Phyllis

“ One should do both, of course; but, oh, Phyllis, try to love him; that is the great softener in the married life. It is so easy to forgive when love urges. You are wrong, my pet, but you have a tender heart, and so I pray all may be well with you. Yet when I think of your leaving me to face the wide world I feel lonely. I fancy I could have better spared Dora than my own wild Phyllis. ”

“ Phyllis led him through a window into a garden. A group of beech trees sheltered the house from the southwest wind and beyond the beech trees from a raised lawn their eyes swept over meadows and a low ridge of black firs and once more commanded the shining Downs. Paul stood for a little while in silence, whilst Phyllis watched his face. There came upon it a look of perplexity and doubt. He turned back towards the house. On its south side, a window had been thrown out; on its tiled roof a wide band of white clematis streamed down like a great scarf. ”

“ Phyllis rose to her feet.
“You poor dear!” cried Ella. “It was a shame—a shame to play such a jest upon you! But I felt in a tragic mood, and the line between comedy and tragedy is a very fine one. Forgive my little freak, dear; and let us be human beings once more, living in a world that cannot be taken so seriously. Don’t go by the evening train, Phyllis; stay all night with me. ”

“ What a contemptible lover I must be, having failed in eight long months to gain even the affections of a child. Will you never care for me, Phyllis?"
"I do care for you," I return, doggedly, forcing myself to face him. "After mamma and Billy and Roland, I care for you more than any one else. I like you twenty thousand times better than papa or Dora. I cannot say more."
I tap my foot impatiently upon the ground; my fingers seize and take to pieces wantonly the unoffending rose. As I pull its crimson leaves asunder I drop them in the brook and watch them float away under the moon's pale rays. ”

“ Above all things Phyllis was truthful. She had never had an experience of love—that passion which can change the most truthful of womankind into the least scrupulous. There was no pause between Ella’s question and Phyllis’ answer. ”

“ CHAPTER I. AN ASTRONOMER WITHOUT A TELESCOPE.
“After all,” said Mr. Ayrton, “what is marriage?”
“Ah!” sighed Phyllis. She knew that her father had become possessed of a phrase, and that he was anxious to flutter it before her to see how it went. He was a connoisseur in the bric-a-brac of phrases.
“Marriage means all your eggs in one basket,” said he.
“Ah!” sighed Phyllis once more. She wondered if her father really thought that she would be comforted in her great grief by a phrase. She did not want to know how marriage might be defined. She knew that all definitions are indefinite. ”

“ Phyllis sprang up with a little laugh that sounded like a large sigh, and said if Fidele would have the kindness to switch on the lights in the dressing room, she would not be kept waiting a moment.
The maid hurried upstairs, and mademoiselle repaired to an apartment where she could remove, so far as was possible, the footmarks left by those tears which she had shed when she had reflected upon the loneliness to which Mr. Herbert Courtland was doomed for (probably) the remainder of his life.
Mademoiselle had a dread of the acuteness of vision with which her maid was endowed. ”

“ Phyllis reddened and seemed—for a moment or two—almost angry. Then she made a little gesture, expressive of indifference, as she cried:
“After all, what does it matter what they said? I don’t care about them. It is for you I care, Ella—you, only you.”
“Heavens! how seriously you say that!” cried Ella. “There’s no cause for seriousness, I hope, even if you do care a great deal for me, which I know you do. If you said so much to a man,—say, Herbert Courtland,—it would be quite another matter. There would be sufficient cause for seriousness then. ”

“ It was Phyllis who discovered that there was a narrow veranda, with iron-work covered with creepers, running halfway round the house from window to window; and when he suggested to her that they might drink their coffee on this veranda, she hailed the suggestion as a very happy one. How did it come that none of the rest of the people had thought of that? she wondered.
In another instant they were standing together at the space between the windows outside, the long-leaved creepers mingling with the decorations of her hat, and making a very effective background for his well-shaped head. ”

“ Then suddenly putting his arms round me and drawing me down to him, he whispers, with deep feeling, "Phyllis, my darling, darling girl, don't you know it? Must I tell it you over and over again? Cannot you see every hour of your life how fondly I love you, just for what you are? And you, Phyllis, tell me—do you—-" He stops abruptly and regards me with a curious earnestness for a minute, then, laughing rather constrainedly, puts me gently back from him and goes on: "What other guests shall we name? Mark Gore; would you care for him?"
"Yes; I liked what I saw of him. And Dora, Marmaduke." ”

“ With Phyllis once he had sat, for how long? in a warm and moonless darkness, saying nothing, risking no gesture. And in the end they had parted, reluctantly and still in silence. Phyllis now was with him once again in the summer night; but this time he spoke, now softly, now in the angry breathless whisper of desire, he reached out and took her, and she was naked in his arms. All chance encounters, all plotted opportunities recurred; he knew, now, how to live, how to take advantage of them.
Over the empty plains towards Mantua, towards Mantua, he slid along at ease, free and alone. ”

“ At that moment Ella Linton came up with Lord Earlscourt.
“Has Mr. Courtland been telling you all about the bird of paradise?” she asked of Phyllis, while she waved the tail feathers of the loveliest of the birds of paradise before her face.
“The bird?—not the bird,” laughed Phyllis.
“But the topic was paradise?” Ella joined in the laugh—yes, to some extent.
“I talked of Adam—the old one of that name,” said Mr. Courtland.
“And Eve—the new one of that name,” said Phyllis.
“Theology is in the air!” cried Ella. “Even the stage of a theater is not free from the taint. ”

