One dark, wintry Sunday afternoon in early spring, as Phyllis was sitting near the frosted window, sewing and thinking and dreaming by the scanty light, she was roused by the tramp of many footsteps on the stair outside, and a confused bumping, scuffling sound, accompanied by a hoarse murmur of voices. With a horrible premonition she ran to the door and opened it, giving a cry as she recognized Adair being supported in by two companions. His face was swollen and discolored; one eye was closed in a rim of crimson; his mouth was dribbling blood; sawdust and filth befouled his clothes, and a stench of vile whisky exhaled from him like a nauseating steam. He was helped over to a sofa, and allowed to collapse, while the men hurried away as though ashamed of their task, and thankful to have done with it.
It was the first time he had ever appeared repugnant to Phyllis; he was drunk, and she knew it, and the fumes of the disgusting stuff stifled her with loathing. But she unloosened his collar, laid a couple of pillows under his head, unlaced his shoes; and bringing a basin, rinsed the oozing blood from his lip. With pity, yes, but with the raging, furious pity that goes with lost illusions, and the falling of one's little world; a pity less for him than for herself that this should be the end of a love that to her had been the very breath of life.
He regarded her stupidly with his one open eye, moaning faintly, and drawing himself laboriously near the basin, spat into it. Then he put out his hand, and tried to touch her, but she shrank from him.
"Phyllis," he said, in a raucous whisper, "Phyllis"; and then, as though overcome by the exertion, closed that single bleary eye, and dozed off. But it was not for very long. He awakened again. "They loaded me up with that cursed whisky," he whispered. "I was all in, and needed it. God, if they didn't pour a bottle of it down my throat!"--For a while he rambled on brokenly, spluttering with laughter as he held up his clenched fist as though he found a strange, childish entertainment in the action.--Little by little he pulled himself together. He was a powerful man, sound to the core, and though he was badly spent, health and nature were rallying to his side.
"Come here," he said, in the same husky whisper, but with a noticeable increase of vigor and self-command. "Come here, I wanter tellyerboutit."
Phyllis crouched by his side, so dejected and heartsick that it was well for him she hid her face.
"I was with Morty Stokes and a whole lot of them," he went on, his words running together tipsily. "Tagging on, too, you know--royal, open-handed fellow, Morty, good fren' of mine, always something to eat--gives bell-boy tip that would keep us for a week. And it was down at the Queensbury Club, pay ten dollars, and, member--one-day member, you know--though the fight we went to see was tipped off--wasn't any, you know--but we stayed on, Morty opening champagne, and Kid Kelly was there who beat Cyclone Crandall last month; and somehow Morty and the Kid got into a row about Tammany corruption, and both so blind that neither of them could have spelled Tammany for a million, and everybody had to pull them apart. Then Morty, just blazing said: 'I can't lick you, but here's a fellow that can,' and he pointed at me, and says, 'Cyril, I'll give you five hundred dollars to wipe this dirty loafer off the map!' And I took it as a joke, and said yes I would, and before I knew it they were appointing a referee, and Kid Kelly was stripping down to the skin."
Adair stopped and laughed--a groaning kind of laugh, as mirthless as the wind that rattled the window-panes. "He had only been out of training ten days, and as for my standing up against him he might have been Battling Nelson. But it suddenly came into my head, why here's a chance to make something--not Morty's five hundred dollars for licking him--I'd only drunk half a glass of wine, and knew better--but a bit at the other end of it; and so I said, yes, four hundred for the winner, and a hundred for the man out, and all as insultingly as I could make it, as though that hundred was for the Kid instead of me. And finally, when it was all settled, it all wasn't--Morty standing out for two ounce gloves, and the others for sixes, he saying he wanted to mark the dirty mutt with something to stay; and that it was to be two ounces or nothing, though what was to happen to me in the mix-up wasn't mentioned, the fact being he didn't care as long as he could see the Kid pounded; and it was two shakes the Kid didn't pound him, it all worked up to such a hullabaloo, with some of them holding him, and others the Kid, and all of them yelling at once till at last they shoved us into the ring, with Tom Hallahan for referee, and Billy Sands holding the stakes and keeping time, and then we shook hands and squared off.
"The Kid wasn't so soused but what he had an inkling of the truth, and at the first go-off he meant to let me down easy, like the good-hearted Irish boy he was, and I could see it in his eye--(half of fighting is in the eyes, Phyllis)--and it was just a pat here, and a wallop there, and a lot of quick-stepping and stage-play, all feints and parries and pretending. But I wasn't for selling the fight, thinking Morty might sour on it, and call the whole thing off--so I walked right into the Kid, hammer and tongs; and by the time I had barked my knuckles on his teeth, and landed him a lefter on the jaw for all I was worth, he was as savage as hell, and ready to kill me; and by George, it was only bull-headed luck that he didn't--that, and the wine he had drunk, and I stood up to him for five rounds; and first it was for the hundred dollars, and then for my very life. I managed to get on my legs before I was counted out on the fifth, though the floor was heaving like a ship at sea, and I saw about eight of him, shooting out sixteen arms, and eighty-four fists; and down I went for keeps.--But I got it!"
He opened his hand, and showed two fifty dollar bills.