Infatuation
gentlest, most exquisite nature that God ever breathed into a human
being; and by the whole chubby little white satin foot--"
"Do sit up--it's important."
"I thought it was all settled. We'll start for New York as soon as I am
fired--officially."
"Cyril?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"I'm so infatuated with you that perhaps I don't see things as they are.
It is not a dream, is it, that you really could get on in New York--I
mean if you lived down all the ill will against you there? I try to
detach myself, and criticize you dispassionately--but you always seem to
me so tremendously good."
"I am good--in my own kind of work."
"You've no dread of failure?"
"In handing out the goods--? Not a particle, Phyllis. Why should I?
Haven't I done it?"
"In your New York days?"
"Why, Phyllis, this isn't brag. I've got notices to show for it,
corking notices. What you have seen me do is not my best. No one could
do that with the support I get, and I have to carry the whole outfit
single handed. A company ought to be a string orchestra--and they give
me a brass band!"
"Have you got the notices?--I'd love to see them!"
"They're at the bottom of the trunk somewhere--three books of them."
"Do get them out, and let me read some."
After long rummaging the books were produced. Phyllis, who in the
interval had put on a peignoir, and begun to comb her hair, seized on
one of them enthusiastically. It was an unwieldy, shabby old volume,
and so heavy it was hard to hold. The exertion, and perhaps the
excitement had caused Adair's head to throb again, and he was glad to
stretch his length on the bed while Phyllis, drawing up a rocking chair,
seated herself as close as she could beside him.
The actor had not exaggerated his past successes. For three seasons he
had been a notable figure on Broadway, and if his reputation had been
more one of promise than achievement it was in dazzling contrast to what
he had since become. He had himself almost forgotten the stir he had
made--not the deafening curtain calls, the brimming box-offices, the
deferential managers,--none could forget that--but the soberer, yet more
valuable evidence of the critics. It was electrifying to listen to them
again; to see across the mean, intervening years that other self of his
lording it so high; to realize, with mingled bitterness, wonder and hope
that he was still the same man, with the same if not richer powers, and
a new-born resolution to regain what he had so lightly valued and so
unconcernedly thrown away.
Phyllis, pink with excitement, and tripping occasionally over the longer
words, read notice after notice with indefatigable zest, constantly
substituting Booful and other endearing epithets for the more formal
name in print, while her husband lay back, listening delightedly, and
contributing exclamations, "By George, and it was William Winter who
said that!"--"Say, that's Huneker, isn't it?" "A column in _The World_
isn't handed out to everybody, not by a long sight."
BOOFUL OPENS AT WALLACK'S
THE HONOR OF THE REGIMENT PLEASES, BUT
NEEDS CUTTING.
THE STAR SCORES AS MOODY HERO, AND EXCELS
HIMSELF IN MAGNIFICENT PORTRAYAL OF
EBHARDT.
"Those who went last night to see _Booful_ were not disappointed,
however they may have disagreed about the play itself. For that
brilliant young _darling_ it was hardly less than a personal triumph,
and from the rise of the curtain--"
It was a very inconsiderate moment for a heavy rap at the door.
"Come in," cried Adair.
In the shadow stood a bulky figure--a blue figure--a figure with
something shining on its swelling chest. Phyllis looked and quailed as
the bravest of us do at the sight of the Law, intruding its hob-nailed
boot into what is metaphorically termed our castle. In this case the
castle was so small, and the Law so large and red and impressive that
the former seemed but a trifling refuge against oppression. In the
accents of a green and troubled island the new-comer asked: "Are you
Misther Adair--Misther Surul Adair?"
"That's me, all right," said the actor.
"You're summonsed for assault and battery, and here's the payper, and
it's before Judge Dunn ye're to come at two o'clock."
"Where do I go, officer?"
"The city hall, police court number one."
"Two o'clock, you say? Very good. Tell Judge Dunn I have much pleasure
in accepting his kind invitation."
The functionary unbent genially.
"Tay will be served on the lawn," he said, "and the Marine Band will be
in attendance, and some of our younger set will be there--in blue."
It seemed incredible to poor, trembling Phyllis that Adair could burst
out laughing. But he did, and that with every indication of
undiminished spirits.
"All right, officer, I'll be there."
"Good morning, sorr."
"Good morning, officer."
The tears were streaming down Phyllis' face as she ran to Adair, and
threw her arms around his neck; but he caressed and comforted her, and
gradually got her to smile again.
"I feel better," he said. "Be a dear, and make me some fresh
coffee.--Oh, Phyllis, isn't it jolly!"
"Jolly? Oh, how can you--"
"Oh, I mean about going back to New York! A fellow who's hit them once
can hit them again, and by George, with you to help me, I just know I'm
bound to land!"
"But this awful police court!"
