Again there was that manly, confident laugh.
"I think that little slave had better run home again and pretend to tie up," he said. "It would spoil everything if your father got wind of this--I know those rich old fellows--they can be a power for mischief whether the law is on their side or not. Good-by, my darling, take care of yourself, and look out for Tommy at eleven thirty. Good-by!"
"I hope we will never say that word to each other again," exclaimed Phyllis. "It’s a horrid word and I hate it. Good-by, Cyril, and don’t forget your little slave, counting the minutes at home!"
"Ta, ta, my lamb, I won’t forget her. Couldn’t if I would, ta, ta!"
There is no harder task than to fold one’s hands and wait. Adair had his matinée and his evening performance to engross his thoughts, and allay to some degree his fever of anticipation. But Phyllis had no such resource. Restless, nervous, on edge with suspense--fits of joy alternating with craven terror--she wore out the longest afternoon of her life, and an evening that was more trying still. Her father, to make matters worse, attempted some advances; spoke to her with unexpected kindness; hovered on the brink of another appeal. What a little Judas she felt, sitting opposite him for perhaps the last time, and maintaining a constraint that was, indeed, her armor, for if she responded at all she knew she would never go that night. So she parried and fenced, and kept the conversation impersonal at any hazard, while his face grew steadily more overcast, and the lines of his forehead deepened. She excused herself early, pleading fatigue, and relaxed her attitude to kiss him tenderly good night.
"It’ll all come right before long," she murmured softly. "Good night, my darling daddy, and remember I love you whatever happens."
She was off before he could take advantage of a mood so melting. But he felt much consoled, nevertheless.
"She’s coming round," he said to himself. "I might have known she would. That’s the comfort of her being such a good girl, and so intelligent!"
Up-stairs, the young lady thus complacently described was stripping off her dinner gown, and wondering what dress she would replace it with. She was the daintiest of soubrettes in her long dark-red silk stockings, and Watch, her Russian poodle, gazed at her with an approving, first-row-of-the-orchestra expression that made him look too wicked and dissipated for anything. She gave him a gentle kick on the nose to remind him that staring wasn’t gentlemanly, and finally chose a blue tailor-made by Redfern. When this was on, the rest of her preparations were easy. She could not well take Watch, so she took his collar, and this was the first to go into the little hand-bag. A nightgown followed, a pair of stockings, tooth-brush, comb and brush, tooth-powder, some handkerchiefs, the photographs of her father and mother, still in their frames, and a pair of patent leather slippers with gilt buckles. Surely no little bride of her importance and social position had ever set forth with so slender a trousseau. There it all was, dog-collar below, slippers on top, in a bag no bigger than an exaggerated purse. She smiled a little tremulously as she looked at it, touched as only a woman could be by the magnitude of her sacrifice. Her clothes and her father--tears for both, thus equally abandoned, suffused her eyes.