Infatuation
showed too mutinous a row of toes, Adair would jump up, and tumble her
in as mercilessly as a boy with a puppy. At night, too, he was no less
rigid in regard to her prayers. His own religion was very nebulous. He
never prayed himself nor went to church; but apparently that was no
reason why Phyllis should be similarly backward. It gave him a peculiar
pleasure to see her kneeling beside the bed, her night dress flowing
about her slender, girlish body, and her hair drawn back, and held by a
circlet of red ribbon. He knew no prettier picture, nor was it without
a tender and uplifting value. For it was his name that moved on her
lips, and who would not have been proud to send so enchanting a little
deputy to plead for one before the Throne of Grace? Then it was that he
seemed to love her best; and though all unaware of it, he, too, was
praying in the deeper, unspoken language of the heart.
"You've forgotten your prayers!"
"Oh, it was so cold--I thought I wouldn't to-night."
"Jump up!"
"It's so cosy here with you--and you ought to have said it sooner--and
anyhow, I won't."
"Jump up!"
"Oh, Cyril, that hurts!"
"Of course, it hurts."
"It's wicked to pinch as hard as that."
"It's wickeder not to say your prayers."
"Oh, Cyril, don't, _don't_!"
"Jump up, then."
"I'm not in the right frame of mind now--you have pinched it all
away.--All right, all right, don't--I'll do it! Though I don't think a
pinch-prayer would be as good as a real one. Do you?"
"This is the prayer-rush time--God won't notice it."
"Not even if I am black and blue? Why, the angels will be shocked."
"They are that already with the fuss you have made. Roll out, you bad
little chap,--out with you!"
Sometimes Adair was sharp with her--impatient and fretful. He made very
little effort to control his moods, which, as with most artists, were as
changeable and capricious as those of a child. Nine women out of ten
would have retorted in kind, and the honeymoon period would have
insensibly passed, and with it much of the charm and rapture of their
union. It was due to no help of Adair's that they did not descend to
the ordinary plane of married life, with its deliquescence of nearly
everything beautiful and romantic--occasional harshness on one side,
tears and pin-prickings on the other, and departing illusions on both.
People can still get along very tolerably in this manner, and remain
fairly fond and faithful, but no one can contend it is the poet's ideal.
It was certainly not Phyllis', and she was determined to avoid such a
catastrophe.
In her ambitious little head the honeymoon was to be only the beginning
of a sweeter intimacy beyond. She saw, lying latent in Adair, a
capacity to love as great as her own (she was presumptuous enough to
think that no one could love any better), and her one consuming endeavor
was to draw it forth. Whether or not the prize was worth the winning
never occurred to her. This big, splendid, untamed man-animal was hers,
with all his weaknesses and defects, with all his fine qualities and
bad, and she had accepted the responsibility of him with naive
self-confidence. To love was her vocation, and she set herself to it
with delight.
Her unfailing gaiety, her pretty artifices to amuse and cajole him, her
constant study of means to give him pleasure--all were as the drops that
wear away the stone. High-spirited, quick-tempered, and with a
sensitiveness that a glance could wound, she yet put such a rein upon
herself that no provocation could draw from her an unkind word. She
might grow suddenly silent, her mouth might quiver, her eyes glisten,
but no sharp retort ever passed her lips. There are many men with whom
this would not have answered. To some, indeed, an exquisite gentleness
and forbearance almost tempts their harshness. Feeling themselves in
the wrong their vanity is insulted, and with morbid perversity they go
from bad to worse. But Adair was not of this sort. With all his faults
he was a man of generous instincts, and capable of quick and headlong
repentances. He could come in like a thunder-cloud, on edge with
nerves, snappish, morose, ready to fly off the tangent at a trifle--and
five minutes later would be sitting at Phyllis' feet, his face in her
lap, conquered, contrite, declaiming hotly against himself, his
ill-temper all striking inward.
These lapses of his helped his love much more than they hurt it, and
through them he began to acquire some self-control, some degree of
consideration--some shame. In him devotion brought out devotion.
Instead of resenting Phyllis' strategems to keep him good-humored and
happy, he was touched to the quick. It was a new idea, this of keeping
love alight; of consecrating thought and care to it and guarding the
precious flame from extinction. It dawned upon him as something
entirely novel and unheard-of. Yet it was beautiful; he approved of it
heartily. He innocently ascribed the invention to Phyllis, and as usual
was tremendously impressed. It made him wonder whether she ever thought
of anything else but love. As he grew to know her better he saw that it
inspired all she did--that every impulse and every action sprang from
it.
Had he been a king, and she the transient, pretty butterfly of the
moment, she could not have striven harder to fascinate and hold him.
Her saucy tongue, her fancifulness, her audacity, her often-declared
determination to be as much sweetheart as wife--all were as spice to a
love that might otherwise have cloyed. To adore a man is not
enough--there is nothing the poor darling silly animal gets tired of so
soon as being adored.--One had to keep him interested, captivated,
filling in one's own little person all his complicated needs of passion,
comradeship, entertainment, variety, and mental recreation. But how
well one was repaid! If one gave a whole harem's worth of love, one
received a whole harem's worth back, and sweetest of all one could watch
the unfolding and ripening of a really fine nature. She was sure her
infatuation had guided her truly in that respect; that her choice had
fallen on a man with heart and soul big enough to repay her devotion.
