Part 29

"He will give you up, my dear, fast enough."

"How dare you say that, Papa--how dare you!" A mist of anger was in her eyes, and two spots of crimson glowed dangerously on her cheeks. Never in her life had she been more roused; up to that moment she had still hoped to save the day and win her father over, but now she perceived the irrevocable nature of what was being said. Yet outwardly, at least, she restrained herself, and hid within her quivering breast a tumult that seemed to rend her to pieces.

"If I seem to be misjudging Mr. Adair it is only because I know more about him that you do," continued Mr. Ladd in a tone not untinged with a grim satisfaction. Even as he spoke he drew out a thick packet, and unfolded it on his knee. It was a mass of typewriting, with here and there a notorial seal on paper of a different color, and an occasional newspaper cutting neatly pasted in the center of a little sea of comment. "Here we have him in black and white," he went on, "and frankly, Phyllis, he offers you a very poor promise of a happy married life."

"And you expect me on my wedding morning to sit down and read these things--these abominable slanders your detectives have scraped together?"

"Oh, no. But I demand to have Mr. Adair sit down and answer them."

"Would you believe him if he did?"

"Facts are facts. He can't deny them."

"And you called me unreasonable? Oh, Papa!"

Mr. Ladd ignored the taunt.

"When he appreciates that his whole disreputable past is known to me," he went on, with the same inflexible composure, "he may condescend to consider--an arrangement."

"An arrangement?--What do you mean?"

"I have brought a blank check with me," he explained. "He can name anything--and get it. I'd rather pay more now than less later."

His brutality overwhelmed her. It took her a few seconds to understand the incredible baseness he imputed to Adair. In the light of this her father's previous insults paled to insignificance. She was too stunned to make any reply, and for a while could do nothing but look at him in speechless wonder. Then she rose, and rang the bell.

"The marriage could be annulled," said Mr. Ladd, oblivious of everything except his one preoccupation. "The next thing is to keep the newspapers quiet, and that I can do. We'll go abroad--"

The darky came running up with a pitcher of ice water. No one ever rang for anything else in the Clarendon Hotel. He entered, jingling the ice.

"Show this gentleman out," said Phyllis, "and I want you to remember I shall not be home to him again."

"Phyllis!"

The entreaty in his voice moved her not a bit, nor the outstretched hand, veined, wrinkled and shaking.

"It's conceivable I may forgive you for this, Papa," she exclaimed, "though God knows it will be hard. But if you offer that check to Cyril I shall hate you till the day I die!"

"Have it your own way then," he returned dully, and with a curious break in his voice. "Take your own wilful road, and come back to me when your heart's broken. I'll be waiting for you, Phyllis, and ready to forget and forgive."

She disdained to make any reply. The darky officiously gathered up the silk hat and gloves from the floor, and presented them to Mr. Ladd. The latter, with a last look at his daughter's unrelenting face, turned in silence, and passed out.

"The stairs are to the left, sah," said the darky.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

Whether disillusion was finally destined to arrive or not, there was certainly not a hint of it during those succeeding weeks. There was no happier little bride in America, than Phyllis Adair, and intimate acquaintance with that extraordinary creature, man, only redoubled her delight in him. The bigness, directness, simplicity, intolerance, and dog-like devotion of her husband were an unfailing joy to her. No little girl who had been given a coveted St. Bernard could have taken more anxious, eager, excited care of him. She would feed Adair with the daintiest morsels from her own plate; she would exert every faculty she possessed to amuse and distract him when he fell into one of his despondent moods; she would mock him with such pretty archness when he grew irritable over trifles. "Damn it all, where did that fool Williams put my patent leather shoes?"--"Damn it all, you will find them in the bottom of the wardrobe neatly ranged with the others," she would answer. No matter how ill his humor she always found the means to make him smile; her quick wit, or her slim, audacious body each exultantly willing to tease and bewitch him.

Of all human gifts surely that of loving has received the least general recognition. A genius for music, a genius for mathematics or natural history, or sculpture, or mechanics, is at once admitted and acclaimed. But what of a genius for loving, which of all is infinitely the rarest? The trouble is that every one is conceited enough to think that he (or she) is a wonder at it. But frankly, do we really indeed see so many love-geniuses about us? Are we not rather struck instead by an almost universal love-poverty? If the husband stays drearily at home every night of his life, and if the wife is entirely absorbed in the baby, are we not asked enthusiastically to applaud a happy home? This is the national ideal, and tens of thousands are yawning heroically through it. But where's love in any but half-pint sizes? Everybody insists it is there in barrelfuls, much as they insisted in the fairy tale in the case of the man with the invisible clothes.--We are not defending hubby when he gets tangled up with the blonde lady, but emotionally speaking (only emotionally, be it understood), it may be an upward step. If you have a ten per cent. capacity to love, it is hard to be fobbed off with a four per cent. partner.

Phyllis was one of the chosen few in whom the capacity to love was inordinate. Her one thought was to make herself indispensable to the man to whom she had given herself. Adair was the last thing in her head at night, the first at dawn. Hardly was there an act of hers in which his personality was not a contributing factor. Her insatiable ambition was to please and delight him, and her brain was ever busy to find fresh ways, and improve on the old. Her finesse, her humor, her ardent and tender imagination--all were enlisted to a single end. Passion she had in plenty, for she was of a voluptuous nature, and the blood coursed hotly in her veins--but she had more than that to give him, and was possessed of a thousand captivating arts to ensnare this love that was said to be so elusive, and bind it tight with a myriad silken threads.

It will be asked was Adair worthy of so supreme a devotion? Is it not enough to answer that he was not altogether unworthy? There was a lot of human clay in the creature, and while Phyllis was exerting all her blithe young ardor to keep the altar-fires aflame, he was content to look on lazily, and man-like, take many things for granted. Had she been no better, their love would have run the ordinary course, and perished fast enough on the rocks of habit and satiety. Adair's spiritual side was all but dormant. He was encased in materialism as stoutly as some of us in fat; whatever gropings he had toward higher things were all in the direction of the stage. Feelings he could not initiate himself he took here ready made, and showed almost a genius in their comprehension. He presented a paradox of one who could admirably "get into" any written character, and yet who was wholly unable to "get into" his own.

Phyllis knew much more what laid beneath than he. To her the yearning, troubled, inarticulate soul of the man appealed as pathetically as the sight of some great, ashamed, bearded fellow who had never been taught to read. In the finer sense Adair had never been taught anything. His instincts alone had saved him from being a clod. In his fight up from the bottom he had arrived a good deal splashed with mud; and Phyllis, figuratively speaking, rolled back her sleeves, and set herself to tubbing him.