Part 33

"And what's the poor little damned goat going to do?" she asked, the quoted profanity on her pretty lips as piquant and tender as a lullaby; and accompanying it with a smile so arch that Adair's face, too, could not but light with it.

"Face the music and then get out," returned the D. G.

"Out where, dearest?"

Adair grew overcast.

"Mortimer Clark's on the road somewhere," he said reflectively, "and I'm sure he'd make room for me if he had to fire a whole company. Then there's Nan O'Farrell in the Diamond Diadem and Leo Foster in the Slaves of Circumstance. They are all on the cheap, and would jump at the chance of getting me at their prices. As soon as I get round to it, I'll telegraph."

Phyllis hesitated, but at last the words came.

"On the cheap," she repeated. "Why don't you aim higher, Cyril? Why don't you try the real people--those who are worth while, especially now, when you're going to break away from Steinberger?"

His only reply was a shake of the head.

"You know you're too good for this sort of thing," she went on. "It isn't flattery to tell you that--you see it yourself every night--I saw it, and that's why I-- Oh, Cyril, let's try to get where you belong."

"You don't understand," he said moodily. "You don't understand a bit. I had all that once, and I kicked it over. The stage is an awfully small place--for anybody that amounts to anything, you know--though as big as an ocean for the others. There isn't anybody of importance--manager or star--who doesn't hate me." He perceived the doubt in her glance, and continued swiftly: "Oh, it's no conspiracy, or jealousy, or anything of that kind--a tip-top man can override all that if there's money in him for the box-office--but I've set them all against me. There isn't one I haven't punched or insulted somehow. I hold the record for being the best-detested man on Broadway. Why, Alfred Fielman once--that was six years ago, when I was by way of being a metropolitan favorite, and all that, ha, ha--he had me on a forty weeks' contract, and at the end of three he gave me a check for the rest and told me he had no more use for my services. Thirty-seven weeks' full salary--think of it--and the door!"

"But isn't it different now?" asked Phyllis, enfolding him with a pair of the whitest, softest, shapeliest arms in the world, and pressing her cheek against his face. "You've got good since then, and are now mama's little man!"

"Look at last night," protested mama's little man dismally. "Drinking, fighting, gambling, and my job out of the window! That's been me right along--two weeks' notice, and for God's sake, never come back!"

"Just a damned goat," rippled Phyllis, her teeth shining like pearls, and her cheeks dimpling mischievously.

"A silly ass," ejaculated Adair with much self-contempt.

"Now, I want to tell you my idea," cried Phyllis. "We're going to pack up, poor booful disgraced genius--and wife (as they add on hotel registers); and we're going to count our poor little pennies, and take a tourist sleeper to New York, and get a little flat of the sort they rent to dormice in reduced circumstances, and live on air and kisses and hope--while poor Booful will go round telling everybody he's a reformed character, and looking for an engagement. And if the top all hates him, and if the middle is all full, why Booful will begin at the bottom, while Mrs. Booful will wash, and cook, and darn his socks--oh, no, listen,--yes, and darn his socks, and pet him when he is discouraged and cross, and keep everything scrupulously clean (in books if you're awfully poor, you're always scrupulously clean, haven't you noticed it)? Yes, scrupulously clean, and oh, so economical of every nickel till everybody begins to see that Booful isn't a damned goat, but a man of splendid talent, and up, up, up he'll go like a balloon, till there won't be a garbage-can without his name on it, or a bill-board without somebody "presenting" him in letters six feet high, and fame and money will pour in like a Niagara, and, and--Cyril, why shouldn't we?"

His look of indulgence and amusement had gradually changed to downright eagerness.

"If you can stand it, I can," he said.

"Oh, Cyril, I'm not afraid--let's do it!"

"We'll be starvation poor."

"But in a home of our own--no more of these horrid hotels, no more traveling, and something big to live and hope for."

"Those dormice flats are awfully squeezy--and dark."

"So's a robin's nest, for that matter."

"And those pretty hands--it would be wicked to spoil them."

"Oh, I won't spoil them--besides, what would be the good of them if they couldn't work for the man I love."

"Scrubbing floors, and cleaning kettles and polishing the stove?"

"You can help a little."

"And suppose, instead of being easy, it's very hard? It takes courage to start again. You'll have to be brave enough for two, for I've none of that kind of grit or perseverance. Do you think you can bolster up a great big fellow like me, who'll come home like a baby and cry?"

"We'll bolster up each other."