————◆————
MR. CAMPBELL did not live through the winter.
Esther was left to the care of his nephew, living in a remote part of the valley.
One morning, when she had rocked one of the children to sleep, she sat with it in her arms, gazing out on the gloomy day with sad, set eyes. For the time being she lost all memory of the scene about her. The laughter of the children, the woman leaning over the bed, cutting small garments out of coarse cloth. She began to remember all that her grandfather had meant to her. She recalled his tenderness, the strong fortress of his great love built between the world and her. It had crumbled so slowly that she didn’t comprehend that it could ever wear quite away, until it had crumbled to the ground. True he was dead, but he had made a defense for her even beyond the gulf. Though stinted in many things, he had always held to his life insurance. The farm was worn out—the house old—it would bring little, but the two together would help her to maintain her independence until she could master her art. He did not know the years or the money that it required—he only felt that through the medium of her art she might hold some of the dignity of position to which she was entitled by right of birth. Knowing this, Esther yearned with her heart and soul to go forward. His lofty, beautiful character shone out before her mind without a flaw. The thought of again taking up the task alone was sweetened and ennobled by that memory.
The woman glanced at Esther as she laid aside one pattern, put the pins in her mouth until she could place another. She was a saffron-faced, stoop-shouldered woman—one who prided herself on the drudgery she could do, who welcomed, rather than flinched from hardships.
“What are you studyin’ about now?”
Esther shuddered as she recalled the present.
“You ain’t thinking about startin’ up that fiddlin’ again, are you?” the other stopped short to ask. A shadow crossed the girl’s face.
“Jenny told me you had got it into your head to take lessons again from that old Dutchman at the college.”
“I have been thinking about it,” Esther answered calmly.
“Goodness knows I wouldn’t! I always thought the fiddle warn’t for anybody but men and niggers.” Her high-pitched voice was piercing. “Georgy got a juice harp somewhere, and I took it away from him and burnt the fetched thing up. I have always heard: ‘Let your children learn music if you want ’em to be no ’count.’” She stopped to get her breath. “Your cousin John thinks it’s an outrage—the idea of your taking lessons again. He knows nothing t’all about the man—but foreigners are a bad lot.”
“Did cousin John tell you that he opposed the idea?” Esther interrupted her to ask.
“He didn’t seem to take to it, any more than your trapsin’ over the woods by your lone self.”
“Did he tell you he thought that was wrong?”
“Well, not in so many words, but I can tell when a thing goes against the grain with him. He don’t like to hurt you. I tell him he thinks more of your feelings than your character. I just took it upon myself to tell you for your own good.”
The woman’s speech was harsh and to the point. She continued abruptly:
“You might do your own washin’ and ironin’ too, instead of hirin’ it all the time. You couldn’t do up a pocket-handkerchief.”
Esther got up, and laid the baby in the crib; her arms ached so.
“If you knew how to do anything you might help me with all this sewin’.” She laid one knotty hand on a heap of it piled beside her.
“I don’t know how, but I will hire that part of it done, which you think I should do,” she said gently, looking straight at the woman.
“When cousin John wouldn’t take any money for my board, I asked him to let me work for the worth of it. I didn’t ask him to make it easy for me. He has a big family. I wanted to earn my way.”
“He does think you try to earn it,” she admitted generously, “but I think it’s mighty easy for you myself. You ought to be very thankful. Look at the time you have—the whole blessed evenin’. You have nothin’ but to help Jenny with the children, and the cookin’ and the milkin’—what’s three cows to milk? I have seen the day, before the family was so big, when I could do all the work on the place and not half try.”
Esther made a brave effort to control the strong spirit within her. From the start the other had persisted in misinterpreting her emotions, misunderstanding her ambitions. She kept guard of herself, for this was her cousin’s wife.
“When do you get the mail out here?” Esther tried to change the subject.
“When do we get the mail?” she repeated with intense disgust.
“Every time we send to mill, that’s four or five times a year too often, to get those papers that John will take; readin’ those vile things is the ruination of the country. I keep ’em from the children the same as if they were scorpions. As for letters, we don’t get many. Most people we care about live closer to us than the post office. You lookin’ for any?”
“I’d like to get one.”
“From that college man? I reckon he’s forgot you are in existence.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Esther said, with an indifferent show of pride.
“He was curious looking to me; the way he wore his hair was abominable.”
“He’s my friend. I’d rather not talk of him.”
“That’s no reason he’s too good to be talked about.”
“As you please.” Reaching for her hat Esther started toward the door.
“You’d better let ’lone fightin’ for him and learn some common sense. You’d never get married if men knew how little account you was. When I was your age I’d been married three years,” she said, proudly. “If you don’t want to be an old maid you’d better settle down and marry.” Esther closed the door as she uttered the last word.
“Marry? What? A plowboy, a pedler, or a washing machine agent?” That would have been her cousin’s wife’s idea.
She wondered as she said this to herself what had become of all those people we hear of who “married and lived happily ever afterward.” A sob caught in her throat, and she almost ran until she was out of sight and sound of the woman’s voice.
Esther Powel at eighteen, and in her young, fresh beauty—this was the offering she would immolate on the altar of her limitations.
INSTEAD of resorting to the woods, her old friend, Esther made her way down to the plum thicket. The honey bees were humming to the heart of the blossoms.
Throwing herself full length upon the ground, she lay in a white drift of them. An hour or more was given to heartrending sobs of utter grief and abandonment of everything in the whole world.
The pathos of her starved, unsympathetic existence, living in isolation among people as heavy as wet clay. All the sentiment, thought, passion, of her being had no outlet—none of the cravings of her youth had been satisfied.
Between her and Glenn Andrews the silence had been unbroken for almost a year.
As she lay there looking up, with her arms folded under her head, her heart almost bursting with a sense of her own helplessness, she pictured herself accepting the knowledge that she would never see him again. All the unhealthy fancies born of loneliness and sorrow possessed her. The day was gray. The steel rim of the sky seemed to fit the woods. She watched it with a stifling sensation. It looked as if it would soon bend the trees double and close in, shutting down upon the narrow space in which she lived.
She remembered to have seen her grandfather turn an old, worn pan of granite down upon his early tomato slips. He did this to keep out the light, until they could get strength enough to stand the hardier growth—he did it to force them. The consistence of nature’s laws she did not understand.
She only knew that to-day for her was very lonely, narrow and dark, and to-morrow would be another to-day when it came.
She went back to the house with a dull expression of hopelessness in her eyes.
SO the days passed—the cold, wretched days. Esther was sewing diligently, making both sleeves for one arm, blundering on everything she undertook, until it exhausted her teacher’s patience. For some time she was less a help than a hindrance—yet she was sewing.
