“ Phyllis had been sent home alone long before this, and Adair found her sound asleep in bed. A considerate husband would have let her lie undisturbed, and would have kept his great news till the morning. But Adair had no more compunction in waking her up than if she had been a pet puppy; and rolled her over, and tumbled her about almost as roughly, and with the same clenched-teeth zest in her drowsiness, beauty and helplessness. And she, woman-like, loved it, roughness and all--which goes to show how stupid consideration is at times, and how misplaced. ”

“ With her maid's knock at the door there came a sudden revulsion. Phyllis called to her to go away, unwilling to be seen in her defenselessness, and fearful of she knew not what. But the spell was broken. The bubble of that pretty fantasy vanished at one touch of fact. Harsh reality obtruded itself, and with it a pitiless self-arraignment. She had been swept off her feet by a third-class actor, in a third-class play, full of mawkish sentiment and unreality, in a third-class theater where they chewed gum, and ate apples while they wept over the hero's woes! ”

“ Dear Mr. Adair: I have seen Moths twice, and may I, a mere member of the public, and altogether unknown to you, take the great liberty of expressing my admiration of your powerful portrayal of a noble nature struggling against an illicit passion? Nothing I have ever seen on the stage has moved me so deeply, and though praise from an absolute stranger may seem little in your eyes, I can not resist the impulse that makes me write. Trusting you will receive this in the spirit that prompts it, believe me, in sincere homage, Phyllis Ladd. ”

“ Is love, indeed--true love, anything else? Glamour and idealization--we would not go far without either, and many, hand in hand, have trod the long path to the grave, and died happy with their illusions. Nature, to screen her coarser intent, fools us, little children that we are, with these pretty and poetic artifices. May it always be so, for God knows, it is an ugly world, and it does not do to peer too curiously behind the scenes.
There was a Mrs. Beekman that Phyllis knew, the widow of a distinguished lawyer, left with nothing, who had bravely set herself to earn her living as a milliner. ”

“ Left to his own unguided will Adair would have gravitated to a dingy bedroom in a dingy boarding-house. It was Phyllis who perceived the greater freedom, and the unspeakably greater comfort and charm of a tiny apartment. The nest-making instinct was strong in her, and also the bred-in-the-bone belief that it was the woman's place to guard her man's well-being, and to send him forth to work in the best of trim. She did not know how to cook; she had never swept out a room in her life, she had never even folded a table-cloth, yet her self-assurance and determination never wavered. ”

“ I've played with the biggest kind of people, and--succeeded. Yet I have always been the dog who hanged himself. No, there is no mystery about it--there never is with a man who is sinking--a man of ability. It's his own fault every time--every, every time."
His earnestness made Phyllis thrill. Adair was playing his best rôle--himself, and playing it with the fire and eloquence he could always bring to it. His voice, incomparable in the beauty and range of its tones, was never so effective as when tinged with emotion. Nothing was more manly, more sincere, more moving. ”

“ She was not a young woman who could be driven.
"I'll stay here, or walk right out of your house--and you know where."
"Then stay," he cried, rising wrathfully, "and may God forgive you for the misery you are bringing down on me. I'm only trying to do what's best, and you treat me as though I was one of that fellow's cruel parents on the stage! It's no time to mince matters, and I tell you straight out, Phyllis, he's a blackguard and a scoundrel, and when you see the Pinkertons' report, I guess you'll go down on your knees and beg my pardon for your heartlessness and obstinacy." ”

“ But she envied that woman. Yes, she envied that woman, terrible as it was to admit it. Hated her, and envied her.--No, she pitied her as one of her own silly, headlong sex, cursed with this need to love. She was no longer young; she was thirty years old if a day; she was probably poor, disreputable, with nothing in the world but a trunk full of trashy finery, and no home but a cheap hotel. Love was the only thing she had, poor wretch, the only thing.
And Cyril Adair? It was hard to imagine him in private life except as Corrèze. But, of course, he wasn't Corrèze--that was absurd. ”

“ Younger, handsomer, and an incomparably better actor, and with that charm, so baffling to describe, which yet was ever-present and ever-compelling, he measured himself against his predecessor, and never for a moment had the least doubt of the outcome. It is not often that fairy tale came as bravely true; that the dream of overnight turned as quickly into the fact of to-day. Small wonder that Adair, standing there on the stage when all was done, his ears still ringing with the applause of that departing audience, was too exalted, and much too self-sure to fret at Kemmel's misgivings. ”

“ There was dignity in idolizing a genius; it raised her in her own good opinion.
She forgot the apples and the chewing-gum; she forgot even Miss de Vere; a mantle of unreasoning happiness enveloped her, and with it came a gush of affection for Mrs. Beekman that quite astonished the latter. She held her hand in the dark, and tried, with many unseen blushes, to keep the one subject uppermost. To lie back in the carriage and hear Adair praised, thrilled her with delicious sensations. She was insatiable, and kept the milliner repeating "genius, genius, genius," like a parrot. ”

