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.
Mrs. Belloc had not gone out, had been waiting in a
fever of anxiety. When Mildred came into her sitting-
room with a gloomy face and dropped to a chair as if
her last hope had abandoned her, it was all Agnes Belloc
could do to restrain her tears.
Pages:
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469