One evening she dropped her work and went out to meet her cousin John. She often met him when he came home. This time she was unusually anxious. He had been to mill.
“Well, you are back; we’ve missed you,” she said.
Mixed with her love for him was a big proportion of pity. He had such a hard, stupid kind of life and had never been appreciated.
“Hello, youngster!” he greeted her, with his stout, strident voice. “What’ll you give me for a letter—a two-pounder?”
“It depends on where it’s from.”
“Paris, France.”
“No? Really?”
Holding a package just above her head, he read: “Mademoiselle Esther Powel, Etats Unis d’Amerique. He’s sending back all your old letters. This looks as if it might hold a dozen or two.”
“They are not mine,” she cried, as, laughing, she leaped and snatched it from his hand.
“Glenn Andrews,” she repeated, breathlessly, holding the writing before her eyes. Without a word she stole away, to read it alone. He loved her, this cousin of hers, this practical, unimaginative man, but he had never understood her. Her ideas were not his ideas, nor her hopes his hopes, but he was proud of her in an uncomprehending manner and he smiled at her aspirations as at his boy baby’s ambition to drive the mules. A thrill crept down to her heart. It was a book exquisitely bound, bearing Glenn Andrew’s name. She fondled its pages, ran her hand lovingly over their smooth surface. The book opened to a folded paper, on which were some notes jotted down for the violin, an accompaniment to a song that he had written.
Turning the leaves, she came to a card; a line on the back of it read: “You can learn this. Let me hear at New York address after April.” It was dropped by a poem, “My Little Love of Long Ago.”
This girl, gifted with all the subtlety of rare natures, understood. Her face quivered with tenderness as she gazed at it. The world was full of light—somebody in it took an interest in her. This had fallen like some faint, soft fragrance in her life. Between laughter and tears she read the poem:
“My little love of long ago,
(How swiftly fly the tired years!)
She told me solemnly and low
Of all her hopes and all her fears.
She feared the dangers of the way,
The striving and the work-a-day
That waited far across the sea—
The loneliness of missing me.
She never doubted me—ah, no!
My little love of long ago.
“For she had faith in everything,
(How swiftly fly the tired hours!)
A heart that could not help but sing,
And blossomed out amid the flowers.
My loving was its best refrain,
My leaving was its saddest rain.
She sobbed it all upon my knee—
The loneliness of missing me.
I kissed and comforted her so—
My little love of long ago.
“My little love of long ago,
(How swiftly fly the tired days!)
Such little feet to stumble slow
Along the darkest of life’s ways,
While time and distance and the sea,
Or my poor, careless heart, maybe,
Could not have told from spring to spring,
Why we so long went wandering!
Saddest of all is not to know!
My little love of long ago.”
Esther was radiant with joy. She sped over the ground like a wild young deer, running to the house for her long-forsaken violin. She carried it to the back of the orchard. She propped the music up in the low fork of an apple tree, and wrestled with the opening bars. It was written in a minor key and was the most difficult accompaniment she had ever seen. Over and over again she tried to bring out the plaintive harmony that was there. She had to give it up at last—it was beyond her reach—it challenged her. This caused her flickering ambition to flash up anew.
A new resolve glowed in her eyes. To be thwarted in a thing was touching upon an acutely sensitive nerve. She would not rest until she had beaten down every obstacle between her and her hope of attainment. She would free herself of these maddeningly narrow surroundings.
Glenn Andrews immediately answered her letter, found upon his arrival in New York. He said:
“You have lived among the flowers, had great grief, and now the flowers do not console you. And yet, if you only knew it, nature is a thousand times better at consolation than human beings. I long ago gave up looking for consolation from people—I can get it from flowers. Maybe it is because I don’t live among them. In lieu of flowers, I take work, and the grind I go through takes the edge off griefs, joys and ambitions. It reduces one to the dead level of passiveness, which is not ecstatic, but which does not hurt. So I might say to you: ‘If the flowers do not console you, try work’—but, doubtless, you have been working. I know that you are capable of it. Perhaps time has worn off the brunt of your sorrow and you are feeling the after pain of loneliness—which is even worse to bear, because less vivid and more constant.
“You ought to do something some day with your art. If you only know it, you are not unfortunately situated as regards your future. Try and look at it that way. Lift up your head and throw your shoulders back. Go and look in the looking-glass and make a face at yourself, and remember you are not an editor, that your nose is not on the grind-stone and that you have, after all, something to thank God for.”
Esther had been faithful to the impulse of that day. She slaved with a resolution painful to see. In that year she had changed, developed greatly. The kindly old professor regarded her with pride as he sat listening to her, after she had conquered the music Glenn Andrews had sent to her. There was a sweep of magnificence in it.
At the last of the year there came a change. The old professor was leaving for a broader field. He encouraged her to make an effort for the highest mark; her next step, in his opinion, should be New York. Of course, it would take self-sacrifice, he told her; “but what is sacrifice when one is at the center of the world?”
New York, which she had feared, and which had always seemed to her so great and so far. New York that now stood for all the hope in her life. After the professor had gone she began turning his advice over in her mind. She could go no further here. She might there. But the struggle to keep up the pace in New York while she was doing it, would probably throttle all the ambition and freshness she had as capital to begin with. She thought of people she loved who had gone. She could not turn out ill after all their care. She might accomplish something in spite of the difficulties. Lots of people had. Her impulse was to dare until, under the heat of its spell, she wrote a line to Glenn Andrews.
“What do you think of New York for me?”
“WHAT do I think of New York for you?” Glenn Andrews replied, “frankly I don’t know. You forget that the one thing necessary to answer your question is the one thing I don’t possess. That is to say, I don’t know you as time has made you. What I would have said years ago to the slip of a girl, I cannot say to the growing woman. You and your art are the deciding quantities. Have you bodily strength, or only nerve fibre? Have you real genius, or only mediocrity? Genius, which lives by self-understanding, can forgive this blunt questioning. New York takes strength. It is a great monster which grips you by the throat and shakes you as a dog does a squirrel. The process shakes the life out of its body and leaves it broken and dead, or else it twists its neck, bites strong and deep, and is allowed to go. You must draw blood to make the monster of city life quit—the rich, warm blood of enthusiasm and applause. And I doubt whether your teeth are strong enough.
