An intermittent roar of hand-clapping, increasing
and diminishing with the rapid rise and fall of the curtain, told him
that the performance was just over.
A doorman stopped him and asked him what he wanted.
"I want to see Mrs. Aldrich," he said, "Mrs. Rodney Aldrich."
"No such person here," said the man, and Rodney, in his rage, simply
assumed that he was lying. It didn't occur to him that Rose would have
taken another name.
He stood there a moment debating whether to attempt to force an entrance
against the doorman's unmistakable intention to stop him, and decided 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 matter. He wanted it intact for Rose.
He went back into the alley, braced himself in the angle of a brick pier
and waited. He neither stamped his feet nor flailed his arms about to
drive off the cold. He just stood still with the patience of his
immemorial ancestor, waiting. Unconscious of the lapse of time,
unconscious of the figures that presently began straggling out of the
narrow door, that were not she.
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