There were days, many of
them, when it took all her good sense, all her fundamental
faith in Brent, to restrain her from an outbreak. Streathern
regarded Brent as a crank, and had to call into service all
his humility as a poor Englishman toward a rich man to keep
from showing his contempt. And Brent seemed to be--indeed
was--testing her forbearance to the uttermost. He offered not
the slightest explanation of his method. He simply ordered
her blindly to pursue the course he marked out. She was
sorely tempted to ask, to demand, explanations. But there
stood out a quality in Brent that made her resolve ooze away,
as soon as she faced him. Of one thing she was confident.
Any lingering suspicions Freddie might have had of Brent's
interest in her as a woman, or even of her being interested
in him as a man, must have been killed beyond resurrection.
Freddie showed that he would have hated Brent, would have
burst out against him, for the unhuman, inhuman way he was
treating her, had it not been that Brent was so admirably
serving his design to have her finally and forever disgusted
and done with the stage.
Finally there came a performance in which the audience--the
gallery part of it--"booed" her--not the play, not the other
players, but her and no other. Brent came along, apparently
by accident, as she made her exit. He halted before her and
scanned her countenance with those all-seeing eyes of his.
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