“Success means hard work—long, bitter days and nights of it—drab days of monotony, black nights of disappointment. It means toil and tears. This is a maelstrom, and only the biggest branches float on the surface. The little twigs are sucked down. And it is a place of giant timber. The oak from the country hillside is only a scrub here. You must remember this. The bigness of it all makes for heartlessness. When one meets a beggar on every corner, one soon ceases to feel sorry; and where failures are so common, there is seldom a helping hand or even a sigh of sympathy. Only the warmest fire can go on burning brightly with the ice falling so thick around it.
“So much for you yourself, and your own view of yourself. As to your ability, I mean. Your circumstances I do not know. New York takes money. In comparison with your own home, it takes a great deal. To succeed in it requires time—years; and unless you can afford to stay it through, you would better save yourself the discouragement of failure, for there is no bitterer failure than that which we feel to be purely circumstantial.
“I pass over the question of the evil of New York. Evil comes from inside of us—it is not absorbed. If we are pure, it does not touch us; it goes by. I believe it would go by you. There are no temptations in New York any more than there are at home, for those who do not want to be tempted. You are, no doubt, a far better judge of this matter than your minister—I am heterodox enough for that.
“There is another side. No one knows genius so well as itself. If you have it, New York is the place for you. The greater the body, the greater the attraction for the great centre. I would not counsel you to disregard its force, for I believe only true motives move you. And if you know yourself and believe in yourself, you will find a way to beat down other difficulties. There are ways of living in New York cheaply. You might essay the purgatorial round of music lessons; your violin might earn its own halo—who knows?
“I take it you would come alone. There are places where young women, unattended, are made welcome and cared for; and there are places where earnest workers congregate where there are ordinary comforts at low rates—these, if you should decide to try the venture, you must let me tell you of. I should be glad indeed if what knowledge I have of the city might be of some service to you.
“In closing this letter, I feel that, after all, I have told you nothing. You have, no doubt, considered the question in all its bearings. Such a step is a serious one—far too much so for me to intrude upon it. Be true to yourself—to your ideas, your judgment, and your reason. If you do this, you will be true to your art. Do not hesitate to write me if I can help you, but you must not ask me to advise you as to coming. ‘What do I think of New York for you?’ I don’t know!
“Glenn Andrews.”
HERE was a man who had lost the romance of life. Not a shred of sentiment was left.
Richmond Briarley strode about his den, pulling his smoking jacket from a pair of vicious-looking antlers above the door, his slippers from the wings of Cupid poised above the glorious Psyche.
There was a princely abandon in the luxurious den he called “home.” Looking about it, one would conceive him to be a man quite beyond the ordinary—if the trophies, pictures, statuary, bespoke his individuality.
“Don’t wait for me, Andrews, go ahead,” he called out from an alcove.
If his heart was not open to his friends, his finest wines were, and the one is often mistaken for the other.
Richmond Briarley had ample, irregular features, hair and eyes the blackest black, and an olive gray complexion. There was something stoic in the closing of his lips, set around with circular wrinkles, revealing the traits peculiar to his type. He hadn’t the least regard for the past, nor fault to find with the future.
Coming out, he poured a glass of wine and drank with Glenn Andrews.
“Have a smoke,” glancing towards a tabourette, strewn with pipes, some of them disreputable enough to the eye.
“Take any of them, you won’t be smoking any old, dry, dead memories—these are all ‘bought’ ones.”
“I’ll help myself. I was just reading my mail. The boy handed it to me as I was leaving the office.”
Folding a sheet of paper on which was written only a name and address, he took up one of the pipes and began filling it.
So Esther Powel was in town. It was a daring entrance upon life for this little hard-headed, soft-hearted Southerner. He looked thoughtful; the soberness of his youth, rather than the labor of his manhood, had lightly marked his face. A sudden apprehension seized him for the pure, sweet life he knew so well. It was almost as much as her life was worth to come here so pretty and so friendless. She needed protection.
This thought took possession of his mind to the exclusion of all else. In the old days he had been the only one who could bend her wayward will. Her faith in him was the blind unquestioning faith of a child. Her own feeling for him she did not reason with. She accepted it as a fact which was beyond her analysis. Under its spell she had grown and flourished against great odds. Why should she not continue to do so?
“Briarley,” Glenn went on, filling his pipe, and packing it down with his thumb. “Suppose you knew a girl who was coming here alone, to study art, what would you consider the very best way to shield her?”
“By keeping away from her.”
“But, suppose she needed some one to look to—suppose she were young and knew no one. City life is a fiercely hardening process, you know.”
“I’d get some woman friend to show her all there was to see, and that might cure her. So-called sin charms because it’s unknown.”
“Don’t you think a girl’s love, if not unappreciated, is a shield and an inspiration?”
Briarley shook his head.
“Oh! of course, I forgot. You don’t believe in love.”
“I do, as much as I believe in any other hell.”
Andrews was silent.
“Have your fun out, then we’ll be serious.”
Their views were directly opposite, yet the enthusiasm of each made ground for respect, if not agreement.
“While you now admit such a phantasy, Andrews, you get the credit of living by the head. It is generally understood that you never let scruples of the heart stand in the way.”
“I am not a woman; besides, it is a matter of self-denial, and not unbelief. My love is my profession—long ago I made my choice between woman and art—if I had chosen woman that love would have ruled my life. I have given over much for my work; it has demanded sacrifice. I am just now beginning to prove myself equal to its despotic sovereignty. Briarley, unless you have tried for one thing all your life, you can’t conceive how bewildering and sweet a burst of it is for the first time. Under no conditions whatever would I sacrifice my best aims, my highest ambitions. It is better to be than to have. That’s my philosophy.”
“Go on. Every man has the right to work out his own destiny.”
Briarley filled his glass again. “The way he can get the most satisfaction is the way he generally chooses.”
“Satisfaction hurts the soul. There is nothing worse than satiety of the senses. I would never let myself become thoroughly satisfied.”
“You couldn’t ask for more than the success of that last book. The critics rendered you distinguished services,” said Briarley. “I understand the sale was enormous.”
“It has sold very well, but that only forces me to wrestle the harder to keep up the standard of that reputation. If I cared for a woman, my heart and soul could be loyal to her, but my time and vitality belong entirely to my art. ‘Women are born to live and love. They only really live after they love.’”
Andrews went on as though the other had endorsed his doctrine. “Love is an uplifting force to genius. A man would be doing a chivalrous act to win and hold the devotion of a girl in such an instance as I have cited.”
“It would be a risk.”
“Yes, but in my judgment the advantage is much greater than the risk.”
“It would be a responsibility.”
“I like responsibility; it braces a man to bear it.”
“Well, the fellow who carries out your mad project will settle for his folly.”
“If he did, I’d stand by him in it.”
“He couldn’t stand by himself. There’d be the trouble—he’d fall.”
