CHAPTER XXXII
Bret telegraphed Sheila that he was coming to New York to see her. She telegraphed back:
Awfully love see you but hideously busy rehearsals souls devotion.
These poor telegraph operators! The honey they have to transmit must fairly stick to the wires and gum up the keys.
Winfield determined to go, anyway—and to surprise her. He set out without warning and flew to the theater as soon as he reached New York. The tip-loving doorman declined so fiercely to take his card in that he frightened the poor swain out of the proffer of a bribe.
While Winfield loitered irresolutely near the stage entrance an actor strolled out to snatch a few puffs of a cigarette while he was not needed. Winfield was about to ask him to tell Miss Kemble that Mr. Winfield was waiting for her. He saw that the actor was Eldon.
He dodged behind the screen of a fire-escape from the gallery and slunk away unobserved. There was no fire-escape in his soul from the conflagration of jealousy that shot up at the sight of his rival, and the thought that Eldon was spending his days in Sheila’s company, while her affianced lover gnashed his teeth outside.
He hung about like Mary’s lamb for meekness and like Red Riding-Hood’s wolf for wrath. He would wait for Sheila to come out for lunch. Hours passed. He saw Eldon dash across the street to a little restaurant and return with a cup of coffee and a bundle of sandwiches. Ye gods, he was feeding her!
With all a lover’s fiendish ingenuity in devising tortures for himself, Winfield transported his soul from the vat of boiling oil to the rack and the cell of Little Ease and back again. He imagined the most ridiculous scenes in the theater and suspected Sheila of such treacheries that if he had really believed them he would surely have been cured of his love.
He saw that a policeman was regarding him with suspicion, and since he was faint with torture on an empty stomach, he went to a restaurant to kill time. When he returned he waited an hour before he ventured to steal upon the stage-door keeper again. Then he learned that the rehearsal had been dismissed two hours before. Aching with rage, he taxicabbed to Sheila’s hotel. She had not returned. Out riding with Eldon somewhere no doubt!