That was Abraham Ruef's adventure. He wondered how each of them would end.
Ruef swept the field with his handsome fiddler. All "South of Market street" rallied to his support. The old line parties brought their trusty, well-oiled election machinery into play, but it availed them little.
Robert and Francisco met one day soon after the election. "Everyone is laughing at our fiddler Mayor," said the former. "He's like a king without a court; for all the other offices were carried by Republicans and Democrats."
Francisco smoked a moment thoughtfully. "Union Labor traded minor offices for Mayoralty votes, I understand. Meanwhile Ruef is building his machine. He has convinced the labor people that he knows the game. They've given him carte blanche."
"And how does the big fellow take it?"
"I was talking with him yesterday," Francisco answered. "Schmitz is shy just yet. But feels his dignity. Oh, mightily!" He laughed. "Little Abe will have his hands full with big 'Gene, I'm thinking."
"But Ruef's not daunted by the prospect."
"Heavens, no. The man has infinite self-confidence. And it's no fatuous egotism, either. A sort of suave, unshakable trust in himself. Abe Ruef's the cleverest politician San Francisco's known in many years--perhaps since Broderick. He makes such men as Burns and Buckley look like tyros--"
Robert looked up quickly. "By the way, I've often wondered whether Buckley wasn't guilty of your disappearance. He meant you no good."
"No," Francisco answered. "I've looked into that. Chris, himself, had no connection with it. Once he threatened me ... but I've since learned what he meant.... Just a little blackmail which concerned a woman. But--" he hesitated.
Robert moved uneasily. "But--what?"
"Oh, well, it didn't work. The girl he planned to use told him the truth." Francisco, too, seemed ill at ease. "It was so long ago ... it's all forgotten."
"I trust so," said the other. Rather abruptly he rose. "Must be getting back to work."
Once a week Frank donned his evening clothes and was driven to a certain splendid home on Pacific Heights. Bertha Larned met him always with a smile--and a different gown. Each successive one seemed more splendid, becoming, costly. And ever the lady seemed more sweet as their intimacy grew. Once when Frank had stammered an enthusiastic appreciation of her latest gown--a wondrous thing of silk and lace that seemed to match the changing fires in her eyes--she said suddenly: "What a fright I must have looked that evening--in the Midway! And what you must have thought of me--in such a place!"
"Do you wish to know just what I thought?" Frank asked her, reddening.
"Yes." Her eyes, a little shamed, but brave, met his.
"Well," he said, "you stood there with your hair all streaming and your--and that splendid fire in your eyes. The beauty of you struck me like a whip. You seemed an angel--after all the sordid sights I'd seen. And--"
"Go on--please;" her eyes were shining.
"Then--it's sort of odd--but I wanted to fight for you!"
She came a little closer.
"Some day, perhaps," she spoke with sudden gravity, "I may ask you to do that."
"What? Fight for you?"
Bertha nodded.
It was after the Olympia had been made over into a larger Tivoli Opera House that Frank met Aleta Boice. She was a member of the chorus. Their acquaintance blossomed from propinquity, for both had a fashion of supping on the edge of midnight at a little restaurant, better known by its sobriquet of "Dusty Doughnut," than by its real name, which long ago had been forgotten.
Frank had formed the habit of sitting at a small table somewhat isolated from the others where now and then he wrote an article or editorial. Hitherto it had unvaryingly been at his disposal, for the hour of Frank's reflection was not a busy one. Therefore he was just a mite annoyed to find his table tenanted by a woman. Perhaps his irritation was apparent; or, perchance, Aleta had a knack for reading faces, for she colored.
"I--I beg your pardon. Have I got your place?"
"N-no," protested Frank. "I sit here often ... that's no matter."
"Well," she said; "don't let me drive you off. I'll not be comfortable.... Let's share it, then," she smiled; "tonight, at least."
