One of the women was tall and pretty--not very young--twenty-eight or twenty-nine perhaps. Miss Cooke, she was--Miss Grace Cooke. She would never see him but what she would turn white with anger and fear. You see, everything was put down to him, all that he did do, and all that he didn't--and totaling up both sides of it, it ran to a lot. He couldn't begin to remember the caddish things he was answerable for; he didn't care to try; my God, what a brute he was, what a brute! And yet he admired this woman; guessed he was in love with her in a calfy way; took every chance to see her--and insult her! Of course, there wasn't the faintest reason why he shouldn't have walked into the Settlement, said he was sorry, and have been received with open arms. But people like that can't say they are sorry--they don't know how. Besides, the social disgrace of it would have been awful! Joe Mayne running with that gospel gang! The thing was incredible.
Late one winter afternoon he saw her in the midst of a crowd of hobbledehoys, hooting and jeering at her. She was walking as fast as she dared, looking straight ahead of her, and pretending not to notice. It was dark; the street was empty; and if she was scared she had mighty good reason for it. One of the fellows lurched against her, and down she went on the sidewalk; as she tried to rise another rolled her over, and tore her hat off. Of course, it was a great joke, and they were all roaring with laughter. Then it was he came running up--Joe--and when she saw him she gave him a look he would remember to the day he died. Oh, the terror of it--the shrinking! But he smashed one on the jaw, caught another between the eyes, and lifted her up, half fainting as she was, and tried with his dirty hands to smooth her hair, and put on her hat again.--That's how they came to be friends; that's how he came to be landed in the Settlement; everything real in his life dated from that moment.
He was with them two years; with them as long as she lived. There wasn't a good quality in him that she didn't put there. On census forms, and such things, when asked his religion, he always felt inclined to write: "Grace Cooke." By God, it would have been the truth. She was his religion yet, far though he had fallen away from it--oh, so far--! She stood for everything that was good and beautiful and noble. It wasn't love. It was beyond all love. She was a Madonna, a saint, and he had had the privilege to kneel at her feet--a Caliban of the slums, a tough, a hoodlum, unworthy to touch the hem of her garment. Then she died, and that was the end of it. He didn't care for the Settlement after she died. He got a job as chucker-out in a low place called the Crystal Palace. There was a dais, and performers used to sing. He thought he would try it himself, and made quite a hit. Then he began giving recitations--The Fi-erman's Dream, and that kind of thing, and they caught on. He owed it all to Grace Cooke, who had taught him to read--(not ordinary reading, he had picked that up somehow for himself)--but real reading, dramatic reading. From this it was a step to monologues in costume, and from that to the vaudeville stage.
Sitting there in the growing dusk, and in an atmosphere so conducive to confidence, Adair unfolded his early life with a tender, persuasive and charming humor. He often laughed; often he was silent; again and again he would look up, and seek Phyllis' eyes in a lingering glance as though to assure himself of her interest. For once in his life he was shy; the slim, pretty hand he gazed at so covetously was safe from any touch of his; something told him that the least familiarity would cost him all he had gained.--It was not policy on his part. He was too humble to think of policy. To be with her alone seemed presumption enough--to feel her sympathy, her friendship. Not a word or act of his should mar that wonderful day.
He rose, apologizing for having stayed so long.
"It is your own fault," he said, holding out his hand, "you've made me forget everything."
"I'm afraid it was the other way round, Mr. Adair," she returned, trying to smile, and thankful for the darkness that veiled her face.
"Am I ever to see you again?"
She shook her head.
"You mean it is good-by, Miss Ladd?"