"No, no; but on your first night you must have two strings to your bow."

"But I have only one. These cajoling speeches are a waste of breath. A
singer can sing, or she can _not_ sing, and they find out which it is as
soon as she opens her mouth."

"Well, then, you open your mouth--that is just what half the singers
can't do--and they will soon find out you can sing."

"I hope they may. I do not know. I am discouraged. I'm terrified. I think
it is stage-fright," and she began to tremble visibly, for the time drew
near.

Ashmead ran off and brought her some brandy-and-water. She put up her
hand against it with royal scorn. "No, sir! If the theater, and the
lights, and the people, the mind of Goethe, and the music of Gounod,
can't excite me without _that,_ put me at the counter of a cafe', for I
have no business here."

The power, without violence, and the grandeur with which she said this
would have brought down the house had she spoken it in a play without a
note of music; and Ashmead drew back respectfully, but chuckled
internally at the idea of this Minerva giving change in a cafe'.

And now her cue was coming. She ordered everybody out of the entrance not
very ceremoniously, and drew well back. Then, at her cue, she made a
stately rush, and so, being in full swing before she cleared the wing,
she swept into the center of the stage with great rapidity and
resolution; no trace either of her sorrowful heart or her quaking limbs
was visible from the front.