Infatuation
Island for the second time he thought his little heart would break. She
didn't last long after that. How could she, gone as she was in
consumption, and drinking like a fish? Oh, what a hell it was--what a
hell! His pennies were all his own now, though he often had to fight to
keep them. He was always fighting to keep them--first in desperation,
then by degrees with some coolness and science. The bigger boys coached
him; egged him on; he became a regular little bantam. They'd make up a
purse--a quarter or something--and set two little wretches to pounding
each other. Anything was allowed, you know--biting, kicking, scrooging,
hair pulling! There was only one rule, and that was to win.
Well, so it went on, till he was sixteen or thereabouts, the toughest
young tough you could see on Avenue A. He was nicknamed Fighting Joe,
and they used to get up cheap little matches for him in the back rooms
of saloons--real fighting, stripped to the waist, and four ounce gloves.
His only ambition was to get into the prize ring, and in his dreams at
night he would see his picture in the _Police Gazette_. Then the
Settlement workers came--a pale-looking outfit, with Mission furniture
and leaflets. They were regarded as a great infliction--as an insult to
an honest tough neighborhood. It was the correct thing to break their
windows, and lambast their followers. Fighting Joe took a prominent
part in this righteous task. What did it matter that several of them
were women? What did such brutes care for that? If ever there was a
young savage on earth it was he.
One of the women was tall and pretty--not very young--twenty-eight or
twenty-nine perhaps. Miss Cooke, she was--Miss Grace Cooke. She would
never see him but what she would turn white with anger and fear. You
see, everything was put down to him, all that he did do, and all that he
didn't--and totaling up both sides of it, it ran to a lot. He couldn't
begin to remember the caddish things he was answerable for; he didn't
care to try; my God, what a brute he was, what a brute! And yet he
admired this woman; guessed he was in love with her in a calfy way; took
every chance to see her--and insult her! Of course, there wasn't the
faintest reason why he shouldn't have walked into the Settlement, said
he was sorry, and have been received with open arms. But people like
that can't say they are sorry--they don't know how. Besides, the social
disgrace of it would have been awful! Joe Mayne running with that
gospel gang! The thing was incredible.
Late one winter afternoon he saw her in the midst of a crowd of
hobbledehoys, hooting and jeering at her. She was walking as fast as
she dared, looking straight ahead of her, and pretending not to notice.
It was dark; the street was empty; and if she was scared she had mighty
good reason for it. One of the fellows lurched against her, and down
she went on the sidewalk; as she tried to rise another rolled her over,
and tore her hat off. Of course, it was a great joke, and they were all
roaring with laughter. Then it was he came running up--Joe--and when
she saw him she gave him a look he would remember to the day he died.
Oh, the terror of it--the shrinking! But he smashed one on the jaw,
caught another between the eyes, and lifted her up, half fainting as she
was, and tried with his dirty hands to smooth her hair, and put on her
hat again.--That's how they came to be friends; that's how he came to be
landed in the Settlement; everything real in his life dated from that
moment.
He was with them two years; with them as long as she lived. There
wasn't a good quality in him that she didn't put there. On census
forms, and such things, when asked his religion, he always felt inclined
to write: "Grace Cooke." By God, it would have been the truth. She was
his religion yet, far though he had fallen away from it--oh, so far--!
She stood for everything that was good and beautiful and noble. It
wasn't love. It was beyond all love. She was a Madonna, a saint, and he
had had the privilege to kneel at her feet--a Caliban of the slums, a
tough, a hoodlum, unworthy to touch the hem of her garment. Then she
died, and that was the end of it. He didn't care for the Settlement
after she died. He got a job as chucker-out in a low place called the
Crystal Palace. There was a dais, and performers used to sing. He
thought he would try it himself, and made quite a hit. Then he began
giving recitations--_The Fi-erman's Dream_, and that kind of thing, and
they caught on. He owed it all to Grace Cooke, who had taught him to
read--(not ordinary reading, he had picked that up somehow for
himself)--but real reading, dramatic reading. From this it was a step to
monologues in costume, and from that to the vaudeville stage.
Sitting there in the growing dusk, and in an atmosphere so conducive to
confidence, Adair unfolded his early life with a tender, persuasive and
charming humor. He often laughed; often he was silent; again and again
he would look up, and seek Phyllis' eyes in a lingering glance as though
to assure himself of her interest. For once in his life he was shy; the
slim, pretty hand he gazed at so covetously was safe from any touch of
his; something told him that the least familiarity would cost him all he
had gained.--It was not policy on his part. He was too humble to think
of policy. To be with her alone seemed presumption enough--to feel her
sympathy, her friendship. Not a word or act of his should mar that
wonderful day.
He rose, apologizing for having stayed so long.
"It is your own fault," he said, holding out his hand, "you've made me
forget everything."
"I'm afraid it was the other way round, Mr. Adair," she returned, trying
to smile, and thankful for the darkness that veiled her face.
"Am I ever to see you again?"
She shook her head.
"You mean it is good-by, Miss Ladd?"
"Yes, it's good-by."
Her hand was in his, so soft, so motionless, yet somehow so reluctant to
leave his grasp. His head was turning; he could not go like that. No,
no, he could not. He suddenly pulled her towards him, and caught her in
his arms, kissing her hair, her cheek, her mouth, with a passion that
cared little whether she was crushed or smothered in his embrace. Good
God, what was he doing? After holding back so long, what diabolical
folly had tempted him to this? Yet she had said it was good-by. He had
nothing to lose. Let her pant and struggle and tremble, he would take
tribute of her beauty nevertheless, however much she was insulted or
outraged. His lips were wet with her tears. He forced her to receive
his kisses on her mouth, exulting in the strength that allowed her no
escape. But was she resisting him? A tremor of maddening delight shot
through his frame. Her mouth was seeking his, and he heard her
whispering breathlessly: "I love you, I love you, I love you!"
It was so unexpected, so surprising, that he let her free. She sank
into a chair and covered her burning face, repelling him as he threw
himself on his knees beside her.
"If you don't go, I shall never forgive you!" she exclaimed. "Haven't
you shamed me enough? Do you want me to die of humiliation?" Then, from
the heart, came the woman's cry: "What will you think of me?"
That instinct, which in Adair took the place of conscience, honor, all
the conventional virtues and restraints, again came steadfastly to his
help. He bent down; kissed her on the brow; and getting his hat and
cane abruptly took his departure.
*CHAPTER XII*
The dictionary with unhesitating positiveness informs us that
infatuation is "unreasonable or extravagant passion." But are there not
those who have stayed unreasonably impassioned to the end, those whose
earthly parting has been but at the grave? And does not love of the
admitted, recognized, unextravagant, very much approved,
bless-you-my-children kind only too often ring out its knell in the
divorce court? That Phyllis was infatuated with this good-looking scamp
was beyond question, if by that one meant his physical attraction held
her as much a slave as any of our ravished ancestors in the Vikings'
boats. Her will was gone; her judgment; all her nicely-balanced
highly-critical young-ladyism. It was horrifying to her to realize it;
her powerlessness was at once an agony and a delight; it came over her,
with a frightening sense of injustice, that a woman's happiness lies
beyond herself, and is for ever dependent on some man.
Naturally she sat down, and wrote him a sad little letter. He was to
forget everything that had passed, and not misjudge her for an
uncontrollable impulse. Were he to presume upon it, she would not only
die of shame, but would be forced to perceive that her trust had been
misplaced. As a gentleman and a man of honor--and she knew him to be
both--he would understand that it was impossible for them ever to meet
again, and that her good-by was indeed irrevocable. But her good wishes
would always attend him, and she would sign herself, in all sincerity,
his friend, Phyllis Ladd. This done, she waited in a fever of
impatience for his answer, hoping, dreading, tumultuously inconsistent,
hot fits and cold succeeding each other in her troubled and anxious
heart.
It may be imagined how unkindly Adair took her commands. In his large,
straggling hand, and over six sheets of hotel paper he expressed his
energetic dissent. It was a trite letter--flowery and theatrical--her
haunting eyes, the memory of her adorable beauty, the despair of a man
who had found love only to lose it, etc. Had Phyllis been herself it
would have made her smile. Nothing, indeed, could have shown how far she
had traveled on the road of illusion than her acceptance of these
well-worn phrases. The tears sprang to her eyes at the smooth and
nicely-rounded description of his wretchedness; she glowed and thrilled
at the praise of herself, its boldness redeemed by what she ascribed to
a lover's ardor; the pathetic plea for another meeting was irresistible.
It might be unwise; it was sure to be painful; but, after all, it was
his right. He loved her; he bowed to her decision; his life was hard at
best, and now doubly so; what he asked was so little for her to give,
yet to him it was everything--to see her once more before they parted
for ever.
They met this time at the corner of a remote street. He was very pale,
very quiet, and it was not a lie he told her that he had been unable to
sleep for thinking of her. Had she known better what those thoughts
were she would have shrunk from him. But, fortunately or not, she did
not know. She, too, was quiet and pale, and it was with the sense of an
impending fate that she took his arm, and slowly walked with him along
the foot-path. Unconsciously he was more masterful with her, now that
she was away from that daunting house, and that awe-inspiring
drawing-room. The sanctity that had enveloped her there had largely
disappeared. Here was a situation he was used to--a distractingly
pretty girl, a sidewalk rendezvous, and an infatuation that needed but
the right handling to bring it to the proper conclusion.
Yet with everything so plain--and apparently so easy, Adair himself was
in a whirl of strange and new emotions. Something had pierced his
colossal selfishness, and was disturbing him. It was annoying at a time
when he needed all his wits about him, and he resented it as a symptom
of unmanly weakness. One drop of real love in that ocean of sham was
threatening to poison the whole. He did not put it thus concretely. He
only knew that he was uncomfortable, and not rising as he should to the
occasion. Except for that far-away Grace Cooke he had never known a