Infatuation
with a bull-neck, and ever too much of him in front and behind, with a
very short coat, and bounding fat legs, and such a Broth of a Boy that
he was ready to fight or dance or sing or make love at the drop of a
hat, and generally to caper from sheer exuberance of Irish youth.--Then
Booful turned suddenly serious, and got up, and said that on no, no
account was he to be disturbed, and began to pace like a lion up and
down the doll-baby sitting-room, mumbling his part to himself with a
far-away expression, and an occasional frown and swear as he missed a
word; while Phyllis, pretending to sew, squeezed herself into a corner,
and made as though she was not watching him, which she did in timid
little peeps, thinking how handsome he was and noble and manly and
splendid, with such returning recollections of his devotion, and
gentleness, and simple, unrepining courage in the hard days now fast
finishing, that she could have swooned from very tenderness.
_A Broth of a Boy_ was a typical Irish drama. The central figure was a
rollicking imbecile, with a tuneful voice and the customary shillelah,
who foils the wicked mortgager, chucks colleens under the chin, does a
hair-raising leap over a waterfall, and is altogether so Brothy and gay
that no one can resist him. The usual British officer, condemned to
carry out an unpalatable order, and falling under the spell of a pair of
saucy Irish eyes, is found not to be half so bad a fellow as we had
anticipated; and though a good deal of a booby, and the target for
sarcasms that he is too obtusely English to perceive, gradually wins the
toleration and even the affection of the gallery. In real life he would
probably have been court-martialed for his arrant disregard of
instructions, nor would a bare-legged milk-maid have been considered
quite the prize the dramatist deemed her.--But one mustn't criticize
this dreamy region too harshly. That great baby, the public, loves
it,--and in the theater-world there is plenty of room for this grotesque
Ireland, and always will be; and baby's patronage feeds many worthy and
deserving people, who otherwise might have not a little trouble of it to
live.
Yes, let us be lenient toward the Irish drama. It brought seventy-five
dollars a week to that little apartment high up in East Fifty-eighth
Street, and hope and courage to hearts that were beginning to falter.
*CHAPTER XXI*
In the whole house that night of Adair's return to Broadway there was
probably but one person in front who was even aware that the bill had
been changed. That rapt little spectator waited with her heart in her
mouth for the actor's appearance, and thrilled herself with fairy tales
while the play ponderously opened, and took its course. Adair would be
recognized; there would be a wild demonstration of welcome; cheers,
applause, yes, an ovation, with people standing up, and the gallery in
an uproar!--It was a dream, of course, a phantasy, for her head was too
squarely set on her shoulders to count on anything of the sort, but
nevertheless it exhilarated her enough to make the reality doubly,
trebly disappointing.
His entrance was unheralded by a single handclap, O'Dowd having just
retired amid thunders, with part of the audience still insistently
humming the refrain of _Sweet Kitty O'Rourke_, (words by Stevowsky;
music by Cohen). Adair's first few lines were altogether lost in
consequence, the scene beginning in vehement pantomime, and the house
only gradually, and with extreme unwillingness, resigning itself to the
exit of the star. It must be said they had some right to regret him.
Adair was anxious and forced, and so desperately in earnest to be funny
that he suggested a marionette. Phyllis' surprise turned to dismay, and
dismay to an inexpressible pain. That he won many a boorish laugh only
heightened her misery. It was worse than bad, it was common, and she
could have bent down and cried in very shame. But in the throes of her
despair she was watchful, and her pretty brows corrugated with the
intensity of her attention. Poor though the part was, surely it could
be done better, oh, so much better; and if only she dared--! An
infinite compassion dimmed her eyes, an infinite pity, for was it not
for her he had stooped to this vile clowning, debasing himself, blowing
out his cheeks like a turkey-gobbler, feverishly catching at every trick
to get a grin or a titter? All this sacrifice of dignity, manhood and
self-respect to keep the poor little pot boiling on Fifty-eighth Street?
It was terrible to sit through the play, and to realize with more and
more conviction that this sacrifice was unnecessary--that the role,
straightforwardly acted, and the comic-policeman side of it ignored,
might be made into something worth doing--not very much worth doing of
course--but still redeemed from utter banality. But Phyllis knew how
her husband bristled at the least touch of criticism. Ordinarily so
loving and indulgent, a single word of disapprobation could set him off
like an hysterical woman; before now she had inadvertently raised such
storms, and looked back on them with terror. She asked herself what she
was to do, and could find no answer. Everything in her revolted from
lying to him, and yet she would be forced to. It was not cowardice, but
the disinclination of seeing him suffer, and the dread of incurring the
harshness and anger of the man she idolized. Enmity in his eyes seemed
to strike her to the ground; her heart stopped beating; something seemed
to die within her.--No, at any cost, she must lie, lie, lie.
