Infatuation

by Lloyd Osbourne

Lying there, in a swoon of shy delight, she allowed her fancy to fly away in dreams. Hand in hand, they trod a fairy-land of love and rapture. She stole sentences from his part, and made him repeat them to her alone--avowals, passionate and tender, in all the mellow sweetness of the voice that still reëchoed in her heart. He was Corrèze, and she, in the madness of her infatuation, had forced her way to him and thrown herself humbly at his feet. His love was not for her; she aspired to no such heights; but she had come to be his little slave; to follow him in his wanderings; to sleep across his door, and guard him while he slept. To be near him was all she asked. His little slave, who, when he was dejected and weary, would nestle beside him, and cover his hand with the softest kisses. She wanted no reward; she would try not to be jealous of those great ladies, though there would be times when she could not hold back her feelings, and his hand, as she drew it across her eyes, would be all wet with tears.

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! A wave of self-disgust rose within her. She felt soiled, humiliated. How dared this cheap, showy creature reach out to take such liberties with a woman a thousand times above him? A creature, who in all probability ate with his knife, carried on low love affairs with admiring shop-girls, and practised his fascinations before a mirror, like a trick-monkey! Pah, the thought of her amorous imaginings reddened her cheeks, and consumed her with bitterness and shame. Where was her self-respect, her modesty? If wishes could have killed, there would have been no performance of Moths that night at the Thalia Theater.

At dinner she convulsed her father with an account of the play, in which neither Adair nor the audience were in any way spared. In her zest and mockery, it all took on a richly humorous aspect, and at times she was interrupted by her own silvery peals of laughter. To hear her, how could any one have guessed that she had been stirred as she had never been stirred before, and that the screaming farce she described had been in reality the one drama that had ever touched her? Was it in revenge for what she had suffered? Was it perversity? Or was it the attempt to conquer a physical attraction so irresistible that it tormented and terrified her even while she fought it with the best of all weapons--derision?

She passed a wretched night, tossing and turning on her bed in a whirl of emotions. She was haunted by that face which appeared to regard her with such reproach. Why had she betrayed him, it seemed to ask? The smoldering eyes, compelling always, were questioning and melancholy. That look, of such singular intensity, and with its strange and mysterious appeal to some other self of hers, again asserted its resistless power. She felt herself slipping back, in a langour of tenderness, to the mood that had shocked her so much before. In vain she repeated the saving words--threw out those little life-buoys to a swimmer drowning in unworthy love--"third-class actor"--"matinée hero"--"shop-girls' idol."--The drowning swimmer continued to drown, unhelped. The life-buoys floated away, and disappeared. Engulfing love, worthy or unworthy, drew down her spent body to the blue and coraled depths, and held her there, fainting with delight.

In our secret hearts, who has not, at some time or other, felt an unreasoning desire for one all unknown. 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. It was to the credit of Carthage that Mrs. Beekman's altered fortunes had not impaired its regard for her. She kept her friends in spite of the "Hortense" over her shop, and a window full of home-made hats, which, of themselves, would have amply justified ostracism. It was no new thing for Mrs. Beekman to act as chaperon, and repay, in this small measure, many kindnesses that verged on charity. So she was not surprised, though much pleased and excited, when Phyllis telephoned, and asked her to go with her to the theater. "I liked the play so much I want to see it again," trickled that tiny voice into her ear, "and though it's at that awful Thalia Theater, we can sit in a box, and be quite safe and comfortable.--May I call for you a little after eight, dear?"

Mrs. Beekman, who was an indefatigable pleasure-seeker, consented with effusiveness. Phyllis was a darling to have thought of her. One of her girls had told her the play was splendid, and that the star--oh, what didn't she say about the star! Was Phyllis crazy about him, too? Hee, hee, all alike under their skins, as Kipling said! Not that she liked Kipling--he was so unrefined--but Miss Britt (you know Miss Britt, the silly one, with poodle eyes, and a poodle-fool if ever there was one) Miss Britt raved for hours about his "somber beauty." Wasn't it killing! If Adair wanted to, he could leave town with two box-cars of conquests! My, the milliners wouldn't have a girl left, and the ice-cream parlors would all have to shut.--At eight, dear?--And dress quietly so as not to attract attention? Hee, hee, it was quite a lark, wasn't it?

Sitting in the same box, on the same chair, but with a feeling as though years had elapsed since she had last been there, Phyllis again saw the curtain rise on Moths. The impulse that had brought her, the mad desire to see the man who had tortured her so cruelly, had changed to a cold critical mood, to a disdain so comprehensive that it included herself no less than Adair. Dispassionate and contemptuous, it cost her no effort to steel herself against his first appearance. His mouth was undeniably rather coarse; she detected a self-complacency beneath his Corrèze that his acting failed to hide; she saw his glance seek the back-benches with a satisfaction at finding them filled, that struck her as somehow greedy and tradesmanlike. What a disgusting business it was to posture and rant, and choke back sham tears, and mimic the sacredest things in life--and watch back-benches with an eye to the evening's profits! The wretchedest laborer, with his pick and shovel, was more of a man. At any rate he did something that was dignified, that was useful and wanted. He was not framed in cardboard; there was no row of lights at his honest, muddy feet; his loving was a private matter, and when he kissed he meant it.--How fortunate it was that she had come! How unerring the instinct that had brought her back to be cured!

But as the play proceeded such reflections were forgotten in the intensity of her absorption. Again she was leaning forward with parted lips; rapt, over-borne, lost to everything, and pale with an indescribable tumult of emotion. She was conscious of no audience; of naught save the man who held her captive with a power so absolute and irresistible that birth, training, pride, weighed as nothing in the balance. His voice pierced her heart; his eyes seemed to draw the soul from her body; she trembled at her own helplessness, though the realization of it was also a strange and intoxicating pleasure.

But intermingled with that pleasure, darting through it like a tongue of flame, was a jealousy of Miss de Vere that not even the bitterest of contempt could allay. Phyllis felt to the full the degradation of being jealous of any one bearing so preposterous a name. Lydia de Vere! Her lips curled at herself. Oh, that shoddy affectation of aristocracy! Lydia de Vere! And that in a ten-twenty-thirty cent theater, and hardly clothed above the waist; and yet, in spite of her painted face, her dyed hair, and all of her thirty years, with shoulders and breast that a duchess might have envied, she was handsome in her common, flamboyant, chorus-girl way, with the meaningless good looks that one associates with tights and gilt spears. Her acting was stilted and false; her fine ladyism an impossible assumption; she railed at the Prince in the accents of a cook giving notice. But her love for Corrèze taxed no histrionic powers. It was vehement and real, as were the kisses she bestowed so freely, and the caresses she lingered over with voluptuous satisfaction. Beneath the drama of fictitious personages was another of flesh and blood, like a splash of scarlet on a printed page.