I knew the symptoms, but I did not think the malady would become chronic.
He managed to have himself introduced to her a week later in New York by Ted Clarke, the artist, who made newspaper sketches of her in some of her dances. Folsom saw her going up the steps to an elevated railway station. He ran after her, in order to be near her. He followed her into a car, where Ted Clarke, recognizing her, rose to give her his seat. She rewarded the artist by opening a conversation with him, and Folsom availed himself of his acquaintance with Clarke to salute the latter with surprising cordiality. She looked a few years older and less girlish without her blond wig but she was still quite pretty in brown hair. She treated Folsom with her wonted offhand amiability. He left the train when she left it, and he walked a block with her. With pardonable shrewdness she inspected his visage, attire, and manner, for indications of his pecuniary and social standing, while he was indulging in silly commonplaces. When they parted at the quiet hotel where she lived she said lightly:
“Come and see me sometime.”
To her surprise, perhaps, he came the next day, preceded by several dozen roses and a few pounds of bonbons.
Every night thereafter he was at the theatre where she was appearing, watching her dance from the front row or from the lobby, agitated with mingled pleasure and jealousy when she received loud applause, angry at the audience when the plaudits were not enthusiastic. When their acquaintance was two weeks old, she allowed him to wait for her at the stage door, and at last he was permitted to take her to supper.
There was a second supper, at which four composed the party. We had a room to ourselves, with a piano in the corner. The event lasted long, and near the end, while the other soubrette played the tune on the piano, and Folsom kept time by clinking the champagne glass against the bottle, the little Tyrrell, continually laughing, did her skirt dance, “La Gitana.”
Thus with that waltz tune ever sounding in his ears, he fell in love with her; strangely enough, really in love. She, having her own affairs to mind, gave him no thought when he was not with her, and when they were together she deemed him quite a good-natured, bearable fellow, as long as he did not bore her.
He made several declarations of love to her. She smiled at them, and said, “You're like the rest; you'll get over it. Meanwhile, don't look like that; be cheerful.” At certain times, when circumstances were auspicious, when there was night and electric light and a starry sky with a moon in it, she was half-sentimental, but such moods were only superficial and short-lived, and she invariably brought an end to them with flippant laughter or some matter-of-fact speech that came with a shock to Billy, although it did not cool his adoration.
Billy became quite gloomy. He was the veritable sighing lover. Although for a month he was admittedly the chief of her admirers and saw her every day, he seemed to make no progress toward securing a hospitable reception for and a response to his love.
One day, as they were walking together on Broadway, she said: