but the hope would not die. he studied the theatrical announcements, and when yvonne rupert once again flashed upon new york he set out to see her. but it struck him that the remote seat he could afford—for it would not do to spend a week's wage on the mere chance—would be too far off for precise identification, especially as she would probably be theatrically transmogrified. no, a wiser as well as a more economical plan would be to meet her at the stage-door, as he used to meet gittel. he would hang about till she came.
it was a long ride to the variety theatre, and, the weather being sloppy, there was not even standing-room in the car, every foot of which, as it plunged and heaved ship-like through the watery night, was a suffocating jam of human beings, wedged on the seats, or clinging tightly to the overhead straps, or swarming like stuck flies on the fore and hind platforms, the squeeze and smell intensified by the shovings and writhings of damp passengers getting in and out, or by the desperate wriggling of the poor patient collector of fares boring his way through the very thick of the soldered mass. elkan alighted with a headache, glad even of the cold rain that sprinkled his forehead. the shining carriages at the door of the theatre filled him for once with a bitter revolt. but he dared not insinuate himself among the white-wrapped, scented women and elegant cloaked men, though he itched to enter the portico and study the pictures of yvonne rupert, of which he caught a glimpse. he found his [301]way instead to the stage-door, and took up a position that afforded him a complete view of the comers and goers, if only partial shelter from the rain.
but the leaden hours passed without her, with endless fevers of expectation, heats followed by chills. the performers came and went, mostly on foot, and strange nondescript men and women passed too through the jealously-guarded door.
he was drenched to the skin with accumulated drippings ere a smart brougham drove up, a smart groom opened an umbrella, and a smart—an unimaginably smart—gittel goldstein alighted.
yes, the incredible was true!
beneath that coquettish veil, under the aureole of hair, gleamed the piquant eyes he had kissed so often.
he remained petrified an instant, dazed and staring. she passed through the door the groom held open. the doorkeeper, from his pigeon-hole, handed her some letters. yes, he knew every trick of the shoulders, every turn of the neck. she stood surveying the envelopes. as the groom let the door swing back and turned away, he rushed forward and pushed it open again.
'gittel!' he cried chokingly. 'gittel!'
she turned with a quick jerk of the head, and in her flushed, startled face he read consciousness if not recognition. the reek of her old cherry-blossom smote from her costlier garments, kindling a thousand passionate memories.
'knowest thou me not?' he cried in yiddish.
in a flash her face, doubly veiled, was a haughty stare.
[302]'who is zis person?' she asked the doorkeeper in her charming french-english.
he reverted to english.
'i am elkan, your own elkan!'
ah, the jostle of sweet and bitter memories. so near, so near again! the same warm seductive witch. he strove to take her daintily-gloved hand.
she shrank back shudderingly and thrust open the door that led to the dressing-rooms beside the stage.
'ze man is mad, lunatic!' and she disappeared with that delicious shrug of the shoulders that had captivated the states.
insensate fury overcame him. what! this creature who owed all this glory to his dragging her away from the london ghetto theatre, this heartless, brazen minx who had been glad to nestle in his arms, was to mock him like this, was to elude him again! he made a dash after her; the doorkeeper darted from his little room, but was hurled aside in a swift, mad tussle, and elkan, after a blind, blood-red instant, found himself blinking and dripping in the centre of the stage, facing [303]a great roaring audience, tier upon tier. then he became aware of a pair of eccentric comedians whose scene he had interrupted, and who had not sufficient presence of mind to work him into it, so that the audience which had laughed at his headlong entrance now laughed the louder over its own mistake.
but its delightful moment of sensational suspense was brief. in a twinkling the doorkeeper's vengeful hands were on the intruder's collar.
'i want yvonne rupert!' shrieked elkan struggling. 'she is mine—mine! she loved me once!'
a vaster wave of laughter swept back to him as he was hauled off, to be handed over to a policeman on a charge of brawling and assaulting the doorkeeper.
