Bruce looked up with his nicest smile and laid his strong hand over hers on his chair-arm.
"You're very much worth while now—to me, Patsy dear," he said with genuine affection. "I'm not looking ahead to those future days. Who knows whether the success, when it comes, will make you nearer to us, or will take you far away——"
She broke in eagerly with her hand pressed on her quickly beating heart. "Oh, Bruce," she said with a little tinge of fear in her tone. "I'm sometimes so afraid of that—losing you all in the work and hurry that is coming to me. But you'll help me, won't you? You'll keep me remembering how much we've always despised conceited, stuck-up people? I may be a failure after all, but if I'm not, if I'm the tiniest bit of a success and you see me getting selfish and horrid, you'll try to remind me, won't you?"
Bruce smiled reassuringly up at her flushed face. "Rely on me to puncture your balloon if it's needed, Miss Pat," he said in a tone that was very comforting, and, as she dropped a light kiss on his dark, waving hair, he added more soberly, "It's a mighty hard thing for a singer to be unselfish and generous, I warn you, my dear. It's going to be a struggle sometimes, though I don't doubt for an instant that you'll win out with flying colors."
Patricia's gayety was surging back in a happy flood, and she straightened up with a little rippling laugh, casting all her shadowy fears behind her.
"Just you wait till I sing my first concert, Mr. Bruce Hayden," she challenged, "and then tell me I'm a conceited goose, if you dare. I wagger as Hannah Ann says, I'll be the same stupid, silly thing I am now." And nodding brightly at him, she danced after the others, humming a gay little tune as she went.