"And he's going to step out like a Crown Prince going down to see his Emperor-Papa at the club?"
"You bet he is."
"And swing his cane as though he owned all Broadway--and throw back his head like a Greek statue, and swagger into their horrid old offices like a millionaire? For he is a millionaire, you know--not a money-one, but a Love-Millionaire--for don't I love him millions and millions?"
It took a kiss to answer that; and then the Love-Millionaire, laughing a little tremulously, would hurry away, whistling with much bravado as he went down the stairs, two at a time, as suited a great, big, handsome, splendid Booful; who, whatever his demerits in the past, was fast retrieving himself before the Great Judge.--And if, on his departure, Phyllis would lay her head on her arm and give way to uncontrollable tears, you would be wrong to feel too sorry for her. For the misfortune that draws a man and woman together, and extorts from each their noblest qualities is not really a misfortune at all, but a precious and beautiful thing that it would become us more to envy.
Thus the days passed in a deadening, cowing, unutterably depressing search for work. Adair was rebuffed, put off, told to call again; he abased himself to men he despised; he forced his presence with hungry persistence on dramatists and stars who were putting on new plays, affecting a good fellowship that was a transparent, dismal lie. He tried to buy them wine, cigars--inveigle them into promises, and his lunch often went in a tip to some greedy understrapper who guarded their portals.
It is strange the mile-wide demarcation that divides the real stage--the stage of Sothern, John Drew, Faversham, Maude Adams, etc., from that other to which Adair had so long associated himself. This other had no representative save Adair in the whole Thespian Club. It was a region apart, and a region that Adair was determined never to return to. It would have called him back willingly enough, and in his desperation he might have returned to it had it not been for Phyllis. It was she who kept his resolution alive; she was too confident of his talent to let him throw it back into that Dead Sea; it meant the abandonment of every serious ambition;--artistically speaking, suicide, death.--Booful belonged to the top, and it was his business and hers to get him there.
Brave words, but how about fulfilment? The end of the month would find them turned out of doors. Phyllis dreaded to see herself in the glass, she was becoming so pale and wan; in the unequal battle everything was going except her courage; sometimes, alone in the silent apartment, even that seemed to droop, and a daunting terror would overwhelm her--less for herself than for Adair. He was drinking again, and justified himself with a bitter vehemence. "They all say, 'Have a drink'!" he exclaimed. "Nobody ever says 'Have an eat'!"--His harsh, despairing humor recurred to her, as well as his sudden resentment at her pity. He had made atonement, but the sting remained--or rather a foreboding of something somber and evil that in spite of herself she could not shake off.
One day at the club a card was brought Adair, inscribed Mr. John H. Campbell; and the boy told him the gentleman was waiting to see him in the visitors' room. Adair knew no such person, but he went out to greet him with mingled curiosity and hope, for here perhaps was the long-sought engagement. An imposing, distinguished looking, very well-dressed man of fifty rose from the sofa, and asked him, with much suavity, whether he had the pleasure of addressing Mr. Cyril Adair. This question being quickly and politely settled, the imposing gentleman begged for a few words of conversation; and indicating a place for Adair beside him, he reseated himself with a bland, kind air which yet was not without an underlying seriousness, not to say solemnity.
"I have come on a very confidential matter," he said, fixing Adair with his shrewd, keen, heavy-lidded eyes. "A matter, Mr. Adair, so delicate that it is not easy to convey it except in a round-about form. May I explain I have sought you out at the request of--Mr. Ladd?"
There was a pause; the shrewd, heavy-lidded eyes slowly inventoried Adair and read beneath the tarnished air of fashion. Failure, need, hunger sap a man, and can not be hid, least of all from a professional observer. John Hampden Campbell was one of the leaders of the New York bar and was what they call a "court room lawyer" of high rank; which means that others hand up the guns, while he shoots them off. His knowledge of human nature was profound, and being profound was neither unsympathetic nor unkind. But he could shoot straight, nevertheless, and it was hardly a satisfaction to the victim to hear that murmur of "poor devil!" as the eminent counsel laid aside the smoking weapon.