Glenn Andrews knocked the ashes from his pipe and got up, straightening his shoulders and smoothing his hair with his hands. His mind was made up. He did not expect to fall.
Knowing himself to be his own master, he felt that to lend himself to anything that would hurt her ideal of him would be impossible.
“Where now?”
“To find somebody looking for trouble,” Glenn said, with a smile.
“Don’t forget the Sunday night concert, Andrews. I’m counting on you. Here are half the box tickets. Do what you please with them.”
“I shall be there. Thank you.”
GLENN ANDREWS walked down the street, which had been written on the sheet of paper in his pocket.
“No. 23.” He looked up and saw that No. 23 was a hospital. There must be some mistake. No, that was plainly what it said.
He stood looking at the door in an anxious manner.
“Could she be here—ill?”
He had drawn a charming picture of her, a radiant specimen of perfect health. His pulse quickened. The curtains parted and a girl appeared at the window. Her eyes were dim, her face ghastly—the look on it was neither pain nor age—it was a look of hopelessness. The rich, gleaming hair made a glory about her head, as the light caught its golden sheen. That was like her hair. A moment she stood there, looking down the street, then dropped the curtain. He saw her turn and go sorrowfully upstairs.
The light from the hall chandelier was very brilliant—his face cleared. A better look satisfied him it was not Esther Powel.
He pondered a minute, then started down the street again. She had evidently given him the wrong number.
At the corner he stopped a policeman. “I am looking for a boarding house on this street—No. 23, West.”
“Maybe it’s the next street; that same number is a boarding house. All in this block are private houses except the hospital.”
Glenn thanked him and went on quickly. She’d made a mistake in the street maybe. It would soon be too late to call. He did not need to inquire again, for as he turned the corner he could see Esther Powel on the steps, looking out upon the square ablaze with light and confusion.
“It is Mr. Glenn.” With the words she sprang three steps at a time to the pavement. “How glad I am!”
And then she stopped, remembered, and held out her hands.
“How you frightened me. You had me going to the hospital to find you. That’s the same number on the next street.”
“Well, how do you expect me to get things right when I feel like I’m flying every way and can’t get myself together to light?”
Glenn always found her startling figures amusing. “You will feel that for awhile.” He hadn’t taken his eyes away from her as she led the way into the parlor. “You are stunned by the novelties. You will also be quickened by them.”
Esther, full-breasted, slender-limbed, rounded. The joy of life was upon her—the loveliness of full bloom.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said, “but why didn’t you let me help you get settled?”
“It took enough of your time to write that discouraging letter.”
“You know I didn’t mean it for that. I would do most anything to further your art. But it is best to do only that for what we are intended. Nobody could know that as well as yourself. I believed your decision would be right, whatever it was,” he told her. “Are you pleased with your advancement so far?”
“Not pleased—buoyed. I hope to do something some day.” As she raised her eyes to him they expressed something of the wild, delicate, throbbing pride. “I did not come to fail.”
“I believe that, from the good reports I have heard through our old friend, your professor.”
“He was very nice to me; it was through him that I knew about the Frenchman who will instruct me here.”
“So you’ve arranged all that, too.”
“Oh, yes; I begin my lessons next Monday.”
“Smart girl. How are you situated here; are you comfortable?”
“Comfortable!” she laughed. “I have to come downstairs to draw a good breath. They stow me away in a sort of a garret on the fourth floor. As Cousin John would say, there isn’t room to ‘cuss’ a cat without turning sideways.”
“I believe your Southern men are more given to profanity than Northerners,” he said.
“Oh, but his is so whole-souled that it is only ‘profunity.’”
“Oh, dear; don’t think that I’m opposed to it,” Glenn interrupted. “I sometimes find relief in a good, wholesome—”
Esther held up a warning forefinger.
“Then you may do mine for me. I shall need it if I stay here long enough.”
“Boarding house life is a miserable parody on home, I know. But we can stand most anything for a while if the incentive is great enough.”
“All these looking-glasses keep me tangled. I seem to be going towards myself, from myself, beside myself, but I have been fortunate a part of the time. Two young men on the train gave me addresses of nice places to board when they found that I was alone and a stranger to the city.”
Instinctively Glenn frowned. “Have you got them?”
“I saved them to show you.” Taking them from her purse, she handed him the cards.
“You don’t want them,” he said, crushing the cards in his hand.
“Did they ask permission to call?”
“One did. He wanted to come with me from the station. I didn’t care to be bothered when I was thinking of seeing you. My! how I dreaded to see you, though I believe if I hadn’t very soon I’d have started back South,” she said in her effusive way. “I was afraid the change I’d find in you would be disappointing.”
“Was it?” he asked quickly.
“Yes, because it is for the better. I didn’t want to care as I used to in the old days.” She was still childish enough to be honest.
“Why, did you find me unworthy?”
“I suppose you were worthy enough, but I have learned it is not well to let one’s affection wrap their tendrils too close about another; it hurts so when they are snapped.”
“There is no reason for them to be snapped,” he argued. “The joy of clinging should make them strong enough to wrap and unwrap, leaving its sweet effect.” As he was leaving, “Trust men for little and your instinct for a good deal,” he said. His visit had made him all the more determined. A profound passion can be displaced only by one greater. He had had no experience in guiding people, but he had a desperate faith in his own way of reasoning.
GLENN ANDREWS took Esther with him to the concert. It was a great violinist’s last appearance for the season.
She was happily excited, unconsciously holding Glenn by the sleeve. The glitter and glory of this wonderful, new world was dazzling. The violinist, with his long hair and big face of rugged strength, enchained her the moment the music commenced.
With the intensity of her growing enthusiasm, she gripped Glenn’s arm. He was repeatedly recalled.
“I expect one day to see you sway them like that,” he whispered, as the curtain went down for the fourth time.
“Don’t! it is impossible,” she said, sighing. “I am just beginning to feel that my teeth are not strong enough.”
“There was a time when his were not, but he wouldn’t let go,” Glenn said with emphasis.
Tears stood in her eyes. “Don’t do that, I thought it would inspire you to see such result, fulfillment; I believe it’s going to depress you.”
She shook her head.
“I rejoice with him, I’m glad to see him win; but three long years before you are sure of anything—even failure—is hard to look forward to.”
“Did your teacher say it would take you that long?”
“Yes, but I had thought that I would double it; take twice the lessons and practice. After all, I may fail in the end.”
“Hush, you are no weakling. Of course it’s work, it’s drudgery; that’s the bracing part of it. You’ve earned the place when you do get it. An effortless success is only a crueller word for failure; you must not be impatient. I used to have to remind you of that.”