She waited for him at the stage-door, a slight dejected figure under the
gaslights, and conscious for the first time that her clothes were
shabby, and that her gloves were old and worn. O'Dowd's carriage stood
by, and she envied the coachman his warm fur collar, and with it came
the thought of all she had given up to marry Adair. This put her in
better spirits, for she was pleased with everything that enhanced her
love, and gave it an unusual and romantic quality--so that for a moment
she seemed less cold, less sad, and a delicious heroine-feeling
enshrouded her. Had it not been for the fear of what was to come she
would have been altogether happy. But a pang of apprehension shot
through her, and all the pretty fancies engendered by the fur collar of
a sudden disappeared.--She was again standing on the wintry street,
tired, frightened, and disheartened.
Adair emerged in a jubilant humor, and squeezed her arm as he passed his
own through hers, and moved in the direction of the cars. Boisterous
and gay, he was in no mood to notice Phyllis' constraint, and took her
approval for granted as he overflowed with talk. It was a great relief
to her to remain silent, and nestle close to all that bigness and
confidence, and be borne along by that strong arm. All her doubts and
fears were lost in an unreasoning gladness, and what did anything matter
but love?
Meanwhile the genial tide of Adair's discourse continued without
intermission.--O'Dowd, who was a prince of good fellows, had patted him
on the back. Eddie Phelps was up in the air, too, and said he had
simply walked away from the other man--and oh, how good it was to be in
a theater again! It was a piffling part, but after all it was something
to have made the best of it, to have shown them what could be done in it
by a first class man. That was the beauty of the stage--a real actor
could take a janitor or an organ-grinder and create a lot out of
nothing. Did she know that all that business in the second act was
his?--Yes, positively--every bit of it his, and no wonder O'Dowd hugged
him at the wings, and said it was great--yes, just like that--before
everybody! You see, it had pulled up the whole thing where it had used
to drag, giving it zip and go. Eddie Phelps said that the other fellow
had never got a hand there. He had done better than that, hadn't he?
And if it hadn't been such a damned feeder for the star--oh, well,
success was success, if it were only an inch high!
In this strain of self-laudation, Adair boarded a car, and praised
himself all the way home. Throughout he took Phyllis' concurrence for
granted, and his exuberance was unclouded by the least suspicion of the
truth. He had half finished his supper when with that instinct which
was one of the most unexpected endowments of his character, he all at
once perceived something to be amiss. It wasn't Phyllis' fault; she had
given not a hint of dissatisfaction; nothing was further from her
thoughts than to mar that night.
But when he laid down his knife and fork, and stared at her across the
table she knew in an instant what was coming.
"My God, Phyllis," he exclaimed, "it is not possible you--you didn't
like it?"
She would have given worlds for the lie that would not come; her eyes
shrank from his; the sincerity and conviction of his tone made deceit
impossible. It was almost in a whisper that she answered: "Oh, Cyril,
Cyril,--I'm afraid I didn't."
He pushed away his plate and got up; he could not suffer such a
mortification sitting; the flat itself seemed too small to hold his
sudden shame, his agitation, the staggering shock of what seemed to him
his wife's disloyalty.
"What was the matter with it?" he demanded passionately. "What was it
you did not like?--No, no, you needn't try to wriggle out of it; you've
said too much to stop now; you've as good as told me it was damned bad,
and I want to know why.--The words don't matter; it isn't a question of
how you put it, nor how much I mind being knocked by the one person on
earth--! My God, Phyllis, what do you mean by saying I was bad?"
She was terrified. No culprit in the dock ever trembled more guiltily,
or faced a brow-beating prosecutor with so stricken a look. Her
husband's bitter and contemptuous tone cut her like a lash. But it was
too late now to make excuses, to palliate the offense. There was
nothing for it but to go on--to justify herself--and the better she
could do it the more she would wound him! And all this on a night that
surely ought to have been their happiest.
"You made the captain too--too common," she stammered. "He is supposed
to be a high-bred, aristocratic man--stupid, of course--but a gentleman
through and through. In real life--"
"Oh, real life!" he interrupted roughly, "that's where all you ignorant,
criticizing people go wrong. He has nothing to do with real life--he's a
preposterous stage figure, a convention. I have to take what I'm given;
I'm not the dramatist; I can't write new lines for him, can I? My
business is to hide the strings that pull his arms and legs, and make
him possible--and by George, I did it!"
"But Cyril, dearest, listen--even when you first come on you're not
polite enough, not chivalrous enough. You almost burst out laughing
at--"
"That's to give contrast to him afterwards."
"But you can do that, and still keep him a gen--I mean nice, and--"
This was all she was allowed to say. Adair towered over her, convulsed,
shaking, his voice hardly governable as he stormed and raged. It was
the best thing he had ever done; it was perfect; there was fifteen years
of stage experience in that one creation. It was awful that it should
all go for nothing; it shook his nerve; it shook his confidence in
himself; he hardly knew how he could go on playing the part. He
wouldn't, he'd throw it up; he warned her to be more careful next time,
or as an actor he would be done for. It wasn't that he was afraid of
criticism--intelligent criticism--he welcomed intelligent criticism--the
criticism of those who knew the stage--helpful criticism. But to club a