They did. Frank found her very like her mother--the smiling one of Darlton and Boice, Olympia entertainers of past years. One couldn't call her pretty, when her face was in repose. But that was seldom, so it didn't matter. Her smile was like a spring, a fountain of perennial good nature. And her eyes were trusting, like a child's. Frank often wondered how she had maintained that look of eager innocence amid the life she lived.
Frank learned much of her past. She could barely remember the father, who was a circus acrobat and had been killed by a fall from a trapeze. Her mother had retired from the stage; she was doing needlework for the department stores and the Woman's Exchange.
"Every morning she teaches me grammar," said Aleta. "Mother's never wanted me to talk slang like the other girls. She says if you're careless with your English you get careless of your principles. Mother's got a lot of quaint ideas like that."
Again came her rippling laugh. Frank grew to enjoy her; look forward to the nightly fifteen minutes of companionship. They never met anywhere else. But when an illness held Aleta absent for a week the Dusty Doughnut seemed a lonesome place.
Bertha twitted Frank upon his absent-mindedness one evening as he dined with her. By an effort he shook off his vagary of the other girl. He loved Bertha. But, for some unfathomed cause, she held him off. Never had she let him reach a declaration.
"We're such marvelous friends!... Can't we always be that--just that?"
Things drifted on. Schmitz, as a Mayor, caused but small remark. He reminded Frank of a rustic, sitting at a banquet board and watching his neighbors before daring to pick up a fork or spoon. But Ruef went on building his fences. Union Labor was now a force to deal with. And Ruef was Union Labor.
One of Robert's clients desired to open a French restaurant, with the usual hotel appurtenances. He made application in the usual manner. But the license was denied.
Robert was astonished for no reason was assigned and all requests for explanation were evaded.
A week or so later, Robert met the restaurateur. "Well, I've done it," said the latter, jovially. "Open Monday, Come around and eat with me."
"But--how did you manage it?"
"Oh, I took a tip. I made Ruef my attorney. Big retaining fee," he sighed. "But--well, it's worth the price."
By the end of Schmitz' second term the Democrats and Republicans were thoroughly alarmed. They saw a workingmen's control of city government loom large and imminent, with all its threat of overturned political tradition.
So the old line parties got together. They made it a campaign of Morality against imputed Vice. They selected as a fusion standard-bearer George S. Partridge, a young lawyer of unblemished reputation--and of untried strength.
"If Ruef succeeds a third time," Frank said to his father, "he'll control the town. He'll elect a full Board of Supervisors ... that is freely prophesied if Union Labor wins. You ought to see his list of candidates--waffle bakers, laundry wagon drivers--horny-fisted sons of toil and parasites of politics. Heaven help us if they get in power!"
"But there's always a final reckoning ... like the Vigilance Committee," said Francisco, slowly. "Somehow, I feel that there's a shakeup coming."
"A moral earthquake, eh?" laughed Jeanne. "I wouldn't want to have a real one, with all of our new skyscrapers."
After dinner Stanley and his son strolled downtown together. Exercise and diet had been recommended, Francisco was acquiring embonpoint. Frank was enthusiastic over the new motor carriages called automobiles.
Robert had one of them--the gasoline type--with achauffeur, as the French called the drivers of such machines. Bertha Larned had an "electric coupe," very handsome and costly, with plate-glass windows on three sides. She drove it herself. Frank sometimes encountered it downtown, looking like a moving glass cage, with the two women in it. Mrs. Larned, the aunt, always had a slightly worried expression, and Bertha, as she steered the thing through a tangle of horse-drawn traffic, wore a singularly determined look.
There were cable cars on most of the streets; a few electric lines which ran much more swiftly. But people deemed the latter dangerous. There was much popular sentiment against electrizing Market street. The United Railways, which had succeeded the old Market Street Railway Company, was in disfavor. There were rumors of illicit bargains with the Supervisors for the granting of proposed new franchises. Young Partridge made much of this. He warned the public that it was about to be "betrayed." But his prophetic eloquence availed him little. Schmitz and all the Union Labor candidates won by a great majority.
