Infatuation
the sound of voices raised to an unreal pitch, and strangely exciting
and fantastic, in a cadence that was neither recitative nor speech. She
could not help noticing, even in her agitation, the shabby, dilapidated,
disorderly appearance of everything--the ropes, the dusty props, the
frayed material of the scenes, the general air of
comfortlessness--receiving the shock that comes to every one on first
seeing the theater from the wrong side. But the ratty individual gave
her no time to take more than a passing glance, leading the way with
whispered warnings through a gorge of canvas, and down a twisting iron
stair to the dressing-rooms below. He stopped at one of the little
cabin-like doors, opened it, and ushered her in. Then he left her, and
shuffled away with diminishing footfalls.
The dressing-room was bald, bare, uncarpeted, and painted a staring
white. Below a mirror flanked by two flaring gas-jets there ran a sort
of shelf on which were grease-paints, crayons, brushes, a pot of
cold-cream, a pot of rouge, and other necessaries for "making up." From
nails on the wall--common, every-day nails--there straggled an untidy
line of men's clothes. On a box in the corner was a wash-basin,
pitcher, soap, and a towel that was none too clean. Three empty chairs,
and a wall decoration completed the picture. The wall decoration was a
printed notice, in large and emphatic letters: "Smoking positively
prohibited in this theater. Ladies must not use alcohol curling-irons."
Most young women, in a situation so equivocal and so unfamiliar, would
have been ill at ease, frightened, apprehensive of many vague and dimly
suspected dangers. But Phyllis' faith in Adair had none of this
faltering quality. She loved, and loving she trusted. Her tremors had
ended the moment the door had closed her in--the moment, in fact, when
the others would have trembled most. To her, on the contrary, the little
room breathed security for the very reason that it was Adair's. With
adorable folly she pressed kisses on all his outstretched possessions;
nuzzled her cheek against his coat; put her little foot beside one of
his big man's shoes, delighting in the contrast--and altogether felt
greatly comforted and refreshed.
After a while she heard a tremendous commotion overhead that swelled,
sank and swelled again as the house broke into applause at the end of
the act. There was a lumbering, scratchy, pattering sound as of a dozen
pianos being moved at once by stalwart men in slippers--it was the new
scene being set. The passageway outside, previously so still, resounded
with a rush of feet--with exclamations and laughter as the company
scudded to make their respective changes. The door was flung open, and
there, brisk and smiling, on the threshold stood Correze!
Phyllis ran to his arms, and hiding her face against him began to cry.
She was so happy, so wretched; the misery of that last hour had tried
her more than she knew; her joy at seeing Adair seemed to exhaust the
little strength she had left, and her conflicting emotions could find
vent only in tears. How sweet it was to be petted, to be soothed--to
feel so small, and weak, and helpless in that powerful clasp! Her tears
flowed afresh. Flowed at the thought of her love for him, of his love
for her, at the beauty, wonder, and solace of it all. Nothing could
ever harm them as long as they had each other, nothing, nothing.
She made him take a chair, and seating herself at his feet crossed her
arms on his knees and looked up at him. In this position it seemed
easier to confide, easier to answer his persistent questions, easier at
the same time to satisfy her craving to nestle close. As Adair heard of
the letter he turned as black as a thunder-cloud and his hands clenched.
"I know whom I've to thank for that!" he exclaimed furiously. "The
damned little treacherous hound, I could choke her for it! I've seen
something working in her eyes all along, but I never dreamed she could
be as low and contemptible as that! And so she was keeping tab on us,
was she, with all her mean little eyes and ears, the dyed toad!"
"Cyril, you really know who it is?"
He made a hissing sound--a disgusted assent. "She isn't twenty feet from
here," he exclaimed, "unless she is at the key-hole this moment." He
rose; stepped to the door, and looked out. "Not here," he said.
"But tell me, is she one of the actresses in the company?"
"Never you mind," he returned roughly; and then, with a quick remorse at
the look in Phyllis' face, he apologized in a roundabout fashion by
denouncing the stage in general. "It's a low, dirty business," he
cried, "and the people in it are a low, dirty lot; and I guess I'm not
so damned much better myself; and if you had a spark of sense you'd
clear out, and never see me again! Do you hear what I'm telling you,
little chap? Do you hear, Phyllis girl?" He put down his hand, and
caught her ear between his thumb and finger, giving it a shake. "Skin
out, you darling baby. Your father's right. Go back with my
compliments, and tell him I said so!"
His jeering tone hurt her; there was too much sincerity in his
self-contempt, too genuine a ring to his proposed dismissal. The
contradictory creature, stung to the quick by that letter, and
indignantly conscious of much of its truth, was floundering towards
righteousness, like a walrus after a floe. Hell, he didn't mean her any
harm. Let her get out.
"You'd better hurry," he said, pinching her ear again. "I'm just a
cheap actor, as common as the dirt in the road, and you're a beautiful
young lady a million times too good for this kind of game. All that you
can get out of it is dishonor and disgrace. Go away--let's drop
it--love somebody who's worth loving."
