Produced by Al Haines.

*INFATUATION*

LLOYD OSBOURNE

AUTHOR OF
The Motomaniacs, The Adventurer, Etc.

With Illustrations by
KARL ANDERSON

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

MARCH

PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.

*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.