INFATUATION

INFATUATION

CHAPTER I

Phyllis Ladd lost her mother at twelve; and this bereavement, especially terrible to an only child, brought with it two consequences that had a far-reaching effect on her character. An ardent, high-strung nature, acquainted so early with a poignant sorrow, gets an outlook on the world that is so just and true as to constitute a misfortune in itself. A child ought not to think; ought not to suffer; ought not to understand. Individuality, sympathy, sensibility awaken--qualities that go to make a charming human being--but which have to be paid for in the incessant balance of our complex existence. Phyllis' school-fellows were no longer the same to her; she felt herself a person apart; though she played as gaily as any of them, and chattered her head off, and tripped blithely along Chestnut Avenue entwined in the arms of her companions, she was aware, down in her secret heart, that she was "different."

At twelve, then, her path diverged from the commonplace, in which, as we all have to admit, however reluctantly, the chances for a happy life are best.

The second consequence of her mother's death was to bring her into contact with a scarcely known individual--her father. This grave, handsome man, who sat behind a newspaper at breakfast, and who was not seen again till dinner time; who drove away every morning behind a liveried coachman and a pair of shining bays to a region called "the office"; whose smile and voice were always a shy delight to her--this demigod, admired, unknown, from whom there emanated a delicious sense of security and strength, now suddenly drew her to his heart, and became her world, her all.

Robert T. R. Ladd was the president of the K. B. and O. Railway. Rich himself, and the son of a rich man, his interests in Carthage were varied and many, engaging his activities far beyond the great road that was associated with his name. Carthage was an old-fashioned city; and the boys who had grown up together and succeeded their fathers were clannish to a degree little known in the newer parts of this country. Joe, who was prominent in electricity and gas, might want to consolidate a number of scattered plants, and to that end would seek the assistance of Tom and Harry and Bob. George, perhaps, in forecasting the growth of Carthage a little too generously, was in temporary straits with his land-scheme--well, he would ask Tom and Bob to tide him over, making a company of himself, and taking them in. Frank and his brother, in converting their private bank into the Fifth National--induced as much as anything by the vanity of seeing their own names on their own greenbacks--would feel the need of a strong local man on the new directorate. Would Bob oblige them? "Why, with pleasure, though if somebody else would do as well--" "Oh, we must have you, old fellow."

Such was Carthage--at least the Carthage of Chestnut Avenue, of the long lines of stately and beautiful mansions on what was called the West Side, the Carthage that supported the Symphony Orchestra, owned the parterre boxes at the opera, dined, drove, danced, and did business together--as compact and jealous a little aristocracy as any in Hungary or Silesia. Of course there was another Carthage--several other Carthages--one a teeming riverside quarter where English was an unknown tongue, a place black with factory chimneys, full of noise and refuse, dirt and ugliness, where forty thousand nondescript foreigners pigged together, and contributed forty thousand pairs of very grimy and unwilling hands to the material advancement of the city and state. There was a business Carthage, with banks and sky-scrapers, and vast webs of wires that darkened the sky. There was a pleasure Carthage that awoke only at night, blazing out with a myriad lights, and a myriad enticements. There was a middle-class residence Carthage; a second-class residence Carthage; an immense, poor, semi-disreputable, altogether dreary Carthage that was popularly alluded to as "South of the slot," the name dating from the time of the first cable-car line, now long since discarded.

But to return to Phyllis Ladd.

In losing her mother, it might be said she had discovered her father. At first perhaps it was pity, loneliness, almost terror that caused Mr. Ladd to take this little creature in his arms, and hold her as he might a shield. He had idolized his wife; he hardly knew how to go on living without her; one day, in his office, as his old friend Latham was leaving him, he had pulled open a drawer, and taken a loaded revolver from it. "Latham," he said, with a very slight tremor in his voice, "would you mind putting this damned thing in your pocket--I--I--find it tempts me."

Yes, his little daughter was a shield; he held her slim body between himself and despair; he told her this again and again, as he sat with bowed head and suffusing eyes in the shadow of an irrevocable happiness. And she in whom there stirred, mysteriously, dimly, the tenderness of the sublime love that had called her into being--she, even while she mingled her tears with his, felt within herself the welling of an exquisite joy. To love, to solace, to protect, here again instincts were prematurely awakened; here again her little feet departed from the commonplace to carry her far afield.

In time, as weeks and months rolled on, the blow, so unendurable at first, so crushing and terrible, softened, as such things will, and a busy world again engrossed a busy man. But the intimacy between father and daughter remained, and continued unimpaired. Indeed, it grew even closer, for now laughter came into it, and gay bubbling little confidences, and a delightful hour before bedtime, full of eagerness and zest. Mr. Ladd, cigar in mouth, and his keen handsome face as deferential as any courtier's, listened to the interminable doings of Satty and Nelly and Jessie, with an enjoyment that never seemed to tire.

He, too, had his budget of the day, which, often begun whimsically, not seldom ended in a serious exposition of his difficulties and problems. It amused him to state such complexities in simple language; to bring them