"I wasn't going to deny it, Papa."
"Where? At the theater?"
"Yes."
"You went there alone--not even a maid with you? Have you parted with all sanity?"
His tone was overbearing, harsh, scornful. Alas, for his good and wise intentions! In the impact of two stubborn natures, each rousing in the other an invincible antagonism, there could be no tenderness, no consideration. Each was fighting with the flag nailed to the mast; she for Adair, he for his daughter.
"It was your doing, Papa. I had no alternative."
"Oh, what a lie! I'd sooner have gone with you myself, however bitter or humiliating it might have been for me."
The picture of such an escort to such a rendezvous made her laugh in spite of herself. It was not the kind of laughter to soften or turn away wrath. To Ladd it seemed heartlessness itself.
"It's unbelievable," he broke out, "my God, Phyllis, what am I to say to you? Isn't the man self-condemned on the face of it--with his closed cabs, and underhanded meetings, and now stripping you of every rag of reputation by letting you come to him at his theater? And what do you mean by the theater, anyhow?--His dressing-room, of course?"
"Yes."