“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.