For days I was haunted by the beauty and subtlety of your voice, the unconscious grace of your poses, your little tricks of coquetry, and the play of your eyebrows."
"Did you really see all that in me the first night?"
"I saw more. I saw that, if taken in time, you were destined to be a great actress. I swore then and there that you should have your chance, and that I should be the one to give it to you."
"But——"
"No. Don't answer me now. You are like a little bud that's afraid to open its petals. Once you get out of this chilling atmosphere of criticism and opposition, you will burst into glorious bloom."
"But it would mean a terrible break with the family. I don't believe I can——"
"Yes, you can. I know you better than you know yourself. If Madam Bartlett persists in refusing to send you to New York, you are going to be big enough to let me do it."
He was holding her hand now, and talking with unusual earnestness. Eleanor thought she had never seen a greater exhibition of magnanimity. That he was willing to give all and ask for nothing, to be patient with her vacillations, and understand and sympathize with what everybody else condemned in her, touched her greatly. She turned to him impulsively.
"I'll do whatever you say," she said. "You and Papa Claude go ahead and make the arrangements, and I promise you I'll come."
Harold Phipps should have left it there; but Eleanor was never more irresistible than when she was in a yielding mood, and now, when she lifted starry eyes of gratitude, he tumbled off his pedestal of noble detachment, and drew her suddenly into his arms.