From within, a swelling volume of applause told the fall of the curtain.
Cunningham made a lunge to pass the figure that blocked him.
“Careful, careful, old boy!” came firmly from the manager. “Hold tight there! They’ll be coming out—take it easy.”
The other man’s face was set.
“I’ve told you—”
“And I tell you! This is my theater! Anybody who causes any disturbance gets out!”
A prominent clubman sighted Cunningham at this juncture and hurried across the lobby. From that moment Nancy’s husband was forced to assume an easy pride calculated to disarm gossip, forced to become the center of a throng bent upon congratulating him on his wife’s success.
During the ten minutes of intermission he bore it with a smile chiseled on his handsome face, then left the theater as the lights went low. Back to the hotel he tramped, turned and retraced his steps like some madman muttering to himself. Then up and down the dark alley of the stage entrance, watching for signs that the final curtain had fallen, unable to consider the sane and sensible alternative of waiting for his wife in the privacy of her own rooms.
When at last they stood face to face under the [334] ]brilliant lights of her dressing-room it was evident Coghlan had warned her.
She was alone. In the little room where they had met five years ago they met once more. And to-night as that night a flame like a living thing darted between them. Then it had been white and warming. Now it filled the place, a devastating fury. But in the face of it she stood calm.