Glenn did not know how she would take this; he had had alluring glimpses of her deeper self, but he must understand her very thoroughly or he could not hold her, charmed.
She did not make any reply.
He was gazing at a box near them and bowed to a majestically handsome woman, splendidly gowned. He touched Richmond Briarley’s arm.
“Mrs. Low and Stephen Kent. Kent is an awfully decent chap. He is lucky to be a protegé of hers. What a lot of good her indorsement has been to him. I knew him on the other side. I am writing the libretto for his new opera. You were at the club Tuesday night when he was my guest. Didn’t you meet him?”
“No, but I heard him play some of his own compositions. Something was said about us both joining the club. It’s too literary for me.”
“I am his voucher. He sails soon and I don’t think he expects to come into the club until he returns in the winter.”
Glenn turned to Esther, who was absorbed in the last number on the programme.
She spoke softly to him. Gathering up her white silk shawl, he folded it about her shoulders.
“We are going in a minute. The lady you see with white hair in this box next to us is a leader in artistic circles. I want her to know you.”
The curtain fell as they arose. Linking his little finger in hers under the fringe, he led her over to the box. There was something in his manner that expressed beyond question his determination that never while he had strength should the world darken this child’s soul.
GLENN ANDREWS was unwearied in his visits, and held to an abiding faith in Esther’s future, and stronger and stronger grew his determination to be steadfastly loyal to her. He seemed to have an exhaustless reserve fund of nerve power. Stinted in sleep, as he was, and overwhelmed by his own work, yet he made time to look after her.
With an infinite patience he was cutting a niche for himself, and above it a name.
His admirable solicitude for Esther was at strange variance with his desire to wound her, bruise her, make her think and feel.
To her he was a mystery unfathomable. The heart within her was so delicate, it easily swayed from harmony to discord. She was so sensitive, she must needs be always responsible to the painful as well as the ecstatic emotions.
In her habit of telling him everything that happened in her life there was one thing that she had kept. The nearer it came, the more vivid grew her prescience of what awaited her. The strain of this fresh anxiety was consuming her. Would she have strength to hold out?
She was whiter, her cheeks had not quite that rose bloom she had brought with her out of the air and sunshine. Under this weight she went steadfastly on, in silence.
Glenn saw this. He had told her she was working too hard. He could see that her health was not up to the mark. When there was a cloud, or the shadow of a cloud upon her face, he saw it. She should see a doctor. He told her that repeatedly. Honest as she was, she could not bring herself to tell him that she was too poor. Already she had battled through the heat of the long summer, in need of medical assistance. She was living up to her income, and found it difficult to furnish the bare necessities and pay for just half the lessons she had counted on. There was no hope of shortening the three years except by increasing her practice. This she determined to do, six hours a day instead of three.
“I believe you would stay up in that room and mold,” Glenn said one day as they walked in the sun by the river. “You surely could find time for an outing once a day for an hour or two.” He was puzzled to know why she had declined to walk with him of late. It did not occur to him that lack of time was her excuse.
“You have your lessons but four days in the week,” he said.
“Only two now,” she corrected him.
“Then you have changed your plans!”
“Yes.”
“And how many hours a day do you devote to your practicing?”
“Oh, several; it depends upon my humor and strength.”
“I don’t think you consider the strength,” he said as he looked at her. “You are tired now, why didn’t you tell me? Sit here and rest a little before going back.”
As they took a seat on the high edge of the river, there was something like a sob of exhaustion in her breath.
“Oh, Esther! How could you?” seeing how faint she was. Her cheek fell in one hand.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were tired?”
“The air was so bracing, I kept thinking I would feel better directly. How stupid of me to give out so quickly.”
His tender little cares for her comfort, in small things, had often made her ashamed and afraid she was a burden to him.
“Did the doctor give you a tonic when you saw him?”
“I haven’t been to him yet.”
Glenn Andrews looked away across the blue water. His heart understood. He knew by her face that the coldest thing on earth was clamping at her heart. Presently he turned back to her.
“How good a friend do you count me?”
“The best I have in the world.”
“Good enough to ask anything of me—everything?”
She sat in silence, taking her hand softly away from the support of her face.
“Will you answer me?”
“There are some things that I would ask of nobody that lives.”
Glenn slightly raised his broad shoulders and lowered them with a sigh.
“I am disappointed in our friendship. It has failed.”
She reflected a moment; “I don’t deserve that from you.”
“Nor do I deserve what you have just put upon me.” It had struck him like a pang. The sweet sense of her faith—her dependence upon him—had been the very dearest emotion of his life. It strengthened him, to feel that she might lean hard upon him. He was not willing that the pressure should be lessened.
“I don’t want to pass for more than I am worth. If I have fallen short of what you expected of me, I don’t blame you for putting me down on the common level with everybody.”
If her sorrow had been his own he could not have felt it more deeply. “Only I am disappointed, that’s all.”
She was distressed to the soul; his sympathy for her had been so courageously beautiful, so exquisitely true, that she could not bear the idea of disappointing him, or allowing him to feel that she underrated his value.
“I don’t know men very well, but I know you are not like the others. Nothing could be very hard to bear, because you are my friend. I welcome the days which bring you to me. You have been my fortification.”
“Then prove it,” the soft answer came back. “I know that something distresses you. Tell me of it, and let me help you.”
“It’s nothing that you could change.”
“How do you know? Let me judge that.”
“No, not now, sometime I will tell you if you can soften things for me.”
Her keen refinement would not let her talk to him of her poverty.
RICHMOND BRIARLEY had never asked any questions about Esther Powel; she was Glenn’s friend, and that was all.
“I saw Miss Powel,” he said, as he and Glenn sat over their lunch. “I nearly got past before I recognized her. She has changed. She has been ill?”
“No, I think not,” Glenn answered. “She’s been working hard, and she hasn’t been used to work. I am going away on my vacation to-morrow. I’ve been wondering if there wasn’t some nice place, just outside of town, where she might go. She needs the rest, the change.” Glenn Andrews made no secret of his kindly interest. He and Richmond Briarley had long been closely intimate.
“What’s the matter with my yacht? The old thing might sink if it knew there was a woman aboard, but let it sink. It would give you a chance to show your heroism.”
“Would you come along?”
“Oh, no; I might not get ashore. Really I have other plans, but it is easy enough to get a crowd. There’s Mrs. Low and Kent.”
“Both on the other side, won’t be back before winter.” Andrews looked worried as he spoke.
“Damn it, I couldn’t do it anyhow; I’ve promised to go to the Adirondacks.”