"Don't worry about that--they've never hanged a Free Mason yet.--Easy
with the cream, sweetheart.--Where was it we left off? Oh, yes, here it
is: 'Adair opens at Wallack's. Those who went last night to see Cyril
Adair--'"
_From the Leamington Courier of November 28th, 190--._
*AMUSING SCENE IN JUDGE DUNN'S COURT*
Yesterday the proceedings in Judge Dunn's court were enlivened by the
presence of Cyril Adair the actor, who, on the complaint of Jacob
Steinberger, his manager, and Messrs. Willard Latimer and George
Augustus Wright, brother players, was haled before the bar of justice
for assault and battery. The three complainants showed unmistakable
traces of a fistic encounter, and there was a subdued ripple of
merriment at their bandaged appearance. The encounter was the outcome of
a midnight game of poker, and there was a direct conflict of evidence as
to who began the fray.
Judge Dunn finally summed up against the defendant, and in default of a
fine, ordered him to find personal security to be of good behavior for
three months. Much amusement was then caused by Mrs. Adair unexpectedly
stepping forward, and pleading most charmingly with the judge to permit
her to assume the obligation. The court was unable to resist so
attractive a bit of femininity, and though remarking it was somewhat
irregular, consented, amid general laughter, to grant her request.
The judge made up for it, however, by giving the defendant a stiff
little lecture before dismissing the case, expressing his surprise that
the husband of so young and pretty a wife should care to pass the early
morning hours at poker and fisticuffs. Adair accepted the rebuke with
great good nature and prompted by his wife thanked his honor for his
forbearance, adding to the general hilarity by repeating aloud some of
the advice that was being whispered in his ear. Apologies followed
outside, and the whole party returned to their hotel in the same hack.
All's well that ends well!
*CHAPTER XX*
Adair waited until Christmas before severing his connection with
Steinberger. The holidays were bad for theatrical business, and the
prospect of a temporarily reduced salary and several extra matinees
seemed to make this period an auspicious one for departure. With two
hundred and eighty dollars, their trunks, the clothes they stood in, and
hearts beating high with eagerness and hope, the pair took the train for
the City of Success.
Even on their way to it their respective positions began to change. The
actor, for all his broad shoulders and big voice and commanding
presence, betrayed from the first a helplessness and dependence that
both pleased and surprised his little wife. He anxiously deferred to her
in everything; fell in readily with every suggestion; listened with
profound respect to her plans. He knew New York inside out; poverty was
no stranger to him, nor the makeshifts and struggles of the poor; yet in
the crisis of their fortunes it was the girl that took the lead--the
girl who had never suffered a single privation in her life, who had been
reared in luxury, to whom money and ease were as the air she breathed.
Left to his own unguided will Adair would have gravitated to a dingy
bedroom in a dingy boarding-house. It was Phyllis who perceived the
greater freedom, and the unspeakably greater comfort and charm of a tiny
apartment. The nest-making instinct was strong in her, and also the
bred-in-the-bone belief that it was the woman's place to guard her man's
well-being, and to send him forth to work in the best of trim. She did
not know how to cook; she had never swept out a room in her life, she
had never even folded a table-cloth, yet her self-assurance and
determination never wavered. All this could be learned--pooh, it only
needed hard work and intelligence,--she would answer for its being the
nicest little flat in New York, and would dismiss Adair every morning in
his best clothes, smiling, well-fed, and happy, to look for an
engagement.
Brave, confident little heart! Intent little head absorbed in
calculations; magic the love that could cast effulgence over those
soiled green notes, and the phantom gray city, and the man, none too
good, or wise on whom such a treasure of devotion was lavished! But
some conception of it pierced his thick skin, and what there was in him
that was unselfish and noble felt disquieted at the contrast, and
strangely stirred and humbled.
"Phyllis," he said huskily, "I--I didn't know what love meant until I
met you. I guess lots of men go all their lives and never know. I've
been sitting back here, thinking how nearly I might have missed it."
"And getting quite scared and worried?--The poor precious! If it wasn't
for the conductor and that bald-headed man who's sure we're not married,
because I put my feet on the seat, and wear red stockings--I'd kiss you
right now, and give you a gurgle hug!"
"There are lots like me," Adair went on with unaffected seriousness,
"but, Phyllis, there is only one of you. I suppose people are born like
that sometimes--just one of them--and there aren't any more.--When we
get round to it, we must have children; you mustn't be allowed to die
and disappear; it wouldn't be right by the world."
Phyllis wrote down: "Pair tea-cups and saucers, thirty cents," and
announced that in the meanwhile the world would have to wait, as one
couldn't do everything at once. She added a duster to the list and a
pie-pan, while a smile hovered at the corners of her lips. It impelled
her to press her knee against Adair's, and whisper something so
sparklingly improper that he blushed. Then she returned to housekeeping
considerations with a pleased and saucy air, never so happy as when she
had embarrassed him.
Accommodation for dormice, although plentiful, left much to be desired,
except for dormice fond of grubbiness, gloom, and ill-smelling passages
and halls. For dormice willing to live on
One-hundred-and-jump-off-the-earth Street there was light and air, and
reasonably sized rooms, and even skimpy glimpses of the Hudson. But
Cyril wished to be near the theater district and the Thespian Club of