Chapter XIV
Once outside the door, she had raced downstairs like the wind, put on her hat anyhow, and sped into the darkness, without waiting for wrap or gloves. Her first idea had been to reach the theater, but as she turned down side streets in order to evade pursuit and get the Fairmount Avenue car line, she realized that this involved too much time. Her watch, hastily looked at under a lamp, showed that it was after eight o’clock, and that she could not hope to gain the theater before the first act began. She decided to telephone instead, and accordingly, walking very fast, and sometimes running until a pain in her side forced her to desist, she made her way to Fairmount Avenue, and to a drug-store she knew to be there. It was the matter of a moment to look up the number of the Thalia Theater, unhook the receiver, and get central.
“Nick-el,” murmured that impersonal arbiter of human destinies.
“I don’t understand—please give me my number, I’m in such a hurry.”
“Nick-el!”
“Drop a nickel in the slot, Miss,” said the clerk helpfully.
She had come away without her purse. She hadn’t a penny!
As quick as thought she pulled off one of her rings, and laid it on the counter.
“I have forgotten my purse,” she said. “Please let me have a quarter, and I’ll redeem the ring to-morrow.”
She had been resourceful enough to recollect she needed more than a nickel—there was the trolley fare to the theater and back.
The clerk took the ring with no great willingness; examined it with every apparent intention of denying her request; then examined her with the same sharp look. The horrid creature recognized her, and his manner changed to a cringing deference. “Oh, Miss Ladd, I beg your pardon, I didn’t know it was you, Miss Ladd. A quarter? Why certainly, Miss Ladd. Only too happy to oblige you, Miss Ladd. Take back your ring, and pay any time at your convenience, Miss Ladd.” He rang open his cash register, and passed her three nickels and a dime, together with the ring. “Put it back where it belongs,” he said, smirking and rubbing his hands. “My, what would the boss say to me if I told him I had kept Miss Phyllis Ladd’s ring!”
She thanked him, and again gave the number at the telephone, dropping in the nickel that had cost her so much. The clerk, though he had moved away, was all eyes and ears, and she had an unpleasant sensation of being watched. But it was too late to draw back now. Her need was too urgent, too desperate for such irritating trifles to deter her from her purpose. The horrid creature would stare. Well, let him stare! He would chatter about it, too, of course. Well, let him chatter!
“Thalia Theater—box-office.”
“I want to speak to Mr. Adair at once.”
“It’s impossible—he’s in his dressing-room, and we ring up in eight minutes.”
“I simply have to speak to him.”
“Can’t do it—it’s against the rules.”
“Oh, you must, you simply must!”
“Who are you?”
“Miss Ladd!”
“Who did you say?”
“Miss Ladd—L-A-D-D.”
“What is it, please, that you want to see Mr. Adair about?”
“Something very important.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”
“No, no, please. Mr. Adair will never forgive you if you don’t.” Then she had an inspiration. Where or how she had learned the name she hardly knew, but it flashed across her mind at this moment. “Is Mr. Merguelis there?”
“I am Mr. Merguelis.”
“Mr. Tom Merguelis?”
“Yes.”
“Then you might know who I am. Mr. Adair—”
“Oh, say, yes—you’re not the little lady that he—”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“But, my dear, he’s in his dressing-room, and that’s on the level.”
“I simply must talk to him for a second, and you must go and get him.”
“Hello, hello—is that you? Hello—yes, my dear, I’m sending for him. Please hold the line.”
What an age it seemed, standing there with the receiver to her ear, and her heart bursting with impatience. Meaningless scraps of talk strained her attention; when these stopped she was in terror lest she had been cut off; at last there was the peculiar jarring and disturbance that showed someone getting into touch at the other end, followed by Adair’s strong clear challenge.
“Who wants Mr. Adair?”
“I do—it’s Phyllis.”
“Oh, my little girl, I’m in a frightful rush. Hurry up, tell me what’s the matter?”
“I want to see you as soon as I can—something awful has happened.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you here—but can’t you guess?”
“Trouble at home?”
“Yes.”
“Found out?”
“Yes.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
Adair paused. Events were moving faster than he had anticipated. He was both thrilled and bewildered at the suddenness of it all.
“It’s risky,” he said, in a voice that shook a little, “but you’ll have to come up and see me here—there’s nothing else for it.”
“That’s what I want to do,” she answered.
“I’ll fix it up with the door-keeper to take you to my dressing-room. Just say you have an appointment with me, and he’ll understand. Wait there for me until the first act is over—will you?”
“Yes, Cyril.”
“And you will excuse me if I run? They’ll have to hold the curtain as it is.”
“Yes, yes—and I’ll be there.”
“Au revoir, sweetheart!”
“Good-by—I won’t be long.”
