"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?"
"You are nice," she said, giving him a candid, smiling look in which
there was a lurking roguishness; "and I'm glad we're going to be
friends; and I'm not a bit sorry I gave you a peep into an awfully
hidden place--a girl's heart, you know--though, of course, you mustn't
expect to make a habit of it; and I'm glad you're the great, famous,
splendid Rolls Reece, and are going to like me, and write Cyril a
wonderful play, and be our fairy uncle for ever and ever; and some day,
when you are accused of plagiarism or something, and they put you in
jail, I'll come down to the prison and bring you a loaf of bread with a
file in it, or change clothes with you in your cell, and then it will
come home to you how very lucky you were ever to know me, and you will
skip off to South America bursting with gratitude."
"In the meanwhile I'm afraid the fairy uncle had better bring his call
to an end," remarked Rolls Reece. "It's less spectacular--though I can
still be grateful, mayn't I? Indeed, I am so happy, Mrs. Adair, for you
have convinced me in more ways than you are aware of that we have been
unjust to your husband, and that I may safely trust the play to him."
"I can't help doubting whether you'll ever come back?" she said, as they
stood confronting each other. "It's a dream, and you are a
dream-dramatist, and I'll wake up from a nap, and will find everything
more miserable than before because of it.--Some day you will know what
this means to us," she added poignantly. "Some day when--when it's
long, long passed, and we can talk about it like ordinary people.--You
have to get a little way off to be sorry for yourself, don't you? I am
just beginning to see how unspeakably wretched and forlorn we were, that
poor boy and I, though I should probably have never found it out if it
hadn't been for you."
"Well, that's over," said Rolls Reece comfortingly. "If he'll work hard,
and do his best, I'll back Mr. Adair through thick and thin. He has an
unquestionable talent; it will be a pleasure, an inspiration to write
for him; if he'll do his share, I'll engage to do mine, and between us
we'll keep at it, play on play, till we land a winner. Only--" and here
he paused, and raised a warning finger.
"He'll be as good as gold," said Phyllis, filling in the interval.
"Don't let the fairy uncle worry about that."
"And when may I see him?"
An appointment was forthwith made for the same evening; and the
dramatist shook hands, and was about to go when Phyllis exclaimed again
that it was a dream, and that it simply couldn't, couldn't, couldn't be
true, and asked him laughingly to leave his umbrella as something
tangible to show Adair. Rolls Reece caught at the notion, but instead of
anything as prosaic as an umbrella, slipped off a superb ruby ring
instead, and laid it on the table.
"There's the pledge of the fairy uncle's return," he said gaily, and
hurried away before it could be restored to him.
"Good Heavens, Phyllis," cried Adair, "what's that thing?"
"A ring."
"But it's a ruby--why, it's valuable--where on earth did it come from?"
"A fairy uncle left it."
"Left it?"--Adair stared at her astounded.
"Yes, I was afraid he wouldn't keep his promise to come back, so he said
I could hold it by way of a pledge."
"But who is He?"
"Rolls Reece, I think his name is."
In an instant he was by her side, clutching at her arm.
"Phyllis--my God--it wasn't really Rolls Reece?"
"Yes, Booful-love-darling, it just was, and I've adopted him as our
fairy uncle, and he has adopted us, and he's coming back at nine this
evening to talk things over, and he wants to star you in a new play of
his, and listen, listen, Cyril, he believes in you, and says you have an
immense talent, and says he is going to write you play after play, and,
oh, my darling, my darling, my darling--!"
*CHAPTER XXVII*
Rolls Reece returned and redeemed his ring, and attested his sincerity
in manifold and delightful ways. He did not mince matters with Adair,
however, and put it to him straight, in a man-to-man talk that lasted
but twenty minutes yet in which everything was said, accepted, and
agreed on. The actor, dosed alternately with home-truths and praise,
emerged triumphantly from the ordeal.
He was told he had missed a magnificent career; that it was only his own
unmitigated folly he had to thank for it; that the number of successful
dramatists who were willing to write plays for him was reduced to
precisely one--and that one was none too sure of his, Adair's,
reformation--though as confident as ever, more than ever, of his genius.
That word, like charity, covered a multitude of sins, if Rolls Reece
could say that nothing else mattered. Adair, in fact, let the whole case
against him go by default.
"I'm changed," he said simply. "That's all behind me, Reece. The
reason for it is in the other room there--and I should think the sight
of her is worth all the denials and protestations I could make."
