Part 21

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?"