The stage-door, like most stage-doors, was to be found in a cut-throat alley, so dark, dangerous, and forbidding in its aspect that it took all of Phyllis’ courage to enter it. A ratty-looking individual, so compactly built into the entrance that he could open the door by a shove of his boot, exerted this labor-saving device in answer to her knock, and glowered at her from over the paper he was reading.
“What do you want?” demanded the ratty individual.
“I have an appointment with Mr. Adair.”
He rose without a word; and leading her up some steps, guided her inside the theater. In the twilight of the wings were some stage-hands in overalls; an actor whom she recognized as the wicked prince, sitting on a soap-box, waiting listlessly for his cue; from the stage itself came the sound of voices raised to an unreal pitch, and strangely exciting and fantastic, in a cadence that was neither recitative nor speech. She could not help noticing, even in her agitation, the shabby, dilapidated, disorderly appearance of everything—the ropes, the dusty props, the frayed material of the scenes, the general air of comfortlessness—receiving the shock that comes to every one on first seeing the theater from the wrong side. But the ratty individual gave her no time to take more than a passing glance, leading the way with whispered warnings through a gorge of canvas, and down a twisting iron stair to the dressing-rooms below. He stopped at one of the little cabin-like doors, opened it, and ushered her in. Then he left her, and shuffled away with diminishing footfalls.
The dressing-room was bald, bare, uncarpeted, and painted a staring white. Below a mirror flanked by two flaring gas-jets there ran a sort of shelf on which were grease-paints, crayons, brushes, a pot of cold-cream, a pot of rouge, and other necessaries for “making up.” From nails on the wall—common, every-day nails—there straggled an untidy line of men’s clothes. On a box in the corner was a wash-basin, pitcher, soap, and a towel that was none too clean. Three empty chairs, and a wall decoration completed the picture. The wall decoration was a printed notice, in large and emphatic letters: “Smoking positively prohibited in this theater. Ladies must not use alcohol curling-irons.”
Most young women, in a situation so equivocal and so unfamiliar, would have been ill at ease, frightened, apprehensive of many vague and dimly suspected dangers. But Phyllis’ faith in Adair had none of this faltering quality. She loved, and loving she trusted. Her tremors had ended the moment the door had closed her in—the moment, in fact, when the others would have trembled most. To her, on the contrary, the little room breathed security for the very reason that it was Adair’s. With adorable folly she pressed kisses on all his outstretched possessions; nuzzled her cheek against his coat; put her little foot beside one of his big man’s shoes, delighting in the contrast—and altogether felt greatly comforted and refreshed.
After a while she heard a tremendous commotion overhead that swelled, sank and swelled again as the house broke into applause at the end of the act. There was a lumbering, scratchy, pattering sound as of a dozen pianos being moved at once by stalwart men in slippers—it was the new scene being set. The passageway outside, previously so still, resounded with a rush of feet—with exclamations and laughter as the company scudded to make their respective changes. The door was flung open, and there, brisk and smiling, on the threshold stood Corrèze!
Phyllis ran to his arms, and hiding her face against him began to cry. She was so happy, so wretched; the misery of that last hour had tried her more than she knew; her joy at seeing Adair seemed to exhaust the little strength she had left, and her conflicting emotions could find vent only in tears. How sweet it was to be petted, to be soothed—to feel so small, and weak, and helpless in that powerful clasp! Her tears flowed afresh. Flowed at the thought of her love for him, of his love for her, at the beauty, wonder, and solace of it all. Nothing could ever harm them as long as they had each other, nothing, nothing.
She made him take a chair, and seating herself at his feet crossed her arms on his knees and looked up at him. In this position it seemed easier to confide, easier to answer his persistent questions, easier at the same time to satisfy her craving to nestle close. As Adair heard of the letter he turned as black as a thunder-cloud and his hands clenched.
“I know whom I’ve to thank for that!” he exclaimed furiously. “The damned little treacherous hound, I could choke her for it! I’ve seen something working in her eyes all along, but I never dreamed she could be as low and contemptible as that! And so she was keeping tab on us, was she, with all her mean little eyes and ears, the dyed toad!”
“Cyril, you really know who it is?”
He made a hissing sound—a disgusted assent. “She isn’t twenty feet from here,” he exclaimed, “unless she is at the key-hole this moment.” He rose; stepped to the door, and looked out. “Not here,” he said.
“But tell me, is she one of the actresses in the company?”
“Never you mind,” he returned roughly; and then, with a quick remorse at the look in Phyllis’ face, he apologized in a roundabout fashion by denouncing the stage in general. “It’s a low, dirty business,” he cried, “and the people in it are a low, dirty lot; and I guess I’m not so damned much better myself; and if you had a spark of sense you’d clear out, and never see me again! Do you hear what I’m telling you, little chap? Do you hear, Phyllis girl?” He put down his hand, and caught her ear between his thumb and finger, giving it a shake. “Skin out, you darling baby. Your father’s right. Go back with my compliments, and tell him I said so!”
