CHAPTER XII.
Glennsaw 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 fromEsther’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 toher 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 outfrom 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 respondto 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 thestrings 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 beyondall 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 theheight 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.