"You are nice," she said, giving him a candid, smiling look in which there was a lurking roguishness; "and I'm glad we're going to be friends; and I'm not a bit sorry I gave you a peep into an awfully hidden place--a girl's heart, you know--though, of course, you mustn't expect to make a habit of it; and I'm glad you're the great, famous, splendid Rolls Reece, and are going to like me, and write Cyril a wonderful play, and be our fairy uncle for ever and ever; and some day, when you are accused of plagiarism or something, and they put you in jail, I'll come down to the prison and bring you a loaf of bread with a file in it, or change clothes with you in your cell, and then it will come home to you how very lucky you were ever to know me, and you will skip off to South America bursting with gratitude."
"In the meanwhile I'm afraid the fairy uncle had better bring his call to an end," remarked Rolls Reece. "It's less spectacular--though I can still be grateful, mayn't I? Indeed, I am so happy, Mrs. Adair, for you have convinced me in more ways than you are aware of that we have been unjust to your husband, and that I may safely trust the play to him."
"I can't help doubting whether you'll ever come back?" she said, as they stood confronting each other. "It's a dream, and you are a dream-dramatist, and I'll wake up from a nap, and will find everything more miserable than before because of it.--Some day you will know what this means to us," she added poignantly. "Some day when--when it's long, long passed, and we can talk about it like ordinary people.--You have to get a little way off to be sorry for yourself, don't you? I am just beginning to see how unspeakably wretched and forlorn we were, that poor boy and I, though I should probably have never found it out if it hadn't been for you."
"Well, that's over," said Rolls Reece comfortingly. "If he'll work hard, and do his best, I'll back Mr. Adair through thick and thin. He has an unquestionable talent; it will be a pleasure, an inspiration to write for him; if he'll do his share, I'll engage to do mine, and between us we'll keep at it, play on play, till we land a winner. Only--" and here he paused, and raised a warning finger.
"He'll be as good as gold," said Phyllis, filling in the interval. "Don't let the fairy uncle worry about that."
"And when may I see him?"
An appointment was forthwith made for the same evening; and the dramatist shook hands, and was about to go when Phyllis exclaimed again that it was a dream, and that it simply couldn't, couldn't, couldn't be true, and asked him laughingly to leave his umbrella as something tangible to show Adair. Rolls Reece caught at the notion, but instead of anything as prosaic as an umbrella, slipped off a superb ruby ring instead, and laid it on the table.
"There's the pledge of the fairy uncle's return," he said gaily, and hurried away before it could be restored to him.
"Good Heavens, Phyllis," cried Adair, "what's that thing?"
"A ring."