Frank sought Aleta at the Dusty Doughnut some months later. He was very tired, for the past few days had brought a multitude of tasks. He had counted on Aleta's smile. It seldom failed to cheer him, to restore the normal balance of his mind. But, though she came, the smile was absent. There was a faint ghost of it now and again; a harried look about the eyes. Frank thought there was a mistiness which hinted recent tears.
He laid a hand sympathetically on hers. "What is it, little girl?"
She would not tell him. Her mother was ill. But the trouble did not lie there. Frank was sure. She had borne that burden long and uncomplainingly. Aleta had an ingenue part now at the Alcazar. Only once or twice a week did she keep the tacit tryst at the little nocturnal cafe. Frank saw her at the Techau, at Zinkand's, the St. Germain, with the kind of men that make love to actresses. She knew all about the stock market and politics, for some of Ruef's new Supervisors were among her swains. Once or twice, as the jargon of the journals has it, she had "tipped off" a story to Frank.
She said at last, "I'll tell you something ... but you mustn't print it: This new city government is running wild.... They're scheming to hold up the town. They've made a list of all the corporations--the United Railways, the telephone company.... Everyone that wants a favor of the city must pay high. The man who told me this said that his share will total $30,000. Ruef and Schmitz will probably be millionaires."
"But how's it to be done? They're being watched, you know. They've lots of enemies. Bribery would land them in the penitentiary."
The girl leaned forward. "Ah, this isn't ordinary bribery. Anyone that wants a franchise or a license hires Ruef as his attorney. They say he gets as high at $10,000 for a retaining fee ... and they expect to clean the street car company out of a quarter million."
Prank stared. "Why--in God's name!--did he tell you this?"
"He loves me." There was something like defiance in her answer. "He wants me to accompany him to Europe--when he gets the coin. He says it won't be long."
"So"--Frank was a little nonplussed--"he wants you to marry him?"
"No," the girl's face reddened. "No, I can't ... he's got a wife."
For a moment there was silence. Then. "What did you tell the--hound, Aleta?"
"He's not a hound," she said evenly. "The wife won't care. She runs with other men...." Her eyes would not meet Frank's. "I--haven't answered."
"But--your mother!"
"Mother's mind is gone," Aleta answered, bitterly. "She doesn't even recognize me now.... But she's happy." Her laugh rang, mirthless.
"Aleta," he said, sternly, "do you love this man?"
"No," she said and stared at him. "I--I--"
"What?"
"I love another--if you must know all about it."
"Can't you--marryhim?Is he too poor?" asked Stanley.
"Poor?" Her eyes were stars; "that wouldn't matter. No, he's not my sort...."
"Does he know?"
"No," Aleta answered, hastily. "No, he doesn't ... and he never will."
Frank told his father something of the conversation.
"Its an open secret," said Francisco, "that Ruef and his crew are out for the coin. I'll tell you something else you mustn't print, your paper is determined to expose Ruef. The managing editor is on his way to Washington to confer with President Roosevelt.... The plan is to borrow Francis Heney and William J. Burns."
"What? The pair that has been exposing Senators and land frauds up in Oregon?"
His father nodded. "Phew!" The young man whistled. "You were right when you predicted that there was a shakeup coming."
Frank, expecting startling things to happen, kept his mind alert. But the months passed uneventfully. The editor returned from Washington. No sensational announcement followed the event. Later it was rumored that Burns had sent operatives to the city. They were gathering evidence, one understood, but if they did, naught seemed to come of it. Frank was vaguely disappointed. Now and then he saw Aleta, but the subject of their former talk was not resumed. Vaguely he wondered what manner of man was her beloved.
Frank resented the idea that he was above her. Aleta was good enough for any man.
Bertha was visiting her aunt's home in the East. She had been very restless and capricious just before she went. All women were thus, he supposed. But he missed her.
