Let's Kiss and Part

6

If Angelina had turned her fair head to look back as she drove off so triumphantly with her handsome escort, she would have seen Keller Ford scrambling up from the gutter where he had landed after his animated encounter with Frank, and shaking his fist after her malevolently, while curses low and deep shrilled over his lips, and his eyes blazed with a baleful light that boded no good to those who had aroused his jealous anger.

Brushing the soil of the gutter from his flashy suit, he shambled across the pavement and back into the house from which he had been so vigorously rejected.

Madame Levin herself met him on the threshold, and drew him in, exclaiming hoarsely:

"Why, Keller, what is the meaning of this? I was just coming into the hall to see Angelina off on her drive when I beheld her struggling in your arms, and the next moment Mr. Adler grasped you and sent you spinning down the steps like a top!".

"Adler! Is that his name, curse him?" grumbled Ford, rubbing his knee which seemed to have been crippled by the fall, and continuing excitedly, "It was this way, Aunt Levin: I fell in love with pretty little Angelina the minute I clapped my eyes on her yesterday, the beggarly little minx, and when I did her the good turn to send her to you, of course, I meant to have my innings for the good deed. This afternoon I spruced up in my very best and came to take her for a walk, but as soon as I came in and asked her, she tossed up her yellow head like a princess and said she had another engagement. My temper flared up and I said she should go with me and give me a kiss into the bargain, but when I grabbed her, she fought like a little cat, and then that dandy rushed in like a whirlwind, caught me up with the strength of ten men and pitched me down the steps, rolling me into the gutter and nearly breaking every bone in my body, ugh!" with another groan.

"But, Keller, I thought you were courting that little Jewess, Yetta Stein."

"So I am, and have bought the ring, but it's all up with that since I've seen Angelina. Besides, Yetta's family were bent on making me embrace the Jewish religion before the knot was tied, so I can refuse to do it and break off that way."

"You mean to say you'll throw over the match with the rich pawn broker's daughter for the sake of this beggar, Angelina?".

"Yes, I will. I wasn't thinking at first of marriage, only having some good times with her, but now that dandified Samson has shown up, I'll take her from him if I can, just to break his heart as he tried to break my neck. Curse him!"

"Oh, pshaw, Keller, it's nonsense of you to think of competing with a rich young millionaire like Frank Adler. Why he never saw her before today, and he must have become quite fascinated with her at first sight, for he invited her to drive with him in the park this afternoon."

Keller Ford shook his fist and raved impatiently:

"I say he shall not! I'll follow them to the park, frighten his horses, and make them run away and break both the upstarts' necks."

"What good would that do, you foolish fellow? Better dismiss them both from your mind and stick to Yetta."

"I won't, so there! I swear to have Angelina Jennings, by hook or crook!"

"You cannot succeed. I have read both their hands, and if the science of palmistry is true, which I firmly believe, those two, Adler, the millionaire, and Angelina, the little working girl, are meant for each other by fate."

"Bah, curse palmistry! Didn't you read my hand and tell me a pack of lies?"

"No, I told you that a prison yawned for you and that only a lawyer's quibble would be able to save your neck from the gallows. I begged you to restrain your evil propensities and try to avert the disaster if you could! And I read all this written in your hand as plain as print," returned the fortune teller solemnly, with full faith in her art but, with an oath of incredulous scorn, her nephew limped heavily out of the house.