It was the sort of thing the women in the audience did not get from their own lovers or husbands; the sort of thing the men in the audience wanted to be able to say in a crisis and could not. Therefore, for all its banality, it thrilled them. They ate it up. It was a sentimental banquet served at this emotion restaurant every evening.
At length, as Eldon repeated his demand in tones that swept the sympathetic strings in every bosom to response, Mary began to yield; her hands climbed Eldon’s arms slowly, paused on his shoulders. In a moment they would plunge forward and clasp him about the neck.
Her lips were lifted, pursed to meet his. And then—as the audience was about to scream with suspense—she thrust herself away from him, broke loose, moaning:
“No, I am unworthy—no, no—I can’t, I don’t love you—no—no!”
The curtain fell on another flight.
Bret wanted to push through the crowd and go back to the stage to forbid the play from going on. But he would have had to squeeze past the fat woman’s form or stride across the lean woman’s protrusive knees. And fat women and men, and lean, were wedged in the seats on both sides of him. He was imprisoned in his wrath.
As if his own doubts and certainties were not torture enough, he had to hear them voiced in the dialects of others.
The gumstress was saying: “Well, I guess that frien’ o’ mine got it right when she says those two actors must be in love with each other. I tell you no girrl can look at a feller with those kind of looks without there bein’ somethin’ doin’, you take it from me. No feller like Mr. Eldon is goin’ to hold no beauty like Sheila in his arms every evening and not fall in love with her.”
Her escort was encouraged by her enthusiasm to rhapsodize over Sheila on his own account. It seemed to change the atmosphere. He had paid for both seats, but he had not bought free speech. He said—with as little tact as one might expect from a man who would pay court to that woman:
“Well, all I gotter say is, if that guy gets wore out huggin’ Sheila I’ll take his place and not charge him a cent. Some snap, he has, spendin’ his evenin’s huggin’ and kissin’ an A1 beaut like her and gettin’ paid for it.” He seemed to realize a sudden fall in the temperature. Perhaps he noted that the gum-crunching jaw had paused and the elastic sweetmeat hung idle in the mill. He tried to retreat with a weak: