Friday, the day that followed, was memorable to her for its decisiveness and remorse. She took a long ride, and between canters, busied her head with plans of escape. Washington, Florida, Europe--it mattered little where--so long as she got away at once. She looked at herself dispassionately, and the more she looked the more utterly despicable did she seem. She was undoubtedly in love with this cheap, showy actor--(somehow in the sunshine his genius had withered, and he seemed to share the general tawdriness of gum and apples and shop-boy sentiment)--crazily in love, infatuated; and to refuse to admit it was but to hide her head in the sand, like an ostrich.
The comparison was not a pretty one, but then she was not looking for pretty comparisons. In fact, as far as her feelings for Adair were concerned, she was eager to find words that could make her wince. She said them out loud, exulting in their brutality; gross words, picked up she hardly knew where, and put out of mind as unclean and horrible. To use them now was a form of self-flagellation, and she laid on the whip with a will. It was good for a little fool, she said viciously. Lash! lash! It would keep her out of mischief. Lash! lash! Let her understand once for all what it really meant, even if the skin curled off her back.
On her return home she stopped at the telegraph-office to carry out her intention of volunteering a visit to Aunt Sarah's. Night or day, in season or out, there she always had a refuge. If blood in Aunt Sarah's case, was not thicker than water, there was the more robust bond of hard cash always to be relied upon. A niece who descended in a shower of gold could count with confidence on the bread and salt of hospitality, and the sincerest of welcoming kisses. There is something to be said for people you can count on with confidence. An affectionate, love-you-like-a-daughter aunt might have made excuses. A money-loving, pleasure-loving, wholly selfish aunt, living very much above her income, was one of the certainties of life.
But as she reined in her horse, and the groom ran to give her his hand to dismount, she wondered, after all, whether she would telegraph. The flagellation had been very successful; the September sunshine had killed the pitiful glimmer of the footlights; the crisp invigorating air had brought sanity with every breath. No, indeed, she would not telegraph, she was not half the fool she had thought herself; it was a girlish weakness to exaggerate everything--infatuation included. She would telephone to that nice New Yorker instead and invite him to tea. That oldish man with the charming distinction and courtesy, who had shown symptoms of infatuation, too.--Yes, a good whipping to be followed by two hours of an excessively devoted Mr. Van Suydam, and perhaps a boy-and-girl-evening later with the carpet up--and why should anybody be scared of anything?
So the telegram was not sent; and a young lady, very much restored, and looking adorably fresh and pretty on her Kentucky mare, came galloping up Chestnut Avenue in excellent spirits and appetite.
As for Mr. Van Suydam--he threw over a big reception to come, and was so agreeable and eager, in such a sweet, restrained, smiling way, that he was allowed to hold a little hand a long, long while, and murmur a whole heartful of tender things that amounted virtually to a declaration--which was cruel of Phyllis, not to say unladylike and shocking; for with half-shut eyes she tried to imagine it was quite another man who was wooing her, and abandoned herself to the fiction with a waywardness that was inexcusable. But however unjust it was towards Mr. Van Suydam, who was an honorable man, and meant what he said, and was naturally much elated--his suit did Phyllis good, and even as dummy for another, an inevitable comparison would insist upon obtruding itself. Caste is very strong; it is difficult to associate good-breeding, honor and distinction with a ten-twenty-thirty cent star; and though Mr. Van Suydam, was nothing to Phyllis personally she could not help realizing the high value she set on the qualities he exemplified--so high, indeed, that it began to seem impossible for her to care seriously for any man without them.
An evening with the sparrows rounded out that day of good resolves and healthy common sense. She danced with a zest that no genuinely-infatuated person could have felt, and told ghost stories afterwards before the fire, and listened to others being told, with shudders of unaffected enjoyment. "And my dear, when she looked at that man again, she saw that his throat was cut from ear to ear!"--It was a jolly evening, innocently hilarious, and as wholesome as an ocean breeze. Morbidity and introspection could not persist in an atmosphere so genially youthful. Phyllis never thought once of Cyril Adair, and flirted outrageously with Sam Hargreaves, convulsing the sparrows by sharing his ice-cream spoon. Ordinarily quiet and backward, and even a little disdainful, she showed herself in wild spirits that night, and her audacity, humor and gaiety were irresistible.
It was very discouraging, after a night's sleep, as untroubled as a babe's, to awaken again with a dull ache within her, and to discover, with hopeless despondency, that she was not cured at all. Alas for the girlish armor she had striven so hard to put about her--Mr. Van Suydam, Sam Hargreaves, the bitter, ugly things she had said to herself, the defiant resolutions. Where was that pride she had stung to fury? Where was that sense of caste which yesterday had seemed so peremptory?
The morning found her bereft of everything, wretched, defenseless, with no longer even the will to fly. She was under the spell once more, and powerless to throw it off. Her whole prepossession was to see Adair again, cost what it might. Nothing else mattered. She was mad, infatuated, contemptible to herself--but she could only be appeased by the sight of him. Yet how was it possible? How could she contrive it? She could not well ask Mrs. Beekman a second time. That any one should suspect her secret was intolerable--she would rather have died. The circle of her girl friends was too small to arrange another theater-party without submitting herself to unbearable innuendoes and home-thrusts. Those young women had a preternatural instinct for detecting the dawn of love. In other things they might be stupid and blind, but for this they were as watchful as hawks, and as merciless as only twenty can be. What of her admirers then--Mr. Van Suydam, say, or good-natured, fat Sam? But they could be very sharp, too--and besides, she could not be so forward as to seek an invitation. Young girls in Carthage had a great deal of liberty--but it had its limits. Perhaps she could take one of the house-maids with her to the matinée--it was Saturday and the piece was given twice. But this would appear queer, especially if it reached her father.
There seemed nothing for it but to dress very plainly and go by herself. It was something to remember that matinées practically existed for women only--though attending one alone was unheard of in Phyllis' set. It was less a social law than a sort of fact. Girls went to matinées in pairs apparently--always had--and apparently always would. "Who did you go with, my dear?" was an inevitable question. Well, if necessary, one could meet that with a fib; and if one were found out, it was no great crime after all--but rather a mild escapade that a blush could condone. Of course a box was out of the question. She could not sit solitary in a box for the whole house to gape at. But there was nothing to prevent her buying two orchestra seats, so that any one recognizing her might draw a natural deduction. An adjoining empty seat was almost a chaperon, besides permitting her to widen her distance from an unpleasant neighbor. If there should be two unpleasant neighbors, she could always rise and walk out.