Infatuation
It swiftly lit up his face as Phyllis remarked: "Now for the pill?"
"Yes, the pill," faltered Rolls Reece, gripping the arms of his chair,
and appearing acutely uncomfortable. "Ahem, the pill is--I suppose it
isn't grammatical to say are--well, in fact, some of Mr. Adair's
characteristics that those who admire him most, must deprecate and
deplore--characteristics that have unhappily hampered, or rather so far
have ruined his career. Please, please, Mrs. Adair, do not stop me!
This is not a question of personalities at all. Regard me simply as a
contractor, looking for a first-class workman--Bill, we'll call him; and
it having reached me in a round-about way that Bill has married and
pulled up, I've dropped in on Mrs. Bill to make sure."
"Are you not afraid Mrs. Bill may be prejudiced in her husband's favor?"
"My dear lady, it is remarkable to find any one prejudiced in Bill's
favor! That it should be his wife is all the better."
"Better for what?"
"I've told you I want to write that play for him."
At this Phyllis' rising ill-will died away. There was too much of the
little Frenchwoman in her for her not to become diplomatic and cool when
her husband's interests were at stake. Instead of making a hot
rejoinder, she replied, with a frankness not at all easy under the
circumstances: "I understand perfectly what you mean, Mr. Reece. It is
true he has spoiled everything, and has an awful lot to live down. I
ought to be grateful to you as the first person--the first important
person--who has realized that he has changed. But how am I to convince
you of it?"
"By speaking just as you do."
"Oh, I can hardly hope that a wife's word will count for much. Yet, Mr.
Reece, it is absolutely true."
"It is not his past that bothers me," went on Rolls Reece. "Everybody
has a past, and I was a theatrical critic once myself--but what I want
to be assured of is that he won't begin a new one. Really, Mrs. Adair,
if I put him in a big Broadway production can I be guaranteed that he
will--behave?"
"Yes."
"And neither drink, nor quarrel with anybody, nor punch anybody's
head--(including mine)--or calmly leave us in the lurch because he
doesn't like the pattern, say, of the dressing-room carpet?"
"Wait and talk with him yourself.--All that folly is over and done
with."
"The longer I live," observed Rolls Reece, "the more I appreciate that
women are the power behind the throne. Every man, in a queer, subtle
sort of way, reflects some woman. I came here to see whom Adair was
reflecting, and if I hadn't been satisfied I shouldn't have stayed. My
interest is selfish, of course. My unwritten play to me is much more
important than Mr. Adair; otherwise--to me, I mean--his peculiarities of
character would be of supreme unimportance.--May I say he reflects an
unusually charming and delightful one?"
Phyllis smiled.
"I hope that means it is all settled?" she asked.
"If you'll go bond for him--yes."
She clapped her hands. "Oh, I'm so glad," she cried. "Oh, Mr. Reece, I
can not tell you how poor we are, how desperate. It has been such a
heart-breaking struggle, and we had almost reached the giving-up
place.--But tell me, you say the play is not written yet?"
"Oh, no, we're talking of an October opening."
October! They were then in early April. The joy, the elation died
under that crushing blow. What was to become of them during the
intervening months? Phyllis could scarcely speak, the disappointment
was so keen. "It will be very hard for us to wait," she said at last.
"Mr. Adair has to go back to the cheap theaters, and from what he said I
am afraid he will have to sign a long contract."
Under any other circumstances Rolls Reece would have laughed. Adair,
that disreputable genius, as a scrupulous respecter of contracts,
foregoing the star part in a New York production at the dictates of
honor and conscience was sublimely incredible. But nevertheless
Phyllis' own sincerity impressed him. Her beauty was of a fine,
sensitive, aristocratic type, the kind that the dramatist, of all men,
would recognize and appreciate the most. The proud yet touching air,
the exquisite girlishness, the arch, appealing, pretty manners--all
disturbed him with a feeling that verged on jealousy. No doubt Adair
had altered. To be believed in by such a woman surely counted for
something; to be put on a pedestal by her was to stay there, of course;
it was impossible to conceive anything low or underhanded being confided
to one who struck him as the embodiment of candor. The surprise was how
Adair had ever got her.
"I have thought of all that," he said, referring to her last remark.
"If Mr. Adair will be satisfied with modest roles, and will consent to
go on the road, I can contrive to keep him busy the whole summer." In
the mouth of any other man, what he added would have sounded intolerably
conceited; but he had been successful too long, and had grown too used
to it, for the sentence to be anything but matter-of-fact. "I have
eight companies out, you know, and whether my managers like it or not,
they'll have to find room for your husband."
His tone was so considerate, so kind, and his eyes gave such a sense of
dawning friendship that Phyllis' reserve melted. She spoke eagerly,
with a little tremor of emotion, and a delicious consciousness of
sympathy and responsiveness. "I want to tell you about him," she said.
"I couldn't do it before when it seemed in doubt whether you'd risk your
play with him or not. It would have seemed, oh, as though I were trying
to plead with you, and debasing myself and him to win you over. But now
that it is settled I am not ashamed--no, Mr. Reece, I am proud to make
you realize how you have misjudged him."