He might be rough, but she had never a moment's doubt as to the diamond,
nor as to her ability to shape and polish it.
It was a process, unfortunately, that could not be hurried. Against her
in the endeavor were the ingrained habits and wilfulness of twenty
years. From his boyhood up Adair had lived in an atmosphere of
unrestraint, a Bohemian of Bohemians, without ties, care-free, the whim
of the moment his only guide. Some backslidings on his part were
inevitable and Phyllis, with all her illusions, was sane and cool enough
to foresee them. It was hardly a surprise to her, therefore, though
frightening and dismaying, when late one night, after awaiting him in
vain, Tommy Merguelis appeared unexpectedly in his stead. Any stranger
to the young man would have judged him to be in high spirits; his
shrill, nervous laugh was louder than usual; and he stammered and
giggled as though bubbling over with an unextinguishable good nature.
To Phyllis' practised eyes, however, these were ominous signs, and her
breath came a little quickly, as she asked news of her husband.
"Oh, he's all right," said Tommy, standing with one hand on the
door-knob, and showing no inclination to enter the room. "Oh, Mr. Adair
is all right--and hee, hee, don't you worry about him. He's detained,
that's all, and he sent me to say he might be late, and, and--"
"And what?"
"They've got him into a game down at Mr. Feld's--the owner of the
theater, hee, hee--and he couldn't well refuse, or at least--"
"Oh, Tommy, please--I don't understand."
"Just a little game of draw."
"Cards?"
"Yes--poker."
This did not strike Phyllis as anything very terrible.
"And he sent you to tell me he would be late?" she inquired, much
reassured.
Tommy lied manfully. As a matter of fact he had invented the
message--and the errand--to shield Adair, who had forgotten everything
in the absorption of the game. "Yes," he said, "he can't manage to be
back to supper with you, and is awful sorry about it, and hopes you
won't mind." Though Tommy could lie, he could not act. His anxiety was
obvious; he wriggled uncomfortably; and his silly, convulsive smile
presaged some disagreeable revelation. Phyllis, now thoroughly alarmed,
and with characteristic directness went straight for the truth.
"Tommy, has he been drinking?"
"Oh, ah, well, hee, hee--yes, he has."
"And they are playing high?"
"A dollar limit."
"And you came here to warn me? Don't deny it,"
"Oh, ah, well, hee, hee--yes, I did, Mrs. Adair."--As Phyllis paused,
troubled, uncertain, full of distress, Tommy added: "I don't know as it
wouldn't be a good plan for you to come along with me and get him."
"Would he come?"
"Anybody would come for you, Mrs. Adair."
"Surely he doesn't often gamble, Tommy. He has never spoken to me of
it?"
"Oh, there's nothing he don't do when the fit takes him. Hee, hee, he's
that kind, you know--temperamental."
The word, and the woebegone indulgence with which it was uttered made
Phyllis smile. Her humor was always close to the surface, even when
there were tears between.
"You are a dear, good fellow," she said, "and I'll never forget your
kindness to-night, though as for doing anything, I am going to stay
here."
He was amazed at the gentleness of her tone.
"I am never going to be his taskmaster," she went on, as much to herself
as to Tommy. "As far as I am concerned he shall always be as free as
air. If I went after him at all, it would be to sit on his knee, and
drink with him."
Tommy's scandalized face again made her laugh.
"Don't be afraid," she said with tremulous gaiety, "I won't do it this
evening, anyhow. Now run away, Tommy, and tell them down-stairs we
shan't need any supper after all."
She shut the door after him, and stood with her back to it, forlornly
regarding the empty room. She was more than hurt, more than mortified.
She had to ask herself if she had failed.
*CHAPTER XIX*
It was dawn when Adair staggered in, undressed and rolled in beside her.
Her long vigil had been succeeded by an overpowering slumber, and she
was not aware of his return until the streaming sunshine awakened her
toward nine o'clock. She wondered at first why her heart was so heavy,
and then, with reviving recollection, sat up, and gazed at her sleeping
husband. Even a debauch could not impair his fine complexion, and the
thick, black hair clustered against the ruddy skin softened Phyllis'
expression as she studied his face long and earnestly. The charm of
that vigorous manhood was irresistible, and whatever lurking grudge she
still had against Adair was lost in a fresh access of tenderness. His
uneasy breathing, his hot dry forehead, his parched and parted lips, all
appealed as well to the woman in her--the mother, the nurse.
For once the routine of punching-bag and bath was forgone, and her first
task on rising was to set about preparing breakfast. This, with the
pair, was a trifling matter, consisting of rolls, cream and butter
ordered over night and set outside their door on a tray every morning,
and the coffee Phyllis made herself over a spirit lamp. She was thus
busily engaged when she was conscious of a movement on the bed, and
turned to see her husband lowering at her with bloodshot eyes. Awake,
he looked disheveled, surly, ill and exasperated. His head was
splitting, and he was in one of those vile humors when a man avenges his
physical distress on those about him. He pushed Phyllis away as she ran
over to him, and told her roughly to leave him alone. The offer of a