Briarley glanced at him. “Another woman?”
“Several, Jack and his wife will be along.” Even in the intimacy of their friendship Richmond Briarley had never asked that much before. Glenn Andrews alone knew how hard was the sense of finding himself bound through overwhelming conviction of duty.
“I was out to dinner with Jack last night. You couldn’t look at him and doubt such a thing as love, yet Marie was always a little tyrant. It made me wonder, after all, what kind of a wife made a man happiest.”
“I can tell you, a dead one.”
“Honestly I believe he would have gone stark mad if he hadn’t won her. He worships her.”
“He’d have come out without a scratch. My observation is that a man can get over not getting a girl easier than he can get over getting her.”
“I believe in marriage—it’s the only decent way to live, but I wouldn’t care for my wife the way he does; my regard wouldn’t have that self-sacrifice in it. I’d want a woman to minister to my comfort, put mustard plasters on me when I was sick.”
“But the wife. What would she get in return?”
“My name, for the sake of which I would sacrifice the most precious gift that could come into a man’s life—a woman whom I could have loved and by whom I could have been loved.”
“A pretty theory, but, ye gods! the practice.” Briarley laid down his napkin and leaned back from the table, staring at the other contemplatively.
“Andrews, for a man of your logic, you are confoundedly disappointing. I’d have thought you’d have very fantastic ideals of marriage—of the woman that was to make your home. You claim that your philosophy is in straight lines. There are two ways of making a straight line, horizontal and perpendicular, then they cross. You think it is infamous to marry for money, and you have tabooed your pet hobby,” he said with an ironical curl of the lip. “Five years ago, before you had got your bearings, you might have humored such a whimsical freak of that individuality of yours, but now you would struggle devilishly before you would spoil your life.”
“I have theories, not just to talk about, but to live by. My philosophy is extraordinarily simple. You can’t have the pie and eat it too.”
With a reflective survey of his friend, Briarley commenced with a kind of confidential frankness.
“If you are to make marriage a commodity, why not be brutally practical? You are a very decent sort of a chap, and fame, for you, is on the up grade. You could marry money. A poor married man might as well be a street-car mule and be done with it. Talk about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go to heaven, why it’s easier for a whole drove of them to get through than for man to get anywhere without money.”
“You are very good to care anything about it, but I have quite decided in my mind what I shall do with that problem,” Glenn announced with resolute calmness. The other lit a cigar, and leaned back in comfort.
“I’ll swear you provoke me, and I don’t know why I should give a hang. Self-will sometimes degenerates—then it is stubbornness—but I suppose every fellow has a right to sign his own death warrant if he chooses, and failure is a death warrant.”
“There are some things you know and some that you don’t know.”
“And a devilish lot that nobody will ever know,” said Briarley, as he flicked the ashes from his cigar.
There was a tender spot in his iron heart for Glenn Andrews. He was too noble, too talented, to lose in sacrifice the possibilities of so brilliant a future.
THEY were strolling together in the art gallery. It was the first time that Glenn had seen Esther since returning from his vacation. He stopped to admire a picture, for the second time, pointing out its beauties for her. She appreciated his interpretations, and her acute understanding grew more beautiful to him.
“I never look at such work,” he said, “without wondering what it cost its creator. The gift of art is great, sacred, yet it is one long term of self-denial.”
“I know that,” Esther assented. She was beginning to realize its draining demands. She had brightened a trifle to-day in spite of it. A little of the old impulsive blooming beauty had come back. The brisk walk through the park, in the keen, sweet autumn weather might have heightened that—and Glenn’s return doubtless had something to do with it.
“Mrs. Low has a picture in her gallery by this same artist. She has one of the finest private galleries in the city. You shall see it, I believe, now that she’s back. I promised her I’d bring you to one of her receptions. She’s noted for having people who are amazingly clever, or beautiful or something of the sort. Fortunately I come under the class, ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot?’ But you are to do your turn. She expects it. We will go next Tuesday to her opening night. You will see a live lord. Her daughter, who married one, brought him home with her.”
“Will it make me like you any less?”
“I should hope not. Rather more, for he has brutal manners, and you would never think she held a higher place than his stenographer. But she doesn’t mind that, she has a title. He draws his allowance from her and his inspiration from elsewhere. I fancy they are rather contented.”
“Contented!” Esther lifted a solemn face to him.
“It seems to me that a marriage without love would crush all that was sweetest and finest in a woman’s nature. Marriage for love is the dearest gift to any soul—it is the highest ideal of God’s world.” She was in one of her intense moods.
“But if it be for anything else?” He encouraged her to go on.
“It’s a desecration. Love is not only the holiest thing in the life of a woman, but it’s life itself for the man. It makes him whatever he becomes. The righteous altar-vow is a delight and to obey is the cry of the heart if it speaks the words with the lips.”
“You know we never agreed upon that subject. I consider marriage merely an incident in life.”
“But the one decisive incident of it all,” she returned.
They had left the gallery and were going through the park. His glance wandered often from her face to a glad contemplation of the vivid coloring of the woods.
“Mightn’t a man marry for honor?” finally he asked.
“Give me an example.”
“I am not trying to convert you,” he said, disclaiming all responsibility.
“Tell me of a case?”
His face contracted nervously. “Let’s talk about something else.”
With a little impatient gesture, “Oh, give me an instance, it will keep me from imagining things.” She stopped by a rustic seat with an independent lift of the head and would go no further. She felt that she deserved his confidence and trust. Upon her face were tears of pained emotion. She did not know her real place in his life and whenever she struggled for it her suffering was intense.
There was a pause. Glenn decided to humor her. Taking a seat beside her, he began in his tone of tranquil philosophy:
“Suppose a man—young—under an infatuation, becomes engaged to a girl. When he is older, his ideas change; he gets over it, she doesn’t. Although he has a sincere regard and respect for her, in his heart there is another ideal. He regrets being bound. What should he do?”
“I hate the word ‘bound.’ Marriage is not to bind, but to privilege. Without love it would be nothing more than slavery. Every human soul revolts at that.”
“But an engagement is like a gambling debt; it has no witnesses. It puts a man upon his honor.”
“Might he not have the nobility to assume his vows, without the fortitude to endure them manfully? That would make each think nothing of love and little of life. I believe it is impossible for a man to be true to his wife with another woman’s image in his heart; in spite of outward appearances the emptiness is there—convention cannot crush out nature. If he took a vow like that, he’d be false to it; hypocracy is dishonor.” She suddenly fronted him.
“What would you do if you were the man?”
“Oh, don’t make an example of me,” he said in a hard voice. “You know me well enough to guess what I would do.”
