, sending the next pupil into the adjoining room--an unprecedented transgression of routine. He showed her for the first time what a teacher he could be, when he wished. There was an astonishing difference between her first singing of the song and her sixth and last--for they went through it carefully five times. She thanked him and then put out her hand, saying:
``This is a long good-by.''
``To-morrow,'' replied he, ignoring her hand.
``No. My money is all gone. Besides, I have no time for amateur trifling.''
``Your lessons are paid for until the end of the month. This is only the nineteenth.''
``Then you are so much in.'' Again she put out her hand.
He took it. ``You owe me an explanation.''
She smiled mockingly. ``As a friend of mine says, don't ask questions to which you already know