His jeering tone hurt her; there was too much sincerity in his self-contempt, too genuine a ring to his proposed dismissal. The contradictory creature, stung to the quick by that letter, and indignantly conscious of much of its truth, was floundering towards righteousness, like a walrus after a floe. Hell, he didn’t mean her any harm. Let her get out.
“You’d better hurry,” he said, pinching her ear again. “I’m just a cheap actor, as common as the dirt in the road, and you’re a beautiful young lady a million times too good for this kind of game. All that you can get out of it is dishonor and disgrace. Go away—let’s drop it—love somebody who’s worth loving.”
He tried to push her from him, but she clung only the tighter, her face paling at his earnestness, and stubbornly looking up at his.
“You couldn’t say that if you were—what you say you are.”
“How do you know it isn’t a trick!” he exclaimed, “just another move in the game—just to get you a little further out of your depth, and then drown you?” His hands closed round her neck with brutal pleasure in her youth, her softness, her delicacy, her powerlessness.
“It’s strange,” he said wonderingly, “but at this moment when you have never been more tempting to me, I am willing to let you go—want to let you go. It’s the first good resolution in my life, yet you stick here like an infatuated little noodle, waiting for it to pass.”
She snuggled closer against him.
“Am I tempting?”
“My God, yes.”
“And you love me?”
“Oh, my darling, I do, I do!”
“And wouldn’t it be nice for a poor little lonesome cheap actor, who’s really a great big splendid noble person of genius, if he only knew it—to have me to pet him and love him and adore him, and kiss away his morbid, silly moods, and make such a darling baby of him that he’d burst out crying if I were out of his sight a minute?”
He looked at her sharply for an underlying meaning—a comprehension—an assent. But her candor and innocence were transparent; the purity beneath those limpid depths shone like a diamond in a pool. Her love took no thought of anything base or wrong, either in him or in her; all she sought was the assurance that he loved her, and wanted her; and this achieved she was content to leave the rest to him with unquestioning faith. She did not come of the class to whom marriage is vividly seen as a protection, a safe-guard, a coveted lien on a pocket-book and a man, enforceable by the police; to her it was more one of those inevitable formalities that attend all the big events of life, from being born to being buried, and which one accepts as a matter of course.
Adair, in a gust of passion, caught her up on his knees, and crushed her unresisting body in his arms. Everything was forgotten in the maddening rapture of the moment. The fragrance of her young beauty over-mastered him. His head reeled in the greatest of all intoxications—the woman-drunkenness that makes men crazy. Between his clenched teeth he whispered: “You are mine, and I am going to keep you—you shall never get away now. You had your chance, but it’s gone, fool that I was ever to offer it. But now I’ll kill you first; do you hear, Phyllis, I’ll kill you first, for you’re mine, body and soul, and you’ve gone too far ever to draw back.” His voice sank lower; he was beside himself; all he knew was that she was shaking convulsively—that her face, her lips were burning—that love, shame, devouring fever all flamed in the eyes she tried to hide from him.
A knock at the door startled him to his feet. Rap, rap, rap!
“You’re called, Mr. Adair,” said the voice from without.
“All right, Williams!”
His quick, matter-of-fact tone was as much a shock to Phyllis as the interruption itself. To fall from the clouds, and then land so squarely and coolly on the earth below was a performance disturbing to witness. It seemed to cast suspicion on his sincerity up above. But the misgiving was a fleeting one, for as he turned to her, she perceived in his air of concern and resolution that she was still the dominant thought in his mind.
“See here, Phyllis,” he said, speaking fast, “this means only one thing. The company leaves Saturday night after the show to jump to Ferrisburg. You must come with me—that’s all there is to it.—Will you?”
She bowed her head, for somehow she could not answer in words.
“It won’t do for us to see each other till then; but you ring me up on Saturday between twelve and one at the St. Charles Hotel, and we’ll fix up the dates. Have you got that straight?”
She bowed her head again, more overcome than ever.
“Don’t worry about a trunk, or any damned foolishness of that sort. Trunks have busted more elopements than six-shooters—just a nightie and a tooth-brush, and we’ll manage the rest at Ferrisburg!” His glance sought for some evasion, some backwardness, but there was neither.
“It’s the only thing to do,” she said simply. “Only, only—” She was holding fast to his hand, swaying a little.
He waited for some objection; some silly, feminine obstacle—
“You do love me, don’t you?” she asked as pleadingly as a child. “If you love me I could do anything. Tell me you love me, Cyril.”
He kissed her hastily, saying “yes,” and again “yes,” and ran out of the dressing-room. A thin deferential man peeped in. “I’m Mr. Adair’s dresser, Miss,” he said. “He told me to show you the way out. If you would be so good as to follow me, Miss.”
“Good-night, Miss!”