The Price She Paid Part 19

Mildred gazed at her vaguely and said, "Tell me--a rich man, a very rich man--if he hates anyone, can he make trouble?"

"Money can do anything in this town," replied Mrs. Belloc. "But usually rich men are timid and stingy. If they weren't, they'd make us all cringe. As it is, I've heard some awful stories of how men and women who've got some powerful person down on them have been hounded."

Mildred turned deathly sick. "I think I'll go to my room," she said, rising uncertainly and forcing herself toward the door.

Mrs. Belloc's curiosity could not restrain itself. "You're leaving?"

she asked. "You're going back to your husband?"

She was startled when the girl abruptly turned on her and cried with flas.h.i.+ng eyes and voice strong and vibrant with pa.s.sion: "Never!

Never! No matter what comes--NEVER!"

The rest of the day and that night she hid in her room and made no effort to resist the terror that preyed upon her. Just as our strength is often the source of weakness, so our weaknesses often give birth to strength. Her terror of the little general, given full swing, shrieked and grimaced itself into absurdity. She was ashamed of her orgy, was laughing at it as the sun and intoxicating air of a typical New York morning poured in upon her. She accepted Mrs. Belloc's invitation to take a turn through the park and up Riverside Drive in a taxicab, came back restored to her normal state of blind confidence in the future.

About noon Stanley Baird telephoned.

"We must not see each other again for some time," said he. "I rather suspect that you--know--who may be having you watched."

"I'm sure of it," said she. "He warned me."

"Don't let that disturb you," pursued Stanley. "A man--a singing teacher--his name's Eugene Jennings--will call on you this afternoon at three. Do exactly as he suggests. Let him do all the talking."

She had intended to tell Baird frankly that she thought, indeed knew, that it was highly dangerous for him to enter into her affairs in any way, and to urge him to draw off. She felt that it was only fair to act so toward one who had been unselfishly generous to her. But now that the time for speaking had come, she found herself unable to speak.

Only by flatly refusing to have anything to do with his project could she prevail upon him. To say less than that she had completely and finally changed her mind would sound, and would be, insincere. And that she could not say. She felt how n.o.ble it would be to say this, how selfish, and weak, too, it was to cling to him, possibly to involve him in disagreeable and even dangerous complications, but she had no strength to do what she would have denounced another as base for not doing. Instead of the lofty words that flow so freely from the lips of stage and fiction heroines, instead of the words that any and every reader of this history would doubtless have p.r.o.nounced in the same circ.u.mstances, she said:

"You're quite sure you want to go on?"

"Why not?" came instantly back over the wire.

"He is a very, very relentless man," replied she.

"Did he try to frighten you?"

"I'm afraid he succeeded."

"You're not going back on the career!" exclaimed he excitedly. "I'll come down there and--"

"No, no," cried she. "I was simply giving you a chance to free yourself." She felt sure of him now. She scrambled toward the heights of moral grandeur. "I want you to stop. I've no right to ask you to involve yourself in my misfortunes. Stanley, you mustn't. I can't allow it."

"Oh, fudge!" laughed he. "Don't give me these scares. Don't forget--Jennings at three. Good-by and good luck."

And he rang off that she might have no chance on impulse to do herself mischief with her generous thoughtfulness for him. She felt rather mean, but not nearly so mean as she would have felt had she let the opportunity go by with no generous word said. "And no doubt my aversion for that little wretch," thought she, "makes me think him more terrible than he is. After all, what can he do? Watch me--and discover nothing, because there'll be nothing to discover."

Jennings came exactly at three--came with the air of a man who wastes no one's time and lets no one waste his time. He was a youngish man of forty or thereabouts, with a long sharp nose, a large tight mouth, and eyes that seemed to be looking restlessly about for money. That they had not looked in vain seemed to be indicated by such facts as that he came in a private brougham and that he was most carefully dressed, apparently with the aid of a valet.

