Cyrilla came and sat beside her and put an arm around her. "Mildred," she said, "I've never thrust advice on you. I only dare do it now because you ask me, and because I love you. You must try it. It's your one chance. If you do not, you will fail. You don't believe me?" In a tone that was admission, Mildred said: "I don't know." "Keith has given you there the secret of a successful career. You'll never read it in any book, or get it from any teacher, or from any singer or manager or doctor. You must live like that, you must do those things or you will fail even in musical comedy. You would fail even as an actress, if you tried that, when you found out that the singing was out of the question." Mildred was impressed. Perhaps she would have been more impressed had she not seen Keith and Mrs. Brindley in the taxi, Keith talking earnestly and Mrs. Brindley listening as if to an oracle. Said she: "Perhaps I'll adopt some of the suggestions." Cyrilla shook her head. "It's a route to success. You must go the whole route or not at all." "Don't forget that there have been other singers besides Rivi." "Not any that I recall who weren't naturally powerful in every way. And how many of them break down? Mildred, please do put the silly nonsense about nerves and temperament and inspiration and overwork and weather and climate--put all that out of your head. Build your temple of a career as high and graceful and delicate as you like, but build it on the coarse, hard, solid rock, dear!" Mildred tried to laugh lightly. "How Mr. Keith does hypnotize people!" cried she. Mrs. Brindley's cheeks burned, and her eyes lowered in acute embarrassment. "He has a way of being splendidly and sensibly right," said she. "And the truth is wonderfully convincing--once one sees it." She changed the subject, and it did not come up--or, perhaps, come OUT again--before they went to bed. The next day Mildred began the depressing, hopeless search for a place to live that would be clean, comfortable, and cheap. Those three adjectives describe the ideal lodging; but it will be noted that all these are relative. In fact, none of the three means exactly the same thing to any two members of the human family. Mildred's notion of clean--like her notion of comfortable--on account of her bringing up implied a large element of luxury. As for the word "cheap," it really meant nothing at all to her. From one standpoint everything seemed cheap; from another, everything seemed dear; that is, too dear for a young woman with less than five hundred dollars in the world and no substantial prospect of getting a single dollar more--unless by hook and crook, both of which means she was resolved not to employ.