And the history of Newgag is the history of many.

XXV. -- AN OPERATIC EVENING

I

_A Desperate Youth_

The second act of "William Tell" had ended at the Grand Opera House.

The incandescent lights of ceiling and proscenium flashed up, showering radiance upon the vast surface of summer costumes and gay faces in the auditorium. The audience, relieved of the stress of attention, became audible in a great composite of chatter. A host streamed along the aisles into the wide lobbies, and thence its larger part jostled through the front doors to the brilliantly illuminated vestibule. Many pa.s.sed on into the wide sidewalk, where the electric light poured its rays upon countless promenaders whose footfalls incessantly beat upon the aural sense. Scores of bicyclists of both s.e.xes sped over the asphalt up and down, some now and then deviating to make way for a lumbering yellow 'bus or a hurrying carriage.

Men and women, young people composing the majority, strolled to and fro in the roomy lobby that environs the auditorium on all sides save that of the stage. A group of enthusiasts stood between the rear door of the box-office and the wide entrance to the long middle aisle.

"How magnificently Guille held that last note!"

"What good taste and artistic sense Madame Kronold has!"

"Del Puente hasn't been in better voice in years."

"But you know, Mademoiselle Islar is decidedly a lyric soprano."

These were some of the sc.r.a.ps of the conversation of that group. A lithe, athletic-looking man of thirty stood mechanically listening to them, as he stroked his black moustache. He was in summer attire, evidently disdaining conventionalities, preferring comfort.

Suddenly losing interest in the conversation in his vicinity, he started toward the Montgomery Avenue side of the lobby, with the apparent intention of breathing some outside air at one of the wide-barred exits, where children stood looking in from the sidewalk, and catching what glimpses they could of the audience through the doorways in the gla.s.s part.i.tion bounding the auditorium.

He by chance cast his glance up the unused staircase leading to the balcony from the northern part of the lobby. He saw upon the third step a young woman in a dark flannel outing-dress, her face concealed by a veil. She seemed to be watching some one among those who stood or moved near the Montgomery Avenue exits, which had wire barriers.

"By Jove!" he said, within himself, "surely I know that figure! But I thought she had gone to the Catskills, and I never supposed her capable of wearing negligee clothes at the theatre. There can be no mistaking that wrist, though, or that turn of the shoulders."

He stepped softly to her side and lightly touched one of the admired shoulders.

She turned quickly and suppressed an exclamation ere it was half-uttered.

"Why, Harry--Doctor Haslam, I mean! How did you know it was I?"

"Why, Amy--that is to say, Miss Winnett! What on earth are you doing here? Pardon the question, but I thought you were on the mountains. I'm all the more glad to see you."

While he pressed her hand she looked searchingly into his eyes, a fact of which he was conscious despite her veil.

"I'm not here--as far as my people may know. I'm at the Catskills with my cousins--except to my cousins themselves. To them I've come back home for a week's conference with my dressmaker. Our house isn't entirely closed up, you know. Aunt Rachel likes the hot weather of Philadelphia all summer through, and she's still here. When I arrived here this morning, I told her the dressmaker story. She retires at eight and she thinks I'm in bed too. But I'm here, and n.o.body suspects it but you and Mary, the servant at home, who knows where I've come, and who's to stay up for me till I return to-night. That's all of it, and now, as you're a friend of mine, you mustn't tell any one, will you?"

"But I know nothing to tell," said the bewildered doctor. "What does all this subterfuge, this mystery mean?"

Amy Winnett considered silently for a moment, while Doctor Haslam mentally admired the slim, well-rounded figure, the graceful poise of the little head with its ma.s.s of brown hair beneath a sailor hat of the style that "came in" with this summer.

"I may as well tell you all," she answered, presently. "I may need your a.s.sistance, too. I can rely upon you?"

"Through fire and water."

"I've come to Philadelphia to prevent a suicide."

"Good gracious!"

"Yes. You see, I've broken the engagement between me and Tom Appleton."

"What! You don't mean it?"

There was a striking note of jubilation in the doctor's interruption.

Miss Winnett made no comment thereupon, but continued:

"I finally decided that I didn't care as much for Tom as I'd thought I did, and then I had a suspicion--but I won't mention that--"

"No, you needn't. Your fortune--pardon me, I simply took the privilege of an old friend who had himself been rejected by you. Go on."

"Don't interrupt again. As I said, I concluded that I couldn't be Tom's wife, and I told him so. He went to the Catskills when we went, you know, as he thought he could keep up his law studies as well there as here. You can't imagine how he took it. I'd never before known how much he--he really wished to marry me. But I was unflinching, and at last he left me, vowing that he would return to Philadelphia and commit suicide.

He swore a terrible oath that my next message from him would be found in his hands after his death. And he set to-night as the time for the deed."

"But why couldn't he have done it there and then?"

"How hard-hearted you are! Probably because he wanted to put his affairs in order before putting an end to his life."

She spoke in all seriousness. Doctor Haslam succeeded with difficulty in restraining a smile.

"You don't imagine for a moment," he said, "that the young man intended keeping his oath."

"Don't I? You should have seen the look on his face when he spoke it."

"Well?"

"Well, I couldn't sleep with the thought that a man was going to kill himself on my account. It makes me shudder. I'd see his face in my dreams every night of my life. Then if a note were really found in his hands, addressed to me, the whole thing would come out in the newspapers, and wouldn't that be horrible? Of course I couldn't tell my cousins anything about his threat, so I invented my excuse quickly, packed a small handbag, disguised myself with Cousin Laura's hat and veil, and took the same train that Tom took. I've kept my eye on him ever since, and he has no idea I'm on his track. The only time I lost was in hurrying home with my handbag to see my aunt, but I didn't even do that until I'd followed him on Chestnut Street to the down-town box-office of this theatre and seen him buy a seat, which I later found out from the ticket-seller was for to-night. So here I am, and there he is."

"Where?"

"Standing over there by that wire thing like a fence next the street."

The doctor looked over as she motioned. He soon recognized the slender figure, the indolent att.i.tude of Tom Appleton, the blase young man whom he was so accustomed to meeting at billiard-tables, in clubs, or hotels.

A tolerant, amiable expression saved the youth's smooth, handsome face from vacuity. He was dressed with careful nicety.

"But," said Haslam, "a man about to take leave of this life doesn't ordinarily waste time going to the opera."

"Why not? He probably came here to think. One can do that well at the opera."

"Tom Appleton think?--I beg pardon again. But see, he's talking to a girl now, Miss Estabrook, of North Broad Street. His smile to her is not the kind of a smile that commonly lights up a man's face on his way to death."

"You don't suppose he would conceal his intentions from people by putting on his usual gaiety, do you?" she replied, ironically; adding, rather stiffly, "He has at least sufficiently good manners to do that, if not sufficient duplicity."

"I didn't mean to offend you. My motive was to comfort you with the probability that he has changed his mind about shuffling off his mortal coil."