As the house streamed out she waited in dread for Mrs. Beekman’s criticism. However desperately she might belittle Adair to herself, Phyllis shrank from hearing condemnation on other lips. The pride that had failed so utterly to defend her, had taken sides with the enemy, devotedly, passionately. Judge of her surprise, then, her pleasure and relief, when Mrs. Beekman said to her solemnly: "Phyllis, that man’s a genius! He’s perfectly splendid!" Misunderstanding her companion’s silence, and thinking it implied dissent, she went on with a note of argument in her voice. "Of course one can feel somehow that he has had no advantages--that he has probably never been within ten miles of the people he is trying to represent--(do you remember his shaking hands with his gloves on?)--but just the same he has a wonderful and magnificent talent, and we’ll hear of him as surely as the world heard of Henry Irving, or Booth, or Bernhardt. Truly, Phyllis, I believe the day will come when we’ll be bragging of having admired Adair before he was famous; that is, if you feel like me about it," she added doubtfully.
"I do, I do!" cried Phyllis. "I’ve never seen anybody on the stage I’ve liked as much."
"Well, I have," said Mrs. Beekman candidly. "He certainly suffered from being with all those idiots, and I don’t like that fling-ding walk of his.--I guess he’s about five years short of the winning-post, but we’ll see him romp in as sure as my name’s Emma Beekman."
"Romping in" jarred somewhat on Phyllis’ ear, but all the same Mrs. Beekman’s admiration was very sweet to her, and in a queer sort of way was comforting and reassuring. There was dignity in idolizing a genius; it raised her in her own good opinion.
She forgot the apples and the chewing-gum; she forgot even Miss de Vere; a mantle of unreasoning happiness enveloped her, and with it came a gush of affection for Mrs. Beekman that quite astonished the latter. She held her hand in the dark, and tried, with many unseen blushes, to keep the one subject uppermost. To lie back in the carriage and hear Adair praised, thrilled her with delicious sensations. She was insatiable, and kept the milliner repeating "genius, genius, genius," like a parrot. It cost her an order for a twenty dollar hat, but what did she care? She would have given the clothes off her back in the extravagance of her desire. Fortunately Mrs. Beekman was nothing loath, and would have chattered for ever on this entrancing topic. "I guess we’re as bad as my girls," she said, with her good-natured laugh, "and he could put us both in the box-car, too, if he had the mind."