On the evening of April 17, 1906, Frank and Bertha, who had recently returned, attended the opera. The great Caruso, whose tenor voice had taken the East by storm, and whose salary was reputed to be fabulous, had come at last to San Francisco. Fremsted, almost equally famous, was singing with him in "Carmen" at the Grand Opera House. All the town turned out in broadcloth, diamonds, silks and décolleté to hear them--a younger generation of San Franciscans assuming a bit uncomfortably that social importance which had not yet become genealogically sure of itself.
Frank and Bertha drove down in the electric brougham, for which they had with difficulty found a place along the vehicle-lined curb of Mission street. And, as they were early, they halted in the immense and handsome, though old-fashioned, foyer to observe the crowd. The air was heavy with perfume.
"Look at that haughty dame with a hundred-thousand dollar necklace," he smiled. "One would have thought her father was at least a king. Forty years ago he drove a dray.... And that one with the ermine coat and priceless tiara. Wouldn't you take her for a princess? Ah, well, more power to her! But her mother cleaned soiled linen in Washerwoman's Lagoon and her dad renovated cuspidors, swept floors in the Bella Union."
But the girl did not seem interested. "I wonder," she remarked a little later, "why it makes so very much--ah--difference ... who one's parents were?"
There was a curious, half-detached sadness in her tone. Frank wondered suddenly if he had blundered. Bertha had never mentioned her parents. He vaguely understood that they had died abroad and had foreborne to question, fearing to arouse some tragic memory.
"Of course, it really doesn't matter," he said hastily; "it's only when people put on airs that I think of such things." She took his arm with fingers that trembled slightly. "Let us go in. The overture is beginning."
During an intermission she whispered. "I wish I were like Carmen--bold enough to fight the world for lo--for what I wanted."
"Aren't you?" he turned and looked at her.
"No, sometimes I'm overwhelmed ... feel as though I can't look life in the face." He saw that her lips were trembling, that her eyes were winking back the tears.
"What is it, dear?" he questioned. But she did not answer. The curtain rose upon the final act.
Silently they moved out with a throng whose silk skirts swished and rustled. The men were restless, glad of a chance at the open and a smoke; the women gay, exalted, half intoxicated by the musical appeal to their emotions. There was an atmosphere almost of hysteria in the great swiftly emptying auditorium.
"I feel sort of--smothered," Bertha said; "suppose we walk."
"Gladly," answered Frank, "but what about the coupe?"
"There's one of these new livery stables with machine shop attached not far away. They call it a garage.... We'll leave the brougham there," she said.
The night was curiously still--breathless one might have called it. While the temperature was not high, there was an effect of warmth, vaguely disturbing like the presage of a storm. As they traversed a region of hotels and apartment houses, Frank and Bertha noted many open windows; men and women staring out half dreamily. They passed a livery stable, out of which there came a weird uncanny dissonance of horses neighing in their stalls.
"Tell me of your actress friend. Do you see her often?" Bertha asked.
"Not very. She's a good pal. But she's ... well, not like you."
Her eyes searched him. "Do you mean she's not as--pretty, Frank?"
"Oh, I don't know," he answered. "It's because I love you, dear. Aleta's right enough. But she's not--oh, you know--essential."
Bertha squeezed his arm. Was silent for a moment. Then, "Aleta's father was a circus rider?"
"Acrobat. Yes, he was killed when she was quite a child."
"But she remembers him; they were married, her mother" and he."
"Why, yes, I suppose so ... naturally."
There was another silence. Suddenly he turned on her, perplexed. "Bertha, what is wrong with you tonight?"
They were crossing a little park high up above the city whose lights lay, shimmering and misty, below. The stillness was obtrusive here. Not a leaf stirred. There was no one about. They might have been alone upon some tropic peak.
"I--can't tell you, Frank." Her tone of blended longing and despair caught at his heart.