She turned her eyes to his face; her expression changed. “You would be true to what you thought was your honor.”
“I hope I would fulfill any promise I should make.” He had always had himself in command, yet he was sometimes conscious of a fear that Esther might have dreamed some touch of heroism in his nature, which was not there. Her ideal of him had been impressed upon her immaturity.
“I have a story about a man’s honor,” she said after an awkward silence, lifting a small paper volume in her hand. “The young man on my floor asked me to take it and read it. He said it was ‘simply great.’”
“‘Simply great,’ was it?” Glenn said, taking the book. “Certainly he is bold and unconventional enough to presume to offer you a book when you have scarcely a speaking acquaintance with him.”
“He brought it to my door one rainy day; I took it as a kindness.” Reading the French title, Glenn’s eyes took on the glint of steel.
“Have you read it?” he asked.
“No, I thought we might begin it together to-day.”
“Well, we won’t,” he told her, frankly. “It is not the kind for you to read. When the young man inquires for his book you can send him to me.”
Glenn was never more savagely angry as he doubled the book and thrust it into his pocket. He would keep from her that part of the world’s evil at least.
“Have I done anything you don’t like?”
“No, but it maddens me to see anybody try to impose upon you. Don’t accept any more courtesies from that class; I’ll bring you all the books that you want to read.”
“You are very good; I’ll try to remember that,” she promised. He hoped she would. His care of her was like the fond tending of a flower that has been unwittingly left in a fetid atmosphere.
MRS. LOW’S receptions were more cordial and less formal than the usual social affairs. Glenn Andrews and Esther arrived late. The richest Oriental splendor surrounded them. There were a thousand rare souvenirs of foreign lands to please the eye. The colors in the tapestries and rugs were of that exquisitely tender hue that comes only from age. The largest rug, covered with inscriptions from Saadi, the Persian poet, seemed to have caught more of the charm and sentiment of the Orient. Glenn was calling Esther’s attention to it while they waited for a chance to speak to the hostess. Red lights glowed warmly through the iron-fretted lanterns swinging low. A hidden harpist was playing soft, sweeping strains of sound. Mrs. Low caught a glimpse of the late arrivals. She met them with hands outstretched, a radiant smile of welcome upon her face.
“Ah, Glenn, Miss Powel; charmed, I assure you. Mr. Kent has been waiting to have this young lady accompany him,” she said, as that gentleman joined them.
“You came just in time, Miss Powel. Our friend, Mr. Andrews, has told me that you have been good enough to take the trouble to learn the ‘Serenade’ that is to be in our new opera. Mrs. Low has out-talked me and made me feel that my friends should be first to pass judgment before the critics get a chance.”
Esther hesitated a moment, smiling.
“That will be charming,” Glenn whispered to her, inclining his head. He smiled slightly as his eyes met hers.
His approval was what she had waited for—that was plain. The next moment she had graciously indicated her willingness by taking up her violin that Mrs. Low had sent for before she came.
The sight of Stephen Kent at the piano and Esther beside him made the rooms silent in an instant and stilled the unseen harpist. Glenn Andrews kept close watch upon the crowd as it stood in mute attention. It was to note how she was received. He had forgotten his share in the honors. Stephen Kent sang the passionately poetic words; the exquisite commingling of the voice and violin suddenly awoke in the poet the thought of what sincerity of the soul there was in those words.
In the heat of the enthusiasm that followed the encore some one grasped Glenn Andrews’ hands. “And those lines are perfectly exquisite. I am wild to hear all of your libretto.”
“Oh, indeed!” he answered, staring, and that moment it was the effort of his life to know what she meant.
“Libretto?” he said to himself. “Oh, when I heard such playing I forgot I had written anything,” he declared, with a laugh. He was extremely shocked to discover that he had composed the words.
“Aren’t you a little crazy?” the expression on her face asked, as Mrs. Low came up and led him away. She had become devotedly attached to him during their life in Paris.
“If that is a fair sample of your opera, it will be most enchanting.” The hearty words carried with them something of the sincere interest she felt.
“You are very kind, Mrs. Low. Your approval is a great compliment to our poor efforts. You, of course, know its success means a better future to both of us; the financial part of it being of no slight importance.”
“It’s going to succeed; it has the merit and the backing. Give yourself no anxiety. Kent certainly has done his part well. It is his master effort.”
Mrs. Low sank deep in the gorgeous cushions and looked across to where Esther stood besieged. She was so unspoiled and direct of manner. There was something picturesquely Southern in her simple gown.
“Tell me something more about her. Is she in earnest or does she play with her art for the same reason that a kitten plays with her ball?”
“Oh, she is in dead earnest, Mrs. Low. She is overworking in her enthusiasm.”
Glenn caught Esther’s eye as he spoke. There was a touch of pathos in the smile.
“That will never do. You might persuade her to take it more slowly.” She stopped a moment, looking up with guarded eyes. Glenn Andrews was not big print to her. The depths of his nature had to be read between the lines. In her heart she wondered if he would resent the questioning.
He studied her magnificent repose, that matched his.
“She has genius. I have become quite interested in her already,” said Mrs. Low.
A shade of relief passed over Glenn’s features as he heard this.
“I have known her for years. The poor child has neither parents nor friends to restrain or aid her. She has not reached that point in her art where she can earn a dollar. I have been thinking many ways of trying to help her. It must be some way by which she feels that she is earning it. I know her so well.”
“It is not often that I ask such close questions, but this time it is because of my interest. What are you to her?”
Her tone did not imply idle curiosity. He clasped his hands thoughtfully.
“Honestly, I don’t know how to answer you. I am her friend, brother, critic—I suppose. If I had to select one word to express my relation to her, I should say, chaperone.”
“Chaperone,” she repeated, with charming grace. “That is a virgin field for a man’s possibilities, but since I think of it, I had a great deal rather trust some men I know to look after a child of mine than most women.”
“Coming here alone, as Miss Powel did, and with very little capital, it was hard for her to find herself face to face with the world. But she has determination. She actually steals hours from her rest. She must have relief from the strain or it will crush all the life out of her soul.”
“Oh, yes; something must be done,” answering his intensity with a sweet interest. “Couldn’t I help you in some way?”
He reflected seriously a moment.
“I believe you could. Suppose you got her to play here four times during the month and let her believe you had rewarded her by paying her twenty-five dollars each time. I would give you my check for the hundred dollars each month.”
“That will be just the thing. Later she will be able to get some good engagements at drawing room recitals.”
“Would you indeed be willing to let me help her through you, Mrs. Low?” he asked, with some confusion.