"Miss Stevens," he said with an abrupt bow, before Mildred had a chance to speak, "you have come to New York to take singing lessons--to prepare yourself for the stage. And you wish a comfortable place to live and to work." He extended his gloved hand, shook hers frigidly, dropped it. "We shall get on--IF you work, but only if you work. I do not waste myself upon triflers." He drew a card from his pocket. "If you will go to see the lady whose name and address are written on this card, I think you will find the quarters you are looking for."

"Thank you," said Mildred.

"Come to me--my address is on the card, also--at half-past ten on Sat.u.r.day. We will then lay out your work."

"If you find I have a voice worth while," Mildred ventured.

"That, of course," said Mr. Jennings curtly. "Until half-past ten on Sat.u.r.day, good day."

Again he gave the abrupt foreign bow and, while Mildred was still struggling with her surprise and confusion, she saw him, through the window, driving rapidly away. Mrs. Belloc came drifting through the room; she had the habit of looking about whenever there were new visitors, and in her it was not irritating because her interest was innocent and sympathetic. Said Mildred:

"Did you see that man, Mrs. Belloc?"

"What an extraordinary nose he had," replied she.

"Yes, I noticed that," said Mildred. "But it was the only thing I did notice. He is a singing teacher--Mr. Jennings."

"Eugene Jennings?"

"Yes, Eugene."

"He's the best known singing teacher in New York. He gets fifteen dollars a half-hour."

"Then I simply can't take from him!" exclaimed Mildred, before she thought. "That's frightful!"

"Isn't it, though?" echoed Mrs. Belloc. "I've heard his income is fifty thousand a year, what with lessons and coaching and odds and ends. There's a lot of them that do well, because so many fool women with nothing to do cultivate their voices--when they can't sing a little bit. But he tops them all. I don't see how ANY teacher can put fifteen dollars of value into half an hour. But I suppose he does, or he wouldn't get it. Still, his may be just another case of New York nerve. This is the biggest bluff town in the world, I do believe.

Here, you can get away with anything, I don't care what it is, if only you bluff hard enough."

As there was no reason for delay and many reasons against it, Mildred went at once to the address on the card Jennings had left. She found Mrs. Howell Brindley installed in a plain comfortable apartment in Fifty-ninth Street, overlooking the park and high enough to make the noise of the traffic endurable. A Swedish maid, prepossessingly white and clean, ushered her into the little drawing-room, which was furnished with more simplicity and individual taste than is usual anywhere in New York, cursed of the mania for useless and tasteless showiness. There were no messy draperies, no fussy statuettes, vases, gilt boxes, and the like. Mildred awaited the entrance of Mrs. Brindley hopefully.

She was not disappointed. Presently in came a quietly-dressed, frank-looking woman of a young forty--a woman who had by no means lost her physical freshness, but had gained charm of another and more enduring kind. As she came forward with extended but not overeager hand, she said:

"I was expecting you, Mrs. Siddall--that is, Miss Stevens."

"Mr. Jennings did not say when I was to come. If I am disturbing you--"

Mrs. Brindley hastened to a.s.sure her that her visit was quite convenient. "I must have someone to share the expense of this apartment with me, and I want the matter settled. Mr. Jennings has explained about you to me, and now that I've seen you--" here she smiled charmingly--"I am ready to say that it is for you to say."

Mildred did not know how to begin. She looked at Mrs. Brindley with appeal in her troubled young eyes.

"You no doubt wish to know something about me," said Mrs. Brindley. "My husband was a composer--a friend of Mr. Jennings. He died two years ago. I am here in New York to teach the piano. What the lessons will bring, with my small income, will enable me to live--if I can find someone to help out at the expenses here. As I understand it, you are willing to pay forty dollars a week, I to run the house, pay all the bills, and so on--all, of course, if you wish to come here."

Mildred made a not very successful attempt to conceal her embarra.s.sment.

"Perhaps you would like to look at the apartment?" suggested Mrs.

Brindley.

"Thank you, yes," said Mildred.

The tour of the apartment--two bedrooms, dining-room, kitchen, sitting-room, large bath-room, drawing-room--took only a few minutes, but Mildred and Mrs. Brindley contrived to become much better acquainted. Said Mildred, when they were in the drawing-room again:

"It's most attractive--just what I should like. What--how much did Mr.

Jennings say?"