"Yes, indeed, it is, Adair," said Rolls Reece.
"I suppose there are men who can get along by themselves, and be
decent," remarked Adair. "But I need girl-ballast in my little ship,
and if I had had it earlier I shouldn't have made such a confounded ass
of myself."
"Then we can count it as all arranged--and I'm going to start at work on
the play to-morrow."
"It may sound commonplace," said Adair, "but apart from your play, and
success, and all that--I'd like to make her, well, you know--feel that
she hadn't drawn such an awful blank in the husband-raffle. Oh, God,
Reece, I've pulled her down to this--look at this place I've made her
live in, will you?--And I shan't breathe a free breath till I get her
out of it."
"It is in your own hands, Adair."
"Perhaps you overestimate my--well, what I can do?"
"No, I don't, and I'm not alone in that either. Fielman, Fordingham,
Taylor, Niedringer--it's common talk with all of them. You can pull it
off if you want to."
"Oh, Lord, don't say that again, Reece. If anybody on this mortal earth
ever wanted to, it's me."
"Not another word then. You're satisfied and so am I; and if you should
ever feel discouraged, remember there are only about thirteen men in
America who can act, and you are one of them, and not the last, either.
Let's call in that charming wife of yours, and see if she doesn't agree
with me."
Rolls Reece secured a six weeks' engagement for Adair in a play of his
called _The Upstarts_, that was touring Washington, Baltimore, Syracuse,
Cincinnati, and what are called the near-by cities. The hundred and
fifty dollars a week seemed a veritable fortune, though it was judged
wiser to husband it by letting Phyllis remain in New York, and thus save
the heavy traveling expenses that would otherwise have been incurred for
her. The dormice had learned the value of money with a vengeance. Adair
himself, once the most careless of spenders, now showed an economy that
was laughable and pathetic. He foreswore cigars; lived in the cheapest
of cheap boarding-houses; grudged every penny that could be saved.
There was to be no more shingle for dormice, but a warm little nest
lined with green bills, from which, in hard times, they could put out
their little noses unafraid.
Rolls Reece expected to secure him another engagement with a western
company to fill in the summer months; and with such an agent enlisted in
his service the most spendthrift of actors needed to have taken no
thought for the future. But Adair, who never did anything by halves,
was cautious to the point of penury. He was determined Phyllis should
never suffer such privations again, and those who called him miserly and
mean little suspected the reasons that made him appear so. Phyllis
herself was kept in the dark lest she should emulate his example; and
the savings-bank account rose and rose without her having the least
knowledge of it. The equivalent of cabs, good dinners, cigars, wine,
expensive rooms, and Pullman berths stacked themselves in that yellow
pass-book, and bore witness to a stoical self-denial. No more shingles
for dormice, thank you!
In spite of the separation Phyllis was not unhappy during those long,
silent days. Spring was in the air, and her heart, too, basked in that
inner sunshine of contentment and hope. Like a weary little soldier she
was glad to rest on the battlefield beside the parked cannon, and enjoy
the contemplation of victory. Body and soul had been sorely tried; the
reaction left both in a sweet languor; it was pleasant to do nothing; to
lie back dreaming.
Rolls Reece came often to see her, and many a day they spent in his big
motor racing over the snowy landscape of Long Island or Westchester
County. He sent her flowers; he was assiduous in the little attentions
women like; he was always so cheerful, so helpful, so kind. For him it
was an intimacy that might have had a dangerous ending. He was
perilously near falling desperately in love with Phyllis, and the latter
never showed more address than in the way she guided him past the rock
on which their friendship might have foundered. She was quite frank
about it--disarmingly frank. She liked him too well to lose him, and
told him so, and was prettily imperious with him, and yet never
provocative nor coquettish. A man and woman friendship is nothing
without sentiment, but it has to be a loyal, tender sentiment, that can
cause neither the least self-reproach. Rolls Reece slipped by the rock
unhurt, admiring as he did so the adroitness of the young beauty whom he
knew had grown so fond of him. As to that there was never any
question--it was self-confessed--and being a man he was naturally
flattered and pleased.