“ There was more than a suspicion of indignation in her voice. “You should be with the woman whom you loved; the woman who showed you how she loved you; the woman who was ready to give up everything—honor—husband—God—for you. Go to her—to her—when the numbness has passed away from her, and there is no barrier between you and her. That is all I have to say to you, Mr. Courtland.”
“Is it indeed all, Phyllis?” he said. “But you will let me speak to you. You will let me ask if Ella alone was ready to sacrifice herself? You say that you led me to love you in order to save her. ”

“ I tell you that nothing has happened to me,” cried Ella, with a vehemence that almost amounted to fierceness in her voice. “Would I be here with you now if anything had happened to me? tell me that. I came to you—ah! women have no guardian angels, but they have sisters who are equally good and pure, and you are my sister—my sister—better than all the angels that ever sang a dirge over a lost soul that they put forth no hand to save. You will not let me go, darling Phyllis, you will not let me go even if I tell you that I want to go. Don’t believe me, Phyllis ”

“ There are always faults on both sides. And now, Phyllis, as we are on the subject, let me say one word. You know I am fond of you—that I think you the dearest little sister-in-law in the world. Therefore you will hear me patiently. Have nothing more to say to Mark Gore. He is very—unfortunate in his—friendships. I do not wish to say anything against him, but no good ever came of being too intimate with him. Are you offended with me? Have I gone too far Phyllis? ”

“ I wanted to see you both married.”
“Ella—Ella!”
“I wanted it, I tell you, not because I loved you, though you know that I love you better than anyone in the world.”
“Dearest Ella!”
“Not because I knew that you and he would be happy, but because I wished to snatch my own soul from perdition. I think it is safe now—but oh, my God! it is like the souls of many other mortals—saved in spite of myself! Phyllis, you have been my salvation. You are a girl; you cannot understand how near a woman may go to the bottomless pit through the love of a man. ”

“ Surely that was the voice of Phyllis Wynne! And yet Phyllis was dead! His wondering, startled eyes devoured the face of the new-comer, and he held his breath. He saw a woman past her first youth, a woman with blue, sweet eyes, and with brown hair touched too early with grey. In spite of the difference the years had made, in spite of the paleness which had taken the place of the peachbloom of old, and the smoothness of the hair which once had curled so softly about the brow, Hugh Morgan could not but recognise her. This was certainly Phyllis. And yet the children had said she was dead! ”

“ Phyllis went singing on down the sunny old house, swinging her colored muslin skirts and prancing a little with sheer joy of being twenty-five, and prettily dressed, with a dear house all her own, and—yes—a dear Allan a little her own, too! Doing well for a man what another woman has done badly has a perennial joy for a certain type of woman, and this was what Phyllis was in the very midst of. ”

“ Phyllis felt as if she would never again get the smell of smoke out of her system.
One—two—three—she counted the horses neighing and rearing at their posts. Nine! There should be ten! With a sinking of heart she looked at them all again. White Star was not there! White Star! The best of the group! How could she possibly have missed him?
Without another thought but that of her favorite mount Phyllis dashed back into the stables. One—two—three—stalls empty. Nothing but silence and the crackling of flames—flames creeping closer, destroying, and smoke. ”

“ I turn to my—to Marmaduke.
"It is true?" I ask.
"It is true," he replies, and as he speaks I can scarcely believe the man who stands before me, crushed and aged and heart-broken, is the same gay, handsome young man who entered the room all smiles a few minutes ago.
"If she is your wife, what am I?" I ask, with unnatural calmness.
"Phyllis! Phyllis! my life! forgive me!" he cries, in an anguished tone; and then the room grows suddenly dark; I fall heavily forward into the blackness, and all is forgotten. ”

“ So many people come back from the theater looking glum and worn out, yawning and mumbling when asked what they have seen and what it had all been about. Phyllis was not glum, nor did she mumble. She was able to describe scene after scene, and more than once she sprang from her seat, carried away by her own powers of description, and began to act the bits that had impressed her—bits the force of which could only be understood when described with gestures and pretty posturing. ”

“ Ayrton’s.
“Ella, Ella,” she whispered, “I also am a woman. Oh, my dearest! I think that I can understand something of your heart. I know a little. Oh, Ella, Ella! I would do anything in the world to help you—anything—anything!”
“Would you?” cried the woman. “Would you do anything? Would you give up Herbert Courtland in order to help me?”
She had grasped Phyllis by the wrists and had bent her own head forward until her face was within an inch of Phyllis’. Their breaths mingled. ”

“ The first enthusiasms are gone, there is a little weariness in joy, the heart begins to turn to those fundamental affections and those homely ties which are the main reliance of life. It seemed to Phyllis that, for the first time, she was homesick. The low, white, rambling wooden house, spreading itself under moss-covered trees, began to grow very fair in her memory. The mocking-birds were calling her across the sea. She remembered the tangles of the yellow jasmine, the merry darkies chatting and singing and laughing, and her soul turned westward with an indescribable longing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Phyllis had thrown it over a chair when it had lain in a heap on the floor as Cleopatra’s wrap may have lain when she was carried into the presence of her lover. “My dear Stephen, don’t you think that as it is past nine, and Mr. Courtland is probably some miles out at sea with his head reposing on something hard,—there is nothing soft about a yacht,—we should make a move in the direction of home? It seems pretty clear that you will have no serious talk with him to-night. Alas! my Phyllis, our dream of happiness is over. We are to be separated by the cruelty of man, as usual. ”

“ Phyllis and Janet had liked him at once, much to Peter's relief and his own secret satisfaction. He always addressed them as, "You, Janet, or you, Phyllis," and then shut his eyes until the right one came, for he could not tell the one from the other.
"Was there ever such a day?" Phyllis demanded as she jumped on to the big sleigh with Peter's help.
"Never in all this world," he replied seriously.
They started off at a smart gait, stopping at the rectory for Alice and Mildred Blake and at the Waters' for Harry. Then away they went along an old back road that wound up into the hills. ”