His mumbling reply turned into a groan.
"I lost nearly four hundred dollars last night," he said, after a deadly pause. "Then I had to get into a scrap with Jake Steinberger, and Willie Latimer, and George Wright, and there was a hell of a shindy till somebody turned in a police-alarm, and I only dodged arrest by the skin of my teeth--not but what I'll be summonsed to-day, sure as sure. On top of that my engagement is gone, for I lammed Jake half to death, and I guess he had rather break up the tour all-standing than keep me in the bill another night. And--and--"
"You thought you'd make a clean sweep of everything, once you were at it, and alienate me, too?"
"Yes, like a damned goat," he repeated dully.
"Well, you have succeeded," she said in the same low, even tone, "I dare say you'll be sorry some day at having broken your toys. There isn't anything more to be said, is there, except good-by?"
She was about to rise when Adair flung himself out of the bed, and kneeling before her, pulled off her little slippers and began kissing her naked feet. His repentance was so sudden, so abject that it was almost as though he had gone crazy. It was indeed an hysterical revulsion, and his frame shook, and his hands clenched themselves on her flesh as he abased himself before her. He begged incoherently for forgiveness, for mercy; he would kill himself if she were to leave him; he loved her; he could die for her; the disgrace and despair of it all had driven him mad. At first she resisted, struggling to free herself, and too deeply affronted for any atoning words to touch her; but her powerlessness in his grasp, the warmth of his quick, tumultuous breath against her, even the physical pain he was unconsciously inflicting--all at last took her womanhood by storm, and she drew up his head, and allowed him to sob his heart out in her lap.
How little did either of them know, she sitting on the bed in her night-dress, he nestling close against her in an agony of shame and contrition, that a battle of the soul had been fought and won; that the finer nature had triumphed over the coarser; that an insensible but a most real step had been taken upward. Phyllis extorted no promises; Adair made no vows; rather they clung to each other like little children who had safely passed the edge of a precipice, and in security beyond were trembling at what they had risked.
The woman, always the more practical partner, was the first to descend from the clouds to mundane considerations.
"And what's the poor little damned goat going to do?" she asked, the quoted profanity on her pretty lips as piquant and tender as a lullaby; and accompanying it with a smile so arch that Adair's face, too, could not but light with it.
"Face the music and then get out," returned the D. G.