"Give up?" said she. "Not even if you give me up. This thing has got to be put through."
He simply nodded. "All right," he said. "It will be."
"That booing—it almost struck me dead. When it didn't, I for the first time felt sure I was going to win."
He nodded again, gave her one of his quick expressive, fleeting glances that somehow made her forget and forgive everything and feel fresh and eager to start in again. He said:
"When the booing began and you didn't break down and run off the stage, I knew that what I hoped and believed about you was true."
Streathern joined them. His large, soft eyes were full of sympathetic tears. He was so moved that he braved Brent. He said to Susan:
"It wasn't your fault, Miss Lenox. You were doing exactly as
Mr. Brent ordered, when the booing broke out."
"Exactly," said Brent.
Streathern regarded him with a certain nervousness and veiled pity. Streathern had been brought into contact with many great men. He had found them, each and every one, with this same streak of wild folly, this habit of doing things that were to him obviously useless and ridiculous. It was a profound mystery to him why such men succeeded while he himself who never did such things remained in obscurity. The only explanation was the abysmal stupidity, ignorance, and folly of the masses of mankind. What a harbor of refuge that reflection has ever been for mediocrity's shattered and sinking vanity! Yet the one indisputable fact about the great geniuses of long ago is that in their own country and age "the common people heard them gladly." Streathern could not now close his mouth upon one last appeal on behalf of the clever and lovely and so amiable victim of Brent's mania.
"I say, Mr. Brent," pleaded he, "don't you think—Really now, if you'll permit a chap not without experience to say so—Don't you think that by drilling her so much and so—so beastly minutely—you're making her wooden—machine-like?"