But he was high-bred, sensitive, clever, and innately a gentleman, with
an unusual perception, and a taste for the rarer and finer qualities of
women. Others in his place might have persevered harder, and then turned
sullen. He did neither. Indeed, Phyllis' whole love-story, as it came
out by degrees, touched him profoundly. Her audacity, her daring, her
blind reckless headlong surrender to the man that had captivated
her--all these to him were more than moving. A woman that could stake
everything for love was altogether to Rolls Reece's taste. And Phyllis
had not only staked everything, but had succeeded in the more difficult
task of making love endure and grow. There were many subjects on which
she knew nothing; she could not have told the name of the
vice-president, and she thought the Balkans were in South America, but
when it came to love the dramatist was amazed at her profundity. On
this topic, however, the one topic that seriously interested her, she
had an insight and a knowledge, not to speak of a whole whimsical
vocabulary that made Reece appreciate his own shortcomings. Love,
passion, sex--these were the real things of life and that demure brown
head was insatiably concerned with them.
Of course, the new play, too, came in for an endless amount of talk and
discussion. It was to be called _The Firebrand_, and every few days
Rolls Reece had a little sheaf of manuscript to read to her. It dealt
with a young man, who, in the whirl of politics, had secured the place
of a police-court magistrate in a low quarter of Chicago. The
suffering, misery and injustice thus passing in review before him, first
startles and then rouses a nature passionately sympathetic and humane.
His decisions are original, picturesque, and conventions are torn to
pieces. He clashes with the boss who has put him into office, and
defies him. The young judge makes enemies right and left; alienates the
family of the girl he is engaged to; is sold up at auction through
liabilities assumed on behalf of a children's society he has started.
The boss leads in the machinations to ruin him, which is made the easier
by the firebrand's own hot-headedness and indiscretion; the third act is
in an assignation house where the judge is trapped. He explains his
innocence to his triumphant tormentors; he tells of the half-grown girl
he has trailed there, and appeals, with a fine outburst, to their
humanity to help him save her; the boss refuses, and taunts him with the
scandal that next day will shake Chicago. Then the judge plays his
trump card, and tells them what he had been trying to hold back, that
the girl is no other than the boss' own daughter; and smashing open a
door discloses her and the satyr, who has brought her there. This, in
brief, was the play, shorn of all its externals--an intense, powerful,
essentially modern play, brutally real, and yet animated by a burning
purpose, and a resentment no less fiery against the diabolical
misgovernment of our large cities.
Rolls Reece labeled it "dangerous goods," which in truth it was, and was
correspondingly uplifted. He said he was tired of writing sugar-candy
plays, and wished to show his detractors that he could grapple with big
emotions as well as the lesser, pink-tea femininities with which his
name was always associated. "And remember, Mrs. Adair," he explained,
"I don't want a goody-goody young man with a benevolent forehead and a
spotless past, and a Y.M.C.A. accent--but an impatient,
chip-on-his-shoulder, impulsive fellow, who would like to get off the
bench and fight somebody. It's a Cyril Adair play, and I am going to
fit him as carefully as a Fifth Avenue tailor. And on the police-court
judge side of it, I am going to show the public the colossal power those
men have for good or evil. They can blight more human lives in one
morning than the whole Supreme Court could do in ten years. In their
dingy little field they are absolute monarchs, from which there is no
appeal. We owe thousands of criminals to their crass stupidity, and
when they work in collusion with corrupt politicians they are a scourge
and a terror to every decent man or woman in their midst."
The dramatist had referred several times to a friend of his, Andrew
Hexham, whom he particularly wished Phyllis and Adair to meet.
Ordinarily so frank he was somewhat hazy and mysterious in his
references to this personage, who apparently was a man of large fortune,
and of considerable importance in theatrical affairs. Once Reece
dropped his play, and went off for three days--an extraordinary lapse
from his habit of persistent industry--and on his return mentioned he
had been, staying with Hexham, smiling in a queer, guilty kind of way
that tantalized Phyllis' curiosity. But nothing could be got out of
him--at least nothing that could explain his singular entertainment
whenever Hexham's name came up. It seemed, however, that this man had
to be won over; that _The Firebrand_ was in some dim manner dependent on
his good will; that he was a fussy, troublesome, dictatorial person, not
a little prejudiced against Adair. This had to be overcome at a
meeting; and Phyllis, especially, was commanded to go out of her way to
be "nice to him"--"You're such an irresistible little baggage when you
choose," said Rolls Reece. "I want you to tie him up in bow-knots, just
as you tied me, to dazzle him, and then we'll sign the contract right
there before he can undazzle himself."
"I'm not much good at fascinating people unless I like them," returned
Phyllis ingenuously and doubtfully.
