The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1917-08-24

around, and marched back into his
| own cubbyhole.
"You needn't telephone, Miss
Beach," said Rodney CURLY. And,
without another word. he put on his
hat and overcoat, walked straight over
to the club and told the man at the
cigar counter to get him ticket for
tonight's performance of ''The Girl
Upstairs"
1t was after five, and he decided he
might as well dine here. So he went
up to the lounge, armed himself with
an evening paper, and dropped into a
big leather chair.
But all his carefully contrived en-
vironment hadn't the power, it seemed,
They went on dwelling on the be-
havior of Miss Beach and young
Craig, which really got queerer the
more one thought about it. &.
He flung down his paper and went
into the adjoining room. The large
round table nearest the door was pre-
empted by a group of men he knew,
and he came up with the intention OF
dropping into the one vacant chair.
But just before the first of them caught
a glimpse of him his ear picked up the
phrase "The Girl Upstairs" And
then lawyer in the group looked up
and recognized him. "Hello, AID
rich," he said, and the flash of
silence that followed had a galvanic
quality. The others began urging him
to sit down, but he said he was look
ing for somebody, and walked away
down the room and out the farther
door.
He knew now that he was afraid.
Yet the thing he was afraid of refused
to come out into the open where he
could see it and know what it was.
He still believed that he didn't know
what 1t was when he walked past the
framed photographs In the lobby Of
the theater without looking at them
and stopped at the box office to ex-
change his seat, well down in front,
for one near the back of the theater.
But when the sextette made their
first entrance upon the stage, he knew
that he had known for a good many
hours.
He never stirred from his seat dur
ing either of the fntermissions. But
along in the third act he got up and
went out.
The knout that f1ogged his soul had
a score of lashes, each with .the sting
of its own peculiar venom. Everybody
who knew him, his closer friends and
his casual acquaintance as well, must
have known, for weeks, of this dis
grace. His friends had been sorry for
him, with just a grain of contempt;
his acquaintance had grinned over
1t with just a pleasurable salt OF
pity. "Do you know Aldrich7 Well,
his wife's in the chorus at the Globe
theater. And he doesn't know it, poor
devil"
The northwest wind which had been
blowing icily since shutdown, had In
creased in violence to gale. But he
SlIOuc Jul VI Tic IOODy nAa AAtO AAS
street unaware Of 1t.
He found the stage door and pulled
1t open. An intermittent roar OF hand
clapping, increasing and diminishing |
with the rapid rise and fall of the |
curtain, told b,m that the perform
ance was jus = yer.
A doorman stopped him and asked
him what he wanted.
81 want to see Mrs. Aldrich," he
said. "Mrs. Rodney Aldrich."
mo such person here" said the
man, and Rodney, in his rage. simply
assumed that he was lying. 1t didn't
occur to him that Rose would have
taken another name.
He stood there a moment, debating
to attempt to force an en-
rance against the doorman's unmis-
.akable intention to stop him, and de-
,ided to wait instead.
The decision wasn't due to common
sense, but to a wish not to dissipate
his rage on people that didn't mat
er. He wanted it intact for Rose.
He went back to the alley, braced
himself in the angle of brick pier,
Ind waited. He neither stamped his
eet nor failed his arms about to drive
,ff the cold. He just stood still with
he patience of his immemorial ances-
or, waiting. unconscious of the lapse
# time, unconscious of the figures
hat presently began struggling out of
he narrow door that were not she.