"Good heaven and earth! you don't mean _my_ theatre, do you?" and then
two great horses, hurling a fire-engine around the corner into our street
made swift and terrifying answer. With a piercing cry I caught up my
cloak, and throwing off somebody's restraining hands I dashed down-stairs
and into the street, racing like mad, giving sobbing cries, and utterly
unconscious for over two blocks' space that my waist was unclosed and my
naked throat and chest were bare to the wintry wind.
At the corner of the street at Sixth Avenue I wrung my hands in anguish,
crying, "Oh, dear God! I knew it! I knew it!" for there, stalled in the
snow, was the engine, so desperately needed a little further on! And as I
resumed my run I said to myself: "What is it that has tried so hard to
tell me--to warn me? Tried all the day--and I would not understand--and
now it's too late!"
Why I ran I do not know--it was not curiosity. I felt, somehow, that if I
could get there in time I might do something--God knows what! As I neared
the theatre the crowd grew more dense, yet to my gasping: "Please, oh,
please!" an answer came in a quick moving aside to let pass the woman
with the white, tear-wet face. I broke through the cordon and was making
for the stage-door, when a rough hand caught me by the shoulder. There
was an oath, and I was fairly hurled back toward the safety line.
"Oh, let me alone!" I cried, "I want to go to my room! It will take me
but a moment!"
Again the rough hand reached out for me, when a strange man threw his arm
in front of me protectingly: "Take care what you're about!" he said. "Be
a little gentle--she has a right close to the line, she's one of the
company! Can't you see?"
"Oh," grunted the policeman, "well, I didn't know, and I couldn't let her
kill herself!"
"No," said the stranger, "but you had no call to pitch her about as you
did!" And just then a long, thin hand caught mine, and Mr. Daly's voice
said: "Come here, child!" and he led me across the street and up some
steps, and there, opposite the burning building, I could realize the
madness of my act in trying to enter. The front of the building stood
firm, but beyond it, within, all was seething flame. It was like some
magnificent spectacular production--some Satanic pantomime and ballet,
and every now and then a whirling flame, crowned with myriad sparks,
sprang madly up into the very sky like some devilish _premiere danseuse_;
while the lesser fiends joined hands and circled frenziedly below.
Mr. Daly never spoke a word. He had not released my fingers, and so we
stood, hand in hand, watching silently over the torment of his beloved
theatre--the destruction of his gathered treasures. I looked up at him.
His face gleamed white in the firelight; his eyes were wide and strained;
his fingers, icy cold, never lessened their clinching grasp on mine. Then
came the warning cry firemen are apt to give when they know the roof is
going. I had heard it often, and understood that and their retreating
movement. Mr. Daly did not, and when, with a crackling crash, the whole
roof fell into the roaring depths, his hand, his body, relaxed suddenly;
a sort of sobbing groan escaped his pale lips. But when the column of
glowing sparks flew high into the air he turned away with a shiver and
gave not one other look at the destroyed building.
Not one word was spoken on the subject. Glancing down he noticed I had no
rubbers on and that streams of water were running in the street:
"Go home, child!" he said, speaking quickly and most kindly. A crowd of
reporters came up to him: "Yes," he said, "in one moment, gentlemen,"
then to me: "Hurry home, get something to eat--you could have had no
dinner!"
He gave one heavy sigh, and added: "I'm glad you were with me, it would
have been worse alone." He pushed me gently from him. As I started down
the street he called: "I'll send you word some time to-night what we're
to do."
I left him to the reporters; I had not spoken one word from the moment I
had begged to enter my dressing-room. I felt strangely sad and forlorn as
I dropped, draggled and tired, into a chair. I said to mother: "It's
gone! the only theatre in New York whose door was not barred against me,
and--I--I think that at this moment I know just how a dog feels who has
lost a loved master," and, dropping my face upon my hands, I wept long
over the destruction of my first dramatic home in New York, the little
Fifth Avenue Theatre.