He tried to push her from him, but she clung only the tighter, her face
paling at his earnestness, and stubbornly looking up at his.
"You couldn't say that if you were--what you say you are."
"How do you know it isn't a trick!" he exclaimed, "just another move in
the game--just to get you a little further out of your depth, and then
drown you?" His hands closed round her neck with brutal pleasure in her
youth, her softness, her delicacy, her powerlessness.
"It's strange," he said wonderingly, "but at this moment when you have
never been more tempting to me, I am willing to let you go--want to let
you go. It's the first good resolution in my life, yet you stick here
like an infatuated little noodle, waiting for it to pass."
She snuggled closer against him.
"Am I tempting?"
"My God, yes."
"And you love me?"
"Oh, my darling, I do, I do!"
"And wouldn't it be nice for a poor little lonesome cheap actor, who's
really a great big splendid noble person of genius, if he only knew
it--to have me to pet him and love him and adore him, and kiss away his
morbid, silly moods, and make such a darling baby of him that he'd burst
out crying if I were out of his sight a minute?"
He looked at her sharply for an underlying meaning--a comprehension--an
assent. But her candor and innocence were transparent; the purity
beneath those limpid depths shone like a diamond in a pool. Her love
took no thought of anything base or wrong, either in him or in her; all
she sought was the assurance that he loved her, and wanted her; and this
achieved she was content to leave the rest to him with unquestioning
faith. She did not come of the class to whom marriage is vividly seen
as a protection, a safe-guard, a coveted lien on a pocket-book and a
man, enforceable by the police; to her it was more one of those
inevitable formalities that attend all the big events of life, from
being born to being buried, and which one accepts as a matter of course.
Adair, in a gust of passion, caught her up on his knees, and crushed her
unresisting body in his arms. Everything was forgotten in the maddening
rapture of the moment. The fragrance of her young beauty over-mastered
him. His head reeled in the greatest of all intoxications--the
woman-drunkenness that makes men crazy. Between his clenched teeth he
whispered: "You are mine, and I am going to keep you--you shall never
get away now. You had your chance, but it's gone, fool that I was ever
to offer it. But now I'll kill you first; do you hear, Phyllis, I'll
kill you first, for you're mine, body and soul, and you've gone too far
ever to draw back." His voice sank lower; he was beside himself; all he
knew was that she was shaking convulsively--that her face, her lips were
burning--that love, shame, devouring fever all flamed in the eyes she
tried to hide from him.
A knock at the door startled him to his feet. Rap, rap, rap!
"You're called, Mr. Adair," said the voice from without.
"All right, Williams!"
His quick, matter-of-fact tone was as much a shock to Phyllis as the
interruption itself. To fall from the clouds, and then land so squarely
and coolly on the earth below was a performance disturbing to witness.
It seemed to cast suspicion on his sincerity up above. But the
misgiving was a fleeting one, for as he turned to her, she perceived in
his air of concern and resolution that she was still the dominant
thought in his mind.
"See here, Phyllis," he said, speaking fast, "this means only one thing.
The company leaves Saturday night after the show to jump to Ferrisburg.
You must come with me--that's all there is to it.--Will you?"
She bowed her head, for somehow she could not answer in words.
"It won't do for us to see each other till then; but you ring me up on
Saturday between twelve and one at the St. Charles Hotel, and we'll fix
up the dates. Have you got that straight?"
She bowed her head again, more overcome than ever.
"Don't worry about a trunk, or any damned foolishness of that sort.
Trunks have busted more elopements than six-shooters--just a nightie and
a tooth-brush, and we'll manage the rest at Ferrisburg!" His glance
sought for some evasion, some backwardness, but there was neither.
"It's the only thing to do," she said simply. "Only, only--" She was
holding fast to his hand, swaying a little.
He waited for some objection; some silly, feminine obstacle--
"You do love me, don't you?" she asked as pleadingly as a child. "If
you love me I could do anything. Tell me you love me, Cyril."
He kissed her hastily, saying "yes," and again "yes," and ran out of the
dressing-room. A thin deferential man peeped in. "I'm Mr. Adair's
dresser, Miss," he said. "He told me to show you the way out. If you
would be so good as to follow me, Miss."
* * * * *
"Good-night, Miss!"
*CHAPTER XV*
In the meanwhile, Mr. Ladd, closely buttoned up and walking to keep
himself warm, restlessly paced the drive-way, awaiting Phyllis' return.
At every nearing footfall he would stiffen and stop, and his throat
would contract with something very much like trepidation. His anger was
all gone. In its place was not only contrition and self-reproach for
having shown her that letter, but a very real alarm of the situation he
had precipitated. He had been inconceivably stupid--inconceivably unkind
and blundering. He had driven the girl straight into the fellow's arms,
and had now doubled what he had to undo. Looking back on it he seemed
to have said everything he ought not to have said; done everything he
ought not to have done. It was a case for frankness, tenderness, and
considerate understanding. Hurry, too, in such matters, was the root of
all evil. Romance, like faith, grew with persecution. Gad, if she
really thought herself in love with this egregious actor, he would put
his pride in his pocket, invite him to the house, pretend to like him,