Part 43

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?"