“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. CHAPTER VIII. 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.