"Oh, you'll like him," protested Reece. "I'll answer for that, you
know."
"Well, I'll do my best," said Phyllis, wondering to herself what it all
meant. "I'll sit very close, and make dachshund eyes at him, and
encourage him to talk about himself. That's the secret of woman's charm
when you analyze it. See how it caught you!"
It was too bad, though, that Rolls Reece should have chosen the Sunday
that Adair ran over from Philadelphia, where _The Upstarts_ was booked
for a week. The pair had been separated for nearly four weeks, and
Phyllis wanted her husband all to herself. Rolls Reece, Andrew Hexham,
even _The Firebrand_ itself, were very secondary things when weighed
against the rapture of Adair's return. She pleaded with Rolls Reece to
postpone the meeting until Monday afternoon, but the dramatist with
unexpected obstinacy stood out for Sunday evening. Hints were lost on
him, and even some pink-cheeked, shy, half-murmured things merely made
him laugh instead of relenting.--Sunday night it had to be.
But to do him justice, the dramatist tempered severity with his usual
generosity. He sent a prodigal amount of flowers, as well as a case of
champagne, and would have contributed his colored butler had he been
allowed--which he wasn't. Phyllis said that the Pest Person (as all
that day she hotly called Mr. Hexham)--the Pest Person had to take them
as they were, and if there was one thing worse than a hired butler, it
was a borrowed one. If the Pest Person didn't like the way he was
treated--if he were the sort of Pest Person who judged people by striped
nigger-trousers and gilt chandeliers, why, he could just go to the
devil.--Which went to show, incidentally, how good that four weeks' rest
had been for Phyllis, and how fast she was getting back her former
spirit.
At nine that evening Adair and Phyllis were both waiting for their
visitors. True to her promise to Rolls Reece the latter had dressed
herself with unusual care; and Adair, who was allowed to see but not
touch, swore she had never looked more ravishing. Her fresh young
womanhood entranced him; she was so slender, so graceful, so girlish,
and the red rose in her hair was not more exquisite. What a beauty she
was! How altogether perfect from the top of her dark head to her trim
little feet!--And the saucy mouth that was always ready to part on the
dazzling teeth; the low, sweet, eager voice; the bubbling, caressing
laugh--after four weeks of loneliness, of dismal, dreary separation, it
was as though he had never really appreciated them before; and it was
intolerable to be stuck to a chair and forbidden to move when everything
in him bade him seize her in his arms, and assert his master's right.
Worst still, Rolls Reece and the Pest Person were late. The minutes
ticked away--five past, ten past, a quarter past, twenty past--and yet
there was neither dramatist nor Pest.--Ah, there they were at last!
Phyllis ran to admit them, fumbling at the latch of the door in her
excitement. She opened it on the dimly-lighted landing, and held out
both hands in welcome to Rolls Reece, who stood before her. His friend
was hidden in the shadow, but as she glanced towards him recognition
suddenly pierced her heart. It was her father!
All he said was her name, and that so humbly, and with an intonation so
affecting that she flung her arms about him in a paroxysm of tenderness,
unmindful of everything save the love that suddenly flooded her whole
being. Misunderstanding, self-justification, the rights or wrongs of
their unhappy estrangement--all were forgotten, all were swept away.
Clinging to him she guided him along the passageway and into the
sitting-room, where Adair, bewildered and astonished, was waiting to
receive them. Even in the throes of that tumultuous moment Phyllis,
trying to see with her father's eyes, took in Adair with a welling
pride. Never had he appeared to her more manly, more distinguished or
noble; and when she said: "My husband, Daddy," it was with a little air
that told of her own content with the man of her choice.
"I am here in the character of a repentant father, with ashes on his
head," said Mr. Ladd; and going up to Adair, held out his hand. "Will
you not forgive me?" he asked, "and may we not be friends?"
Rolls Reece had looked forward to being present at this evening of
reconciliation; of being patted on the back for the big part he had
taken in it; of drinking his own champagne amid the ensuing festivity
and joy. But as he saw the two men's hands meet and grasp; as he saw
Phyllis press between them, her eyes suffusing, and sobs choking her
utterance, he realized that he was gazing at a scene too sacred for him
to share. He silently effaced himself, shut the door without noise, and
tiptoed down the stairs.
"It's a good world," he murmured to himself, "yes, a damned good world;
and in spite of what people say, things often work out right."