Part 34

"I--I wish I was more worthy of you, Phyllis."

"Stop kissing my toes--it tickles--and oh, Cyril, don't bite them!"

"I'm ashamed--you are so sweet and good and clever and brave--and the whole of me isn't worth that little pink one, and I don't think I've ever loved you so much as I do this minute, or respected you more. If you were married to a street-car conductor I believe you'd make him president of the United States--and if your husband mayn't bite you, who can?"

"You darling!"

"And I swear by that one that I love you better than anything in the world; and by that one I'll be true to you all my life; and by that one I'll cut my tongue out before I'll ever say an unkind word to you again; and by that one I'm going to do everything you say, just as though you were an angel from Heaven, which you are if ever there was one; and by that fat little big toe that I'm going to try to copy the tenderest, gentlest, most exquisite nature that God ever breathed into a human being; and by the whole chubby little white satin foot--"

"Do sit up--it's important."

"I thought it was all settled. We'll start for New York as soon as I am fired--officially."

"Cyril?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"I'm so infatuated with you that perhaps I don't see things as they are. It is not a dream, is it, that you really could get on in New York--I mean if you lived down all the ill will against you there? I try to detach myself, and criticize you dispassionately--but you always seem to me so tremendously good."

"I am good--in my own kind of work."

"You've no dread of failure?"

"In handing out the goods--? Not a particle, Phyllis. Why should I? Haven't I done it?"

"In your New York days?"

"Why, Phyllis, this isn't brag. I've got notices to show for it, corking notices. What you have seen me do is not my best. No one could do that with the support I get, and I have to carry the whole outfit single handed. A company ought to be a string orchestra--and they give me a brass band!"

"Have you got the notices?--I'd love to see them!"

"They're at the bottom of the trunk somewhere--three books of them."

"Do get them out, and let me read some."

After long rummaging the books were produced. Phyllis, who in the interval had put on a peignoir, and begun to comb her hair, seized on one of them enthusiastically. It was an unwieldy, shabby old volume, and so heavy it was hard to hold. The exertion, and perhaps the excitement had caused Adair's head to throb again, and he was glad to stretch his length on the bed while Phyllis, drawing up a rocking chair, seated herself as close as she could beside him.

The actor had not exaggerated his past successes. For three seasons he had been a notable figure on Broadway, and if his reputation had been more one of promise than achievement it was in dazzling contrast to what he had since become. He had himself almost forgotten the stir he had made--not the deafening curtain calls, the brimming box-offices, the deferential managers,--none could forget that--but the soberer, yet more valuable evidence of the critics. It was electrifying to listen to them again; to see across the mean, intervening years that other self of his lording it so high; to realize, with mingled bitterness, wonder and hope that he was still the same man, with the same if not richer powers, and a new-born resolution to regain what he had so lightly valued and so unconcernedly thrown away.

Phyllis, pink with excitement, and tripping occasionally over the longer words, read notice after notice with indefatigable zest, constantly substituting Booful and other endearing epithets for the more formal name in print, while her husband lay back, listening delightedly, and contributing exclamations, "By George, and it was William Winter who said that!"--"Say, that's Huneker, isn't it?" "A column in The World isn't handed out to everybody, not by a long sight."

BOOFUL OPENS AT WALLACK'S THE HONOR OF THE REGIMENT PLEASES, BUT NEEDS CUTTING. THE STAR SCORES AS MOODY HERO, AND EXCELS HIMSELF IN MAGNIFICENT PORTRAYAL OF EBHARDT.

"Those who went last night to see Booful were not disappointed, however they may have disagreed about the play itself. For that brilliant young darling it was hardly less than a personal triumph, and from the rise of the curtain--"

It was a very inconsiderate moment for a heavy rap at the door.

"Come in," cried Adair.

In the shadow stood a bulky figure--a blue figure--a figure with something shining on its swelling chest. Phyllis looked and quailed as the bravest of us do at the sight of the Law, intruding its hob-nailed boot into what is metaphorically termed our castle. In this case the castle was so small, and the Law so large and red and impressive that the former seemed but a trifling refuge against oppression. In the accents of a green and troubled island the new-comer asked: "Are you Misther Adair--Misther Surul Adair?"

"That's me, all right," said the actor.

"You're summonsed for assault and battery, and here's the payper, and it's before Judge Dunn ye're to come at two o'clock."