“I am only too happy to be able to add that little to so loyal a project.”
“Thank you. Your co-operation means more to me than you can possibly imagine.”
“Your friend has been telling me of your work, and how brave you are,” Mrs. Low said, as she took Esther’s hand at parting. “I shall come soon to see you. I think I can add a little sunshine to your life.”
GLENN saw Esther a few days afterward and found her unusually cheerful. Her face had a new light, and she had good reason for it. She spoke with a buoyancy of expression that Glenn had not lately heard. She told how Mrs. Low had arranged for her to play during the entire winter at her receptions. This simplified the complex future. She reflected a little more calmly on her condition. All these months she had tried to think of some way out of it. She had thought of everything—except giving up.
She made friends. She was interested in everything. In her appreciation and confiding ways Mrs. Low found a degree of satisfaction and intense pleasure in the reflected happiness from Esther’s life. Glenn encouraged the tonic of social life for her as something needful to everybody. Under his own eye, he was willing to let her glimpse at it in all its phases; the soullessness of it, its petty intrigues and foibles. The flawlessness of her own mind would itself be a shield. Her contact with such frivolity would be like that of satin and sandpaper. With intense interest he watched her career during the season. He was her severest and most unsparing critic, although he sometimes believed that it hurt him more than her. Their lives were moving along together with unconscious accord. There was an undercurrent of deeper sympathy lying dormant. He was making her a part of his life. He would have denied it, however, had any man put this truth into words and accused him. A thousand times he had told himself, reassuringly, that he was commander still. He reasoned that her art would soon be sufficiently lofty, sufficiently complete for her to hear any decree that fate might read to her. New friends, fresh scenes, homage to her art—all these would help to fill her life. This was a conviction born of his own philosophy. He fancied he could already perceive a more independent air; a less frequent turning to him for guidance and protection. This elusive, half-mysterious charm she had acquired, he misinterpreted. It was largely due to the different lights that had been thrown upon him.
She had been repeatedly stunned by chance-heard remarks of his betrothal. When Glenn heard that Esther’s name was to figure prominently in the most brilliant recitals of the season, there was a buoyant sweetness in the frank radiance of hope, the eager expectancy and passionate faith in her ability. She had been tasting some of the fruition of her toil. Of this he was proud.
The night came. It was a fashionable throng that poured into the Metropolitan. The fascinating twirl of jewelled lorgnettes and the flashing movement of the vast array of wealth and beauty made the two wide, innocent eyes that peered out from behind the curtain, reel—drunk with the wine of enthusiasm; this little atom who was to win or lose before this great audience of connoisseurs. Win she must. No girl could shake off the memory of so public a humiliation. The sight confused her. She trembled a little and slipped back to her dressing-room. “I feel as though the judgment day were at hand,” she said. “My heart is bigger than my whole body.”
“You darling, it was always that.” Mrs. Low gathered her proudly in her arms, as she spoke.
“Where have you been?” Esther left a warm kiss on her throat. “Up to the very same thing you were, looking for a particular face, I know.”
“I’ll take another survey presently. Of course he will be here. Oh! what a dream of a gown; you look like a vision from heaven.” Mrs. Low eyed her closely, fearful lest the misplacement of the slightest detail might mar the perfect whole.
“This must be the laurel crowning of your season.”
Her delicate face was beaming; she felt it rather than hoped it.
“This ordeal means everything to me. I am not as frightened as I expected. Honestly, I feel as if I could make music without strings or bow. Something in the very air charges me with a wild, savage inspiration. Go, look again, now. I know he is here.”
Several minutes passed and she did not return, so Esther went out to the wings while the first numbers were being rendered.
“Now, my dear!” whispered Mrs. Low, as the call came for Esther. “Do your best. Glenn is in the right of the centre aisle, half-way back with the woman in pink. I know you won’t disappoint him.”
These words came from the gentlest heart in the world, with no idea of their tragic significance.
Esther stepped to her place on the stage.
The bored faces of the leaders of the orchestra brightened. Every instrument was ready to respond to the first notes of her obligato. Even in that surging human sea she was conscious of dumbly searching for Glenn Andrews. As she stood slightly swaying with the first few strains, she saw him—his head thrown back with a superb gesture—his features all alight from the ideal soul within—his dreamy, mystical eyes full of expectancy. He was in a state of rapturous anticipation. In the “woman in pink” she recognized as being the one with whom society had intimately coupled his name.
What a heart-thrust! She blanched at the thought of it. And of all the nights of her life, this one—her very own—was most cruel.
There was a rush of resentment through her being, stronger, for the instant, than everything. She could not resist its influence; discord followed discord until the orchestra was forced to stop.
The scene before her whirled so fast that it made her dizzy. She felt blindly across the strings for a harmony which she had lost. Glenn Andrews was conscious of a curious tightening at the throat as he saw her pitiful struggles. His heart almost stopped. She was failing. This was maddening. He had had many disappointments in his life, but this was one he could not face. Abruptly he rose and rushed out into the aisle. The humiliation was too bitter.
There was a little ripple of excitement. Esther saw him going; but still did not realize that his seat there had only been a coincidence. She hated, she adored him. The moment seemed supreme of all the moments of her life.
A feeling of longing unutterable came over her—longing to recall him—a feeling that rose to ever fuller power until her whole being vibrated with the desire. She tightened her grasp of the instrument to steady her convulsive trembling. Glenn stopped. A new thrill was creeping through the music. Her eyes evinced a conquering fire born of internal despair. She was playing now as if inspired by some power above and beyond all things of earth. Through it all ran the shrill, sweet strains of her long-pent soul. Glenn stood immovable, with his eyes fixed upon her.
The sublime passion throbbing through the music was a sound that a human soul could not resist, as if the player’s whole nature were speaking to him. It pleaded, commanded, until it smote each tense chord of his life—compelled completest harmony. He followed with eager looks every gesture of her bow. His lips broke into a proud smile, revealing all he felt. It ended in an echo, transcendent, sovereign, supreme. The violin fell at her feet. The very air was saturated with the incense of applause.
He awakened as though from a dream to share in it. He grew almost hysterical as the audience begged for an encore. The curtain rose. Esther, flushed with her success, almost gasped as she reappeared. There was a rain of flowers, falling from everywhere. Glenn felt his heart beat after her in an ecstasy of longing. The curtain rose again and again. He had never known the height or depth of their natures before. He adored her—Esther, whose growth in beauty, power, glory he had watched with boyish tenderness. All that he had admired, and had not dared to hope for, were united in her. From the depths of his being there came to him the first over-mastering passion of his life—in a love that he had forbidden himself.