With this as a beginning she told him of their coming to New York; of
their struggles and privations; of Adair's unshaken, unwavering devotion
during those bitter days. With poverty love had not flown out of the
window; no, it had drawn them closer together than ever before. She
might never have known otherwise the depth of the noblest and tenderest
heart that ever beat; he had never complained, never railed--had borne
himself throughout with a sort of silent fortitude, and oh, all this
with such an effort to be cheerful, to make light of things that were
grinding them to pieces. She told him of her father's offer, of Adair's
passionate rejection of it at a moment when he was next to starving; of
the fight with Kid Kelly, and the hundred dollars he had earned at such
a cost. Through her mist of tears she saw that Rolls Reece was not
unmoved; his eyes, too, were moist; once he took her hand, and pressed
it to his lips, with something about their being friends--always
friends. Throughout he had perceived the other side of the story, the
side she had not dwelt on, and indeed was scarcely aware of--her own
intrepid part in that comradeship, her own sustaining courage and love.
The picture she drew of Adair conjured up for the dramatist another even
more touching; and old bachelor that he was, and pessimist of pessimists
on the marriage question he momentarily turned traitor to all his
convictions.
When she stopped, with a sudden shame at having unbosomed herself to a
stranger, and in a confusion that was all the prettier for the blush
that accompanied it, and the air at once so deprecating and scared as
though she were disgraced for ever--Rolls Reece hastened to save her
from the ensuing embarrassment.
"You mustn't regret having taken me into your confidence," he said.
"I'm just an old sentimentalist, and belong more than anybody to that
world that loves a lover. It is worth all those stairs to hear anything
so really affecting and beautiful, and when I said I wanted to be
friends, I meant it."
"I'm afraid you're almost as impulsive as I am, and as indiscreet."
"Oh, my dear lady, if it wasn't for indiscretion what a dreary planet
this would be to live in.--Imagine the heartrending effect if everybody
thought before they spoke, and men were all wise, and women were all
prudent! Why, what would happen to dramatists?"
"You are nice," she said, giving him a candid, smiling look in which
there was a lurking roguishness; "and I'm glad we're going to be
friends; and I'm not a bit sorry I gave you a peep into an awfully
hidden place--a girl's heart, you know--though, of course, you mustn't
expect to make a habit of it; and I'm glad you're the great, famous,
splendid Rolls Reece, and are going to like me, and write Cyril a
wonderful play, and be our fairy uncle for ever and ever; and some day,
when you are accused of plagiarism or something, and they put you in
jail, I'll come down to the prison and bring you a loaf of bread with a
file in it, or change clothes with you in your cell, and then it will
come home to you how very lucky you were ever to know me, and you will
skip off to South America bursting with gratitude."
"In the meanwhile I'm afraid the fairy uncle had better bring his call
to an end," remarked Rolls Reece. "It's less spectacular--though I can
still be grateful, mayn't I? Indeed, I am so happy, Mrs. Adair, for you
have convinced me in more ways than you are aware of that we have been
unjust to your husband, and that I may safely trust the play to him."
"I can't help doubting whether you'll ever come back?" she said, as they
stood confronting each other. "It's a dream, and you are a
dream-dramatist, and I'll wake up from a nap, and will find everything
more miserable than before because of it.--Some day you will know what
this means to us," she added poignantly. "Some day when--when it's
long, long passed, and we can talk about it like ordinary people.--You
have to get a little way off to be sorry for yourself, don't you? I am
just beginning to see how unspeakably wretched and forlorn we were, that
poor boy and I, though I should probably have never found it out if it
hadn't been for you."
"Well, that's over," said Rolls Reece comfortingly. "If he'll work hard,
and do his best, I'll back Mr. Adair through thick and thin. He has an
unquestionable talent; it will be a pleasure, an inspiration to write
for him; if he'll do his share, I'll engage to do mine, and between us
we'll keep at it, play on play, till we land a winner. Only--" and here
he paused, and raised a warning finger.
"He'll be as good as gold," said Phyllis, filling in the interval.
"Don't let the fairy uncle worry about that."
"And when may I see him?"
An appointment was forthwith made for the same evening; and the
dramatist shook hands, and was about to go when Phyllis exclaimed again
that it was a dream, and that it simply couldn't, couldn't, couldn't be
true, and asked him laughingly to leave his umbrella as something
tangible to show Adair. Rolls Reece caught at the notion, but instead of
anything as prosaic as an umbrella, slipped off a superb ruby ring
instead, and laid it on the table.
"There's the pledge of the fairy uncle's return," he said gaily, and
hurried away before it could be restored to him.
"Good Heavens, Phyllis," cried Adair, "what's that thing?"
"A ring."
"But it's a ruby--why, it's valuable--where on earth did it come from?"
"A fairy uncle left it."
"Left it?"--Adair stared at her astounded.
"Yes, I was afraid he wouldn't keep his promise to come back, so he said
I could hold it by way of a pledge."
"But who is He?"
"Rolls Reece, I think his name is."
In an instant he was by her side, clutching at her arm.
"Phyllis--my God--it wasn't really Rolls Reece?"
"Yes, Booful-love-darling, it just was, and I've adopted him as our
fairy uncle, and he has adopted us, and he's coming back at nine this
evening to talk things over, and he wants to star you in a new play of