Toward the middle of the second week, when they were alone in her dressing-room, he--with the ingenious lack of abruptness of the experienced man at the game--took her hand, and before she was ready, kissed her. He did not accompany these advances with an outburst of passionate words or with any fiery lighting up of the eyes, but calmly, smilingly, as if it were what she was expecting him to do, what he had a right to do. She did not know quite how to meet this novel attack. She drew her hand away, went on talking about the part--the changes he had suggested in her entrance, as she sang her best solo. He discussed this with her until they rose to leave the theater. He looked smilingly down on her, and said with the flattering air of the satisfied connoisseur: "Yes, you are charming, Mildred. I can make a great artist and a great success out of you. We need each other." "I certainly need you," said she gratefully. "How much you've done for me." "Only the beginning," replied he. "Ah, I have such plans for you--such plans. Crossley doesn't realize how far you can be made to go--with the right training. Without it--" He shook his head laughingly. "But you shall have it, my dear." And he laid his hands lightly and caressingly upon her shoulders. The gesture was apparently a friendly familiarity. To resent it, even to draw away, would put her in the attitude of the woman absurdly exercised about the desirability and sacredness of her own charms. Still smiling, in that friendly, assured way, he went on: "You've been very cold and reserved with me, my dear. Very unappreciative." Mildred, red and trembling, hung her head in confusion. "I've been at the business ten years," he went on, "and you're the first woman I've been more than casually interested in. The pretty ones were bores. The homely ones--I can't interest myself in a homely woman, no matter how much talent she has. A woman must first of all satisfy the eye. And you--" He seated himself and drew her toward him. She, cold all over and confused in mind and almost stupefied, resisted with all her strength; but her strength seemed to be oozing away. She said: "You must not do this. You must not do this. I'm horribly disappointed in you." He drew her to his lap and held her there without any apparent tax upon his strength. He kissed her, laughingly pushing away the arms with which she tried to shield her face. Suddenly she found strength to wrench herself free and stood at a distance from him. She was panting a little, was pale, was looking at him with cold anger. "You will please leave this room," said she. He lit a cigarette, crossed his legs comfortably, and looked at her with laughing eyes. "Don't do that," he said genially. "Surely my lessons in acting haven't been in vain. That's too obviously a pose." She went to the mirror, arranged her hat, and moved toward the door. He rose and barred the way.