Mildred was silent. She knew now the sort of piece in which she was to appear. She had seen a few of them, those cheap and vulgar farces with their thin music, their more than dubious-looking people. What a come-down! What a degradation! It was as bad in its way as being the wife of General Siddall. And she was to do this, in preference to marrying Stanley Baird. "You will be paid, of course, during rehearsal; that is, as long as we are taking your time. Fifty dollars a week is about as much as we can afford." Crossley was watching her shrewdly, was advancing these remarks in response to the hesitation he saw so plainly. "Of course it isn't grand opera," he went on. "In fact, it's pretty low--almost as low as the public taste. You see, we aren't subsidized by millionaires who want people to think they're artistic, so we have to hustle to separate the public from its money. But if you make a hit, you can earn enough to put you into grand opera in fine style." "I never heard of anyone's graduating from here into grand opera," said Mildred. "Because our stars make so much money and make it so easily. It'll be your own fault if you don't." "Can't I come to just one rehearsal--to see whether I can--can do it?" pleaded Mildred. Crossley, made the more eager and the more superstitious by this unprecedented reluctance, shook his head. "No. You must agree to stay as long as we want you," said he. "We can't allow ourselves to be trifled with." "Very well," said Mildred resignedly. "I will rehearse as long as you want me." "And will stay for the run of the piece, if we want that?" said Crossley. "You to get a hundred a week if you are put in the cast. More, of course, if you make a hit." "You mean I'm to sign a contract?" cried Mildred in dismay. "Exactly," said Crossley. A truly amazing performance. Moldini was not astonished, however, for he had heard the songs, and he knew Crossley's difficulties through Estelle Howard's flight. Also, he knew Crossley--never so "weak and soft" that he trifled with unlikely candidates for his productions. Crossley had got up because he knew what to do and when to do it. Mildred acquiesced. Before she was free to go into the street again, she had signed a paper that bound her to rehearse for three weeks at fifty dollars a week and to stay on at a hundred dollars a week for forty weeks or the run of "The Full Moon," if Crossley so desired; if he did not, she was free at the end of the rehearsals. A shrewdly one-sided contract. But Crossley told himself he would correct it, if she should by some remote chance be good enough for the part and should make a hit in it. This was no mere salve to conscience, by the way. Crossley would not be foolish enough to give a successful star just cause for disliking and distrusting him and at the earliest opportunity leaving him to make money for some rival manager.