“ Good-by, my darling, take care of yourself, and look out for Tommy at eleven thirty. Good-by!"
"I hope we will never say that word to each other again," exclaimed Phyllis. "It's a horrid word and I hate it. Good-by, Cyril, and don't forget your little slave, counting the minutes at home!"
"Ta, ta, my lamb, I won't forget her. Couldn't if I would, ta, ta!"
There is no harder task than to fold one's hands and wait. Adair had his matinée and his evening performance to engross his thoughts, and allay to some degree his fever of anticipation. But Phyllis had no such resource. ”

“ Doesn't it sometimes come over a man--sort of shoot through him--the feeling of what a monkey-spectacle he is making of himself? You go ahead and play Lady Macbeth in a nightgown; rage and strut before those cold, scornful faces. Then let one amongst them cry: 'Bravo, bravo,' and give you a hand!--My Lord, you'd give him your watch and chain, your diamond pin--don't you see, he returns you your self-respect, makes your work worth the doing?--and that's what your note did for me, Miss Ladd."
"Oh, Mr. Adair, don't talk to me about the cold, scornful faces at your performance. ”

“ It is not for nothing that they say the reformed rake makes the best husband. Not that Adair had gone so far as this, however. He was not reformed, and cold chills would have run down his back at the horrid prospect; while his own brief career as a husband had left him with a hatred for the word and the institution. It was merely a fleeting impulse, stronger for the moment than he was, and induced by his artist love of beauty, which included this time in its comprehension, a rare, gracious and exquisite nature. ”

“ The elderly railroad president could not bear utterly to be left out of these two young lives. His daughter was lost to him; at best a husband leaves little for a father; this stranger had it now in his power to make that little almost nothing. Small wonder, then, that Mr. Ladd struggled for his shred of happiness; put pride on one side; exerted every faculty he possessed to attract the friendship of Phyllis' master. For a husband is a master; a woman is the slave of the man she loves; forty centuries have changed nothing but the words, and the size and metal of the ring. ”

“ Had Phyllis been some little milliner this would have been no road at all; such a one would have been too familiar with the seamy side of life to find any glamour in the tale; such a one would have preferred the bogus palaces and bogus splendors his instinct would then have indicated. Phyllis' intelligence was too keen thus to be deceived; even genuine splendors would have interested her less than this pitiful story of the slums; it not only touched her sensibility to the quick, but enhanced Adair in her tender and sympathetic eyes. ”

“ But Phyllis knew how her husband bristled at the least touch of criticism. Ordinarily so loving and indulgent, a single word of disapprobation could set him off like an hysterical woman; before now she had inadvertently raised such storms, and looked back on them with terror. She asked herself what she was to do, and could find no answer. Everything in her revolted from lying to him, and yet she would be forced to. It was not cowardice, but the disinclination of seeing him suffer, and the dread of incurring the harshness and anger of the man she idolized. ”

“ She loved her husband, she loved her father, and this estrangement was unbearable. Like many women under the stress of a deep emotion she wrote with a singular eloquence. She wept as she described Cyril--his unceasing goodness, his loyalty, his fortitude, his good humor and devotion. He was everything a woman loved best in a man; and instead of her marriage having been a mistake, a failure, it was more than she thought life could ever give her. Would not her father forget all that had passed, as she, too, would forget? Their love was too deep, too dear, to make reconciliation impossible. ”

“ Love was a queer business; he hadn't really cared very much for her at first; he had simply taken her because she was so bewitchingly pretty--and with such innocence had offered herself; and yet, bit by bit, it had grown to this, grown into something that was the only thing in life. He could readily conceive himself dying for Phyllis if it meant saving her or protecting her, and that with no tom-fool fuss either, or theatrics.
A fellow couldn't hope to carry away all the prizes, and he'd rather be a "Four-bit Mansfield" with Phyllis than the biggest kind of a star without her. ”

“ Thus the day lingered out in talk and vows and kisses, with nothing achieved in any direction, and the situation apparently unchanged. Love has a wonderful power of floating on without ever touching the banks of reality! And when one of the lovers keeps the bark deliberately in mid-stream, and the other poor lunatic is so lost in ecstasy that her understanding is in the skies--hours can pass like minutes, and darkness descend all unawares.
Again they kissed and parted, and Phyllis returned home in the sweet weariness of one who has drunk deep of the cup of love. ”

“ But it never occurred to her to think the worse of Adair. A man could not be expected to have the sensitiveness of a woman. His love was like himself, robust and masterful; he fastened a string to your little collar, and dragged you after him with a splendid insouciance. Every one of your four little paws might be holding back; you might be whimpering most pitifully, but if he wanted a closed cab, in you had to go, whether you liked it or not. ”

“ His circumstances were becoming absolutely desperate. Suspension from the club was staring him in the face; in eight days his sticks of furniture and his trunks would be dumped out on the street; it was only by the most rigid parsimony that body and soul could be kept together. Phyllis said the dormice were floating on a shingle, and with tearful laughter would expatiate on the pitiful, half-drowned things, so scared and hungry on a bobbing sea. What was to happen when they slid off?--Oh, but Booful wasn't to mind. ”