Impetuously his arms went around her. "Dear," he said unsteadily. "Dear, I want you.... Oh, Bertha, I've waited so long! I don't care any more if you're rich ... I'm going to--you've got to promise...."
She tried to protest, to push him away; but Frank held her close. And, after a moment, like a tired child's, her head lay quiet on his shoulder; her arms stole round his neck; she began to weep softly.
The horror came at dawn.
Frank, startled from a late and restless slumber, thought that he was being shaken or attacked by some intruder. He sprang up, sleepily bewildered. The room rocked with a quick, sharp, jerking motion that was strangely terrifying. There was a dull indescribable rumbling, punctuated by a sound of falling things. A typewriter in one end of the room went over on the floor. A shaving mug danced on the shelf and fell. The windows rattled and a picture on the wall swayed drunkenly.
"Damn!" Frank rubbed his eyes. "An earthquake!"
He heard his mother's scream; his father's reassuring answer. Hurriedly he reached for his clothes. Downstairs he found his father endeavoring to calm the frightened servants, one of whom appeared to have hysterics. Presently his mother entered with the smelling salts. Soon the maid's unearthly laughter ceased.
"Anyone hurt?" Frank questioned anxiously.
"No," his father answered. "Thought the house was going over ... but there's little damage done."
Suddenly Frank thought of Bertha. He must go to her. She would be frightened.
He ran into the debris-cluttered street. Cable cars stood here and there, half twisted from the tracks, pavements were littered with bricks from fallen chimneys, bits of window glass. Men and women in various degrees of dishabille, were issuing from doorways. As he mounted higher, Frank saw smoke spirals rising from the southeastern part of town. He heard the strident clang of firegongs.
Automobiles were tearing to and fro, with a great shrieking of siren whistles.
It seemed like a nightmare through which he tore, without a sense of time or movement, arriving finally at the marble vestibule of Bertha's home. It was open and he rushed in, searching, calling. But he got no answer. Bertha, servants, aunt--all apparently had fled.
Frank never knew just why he turned toward the town from Bertha's empty dwelling. It was an involuntary reaction. The excitement of those lower levels seemed to call, and thence he sped. Several times acquaintances--newspaper men and others--accosted him. Everyone was eagerly alert, feverishly interested, as if by some great adventure. Japanese boys were sweeping up the litter in front of stores. In many places things were being put in order, as if the trouble were over. But at other points there was confusion and dread. Half-dressed men and women wandered about, questing for a cup of coffee, but there was none to be had, for the gas mains had broken.
People converged toward parks and open spaces. Union Square was crowded with a strangely varied human mass; opera singers from the St. Francis Hotel, jabbering excitedly in Italian or French, and making many gestures with their jeweled hands; Chinese and Japanese from the Oriental quarter hard by; women-of-the-town, bedraggled, sleepy-eyed and fearful; sailors, clerks, folk from apartment houses.
Near the pansy bed a woman lay. She screamed piercingly at intervals. Frank learned that she was in travail. By and by a doctor came, a nurse. They were putting up tents on the green sward. Automobiles rolled up, sounding their siren alarms. Out of them were carried bandaged men who moaned, silent forms on litters, more screaming women. They were taken to the tents. Extra police appeared to control the crowds that surged hither and thither without seeming reason, swayed by sudden curiosities and trepidation.
San Francisco was burning. The water mains were broken by the quake, Frank learned. The fire department was demoralized. Chief Sullivan was dead. A falling chimney from the California Hotel had crushed him.
There were emergency reservoirs, but no one seemed to know where. They had not been used for years.
Swiftly the fire gained. It ravaged like a fiend in the factory district south and east, toward the bay.
By noon a huge smoke curtain hid the sky; through it the sun gleamed palely like a blood-red disc. Wild rumors were in circulation. Los Angeles was wiped out. St. Louis had been destroyed. New York and Chicago were inundated by gigantic tidal waves.
Frank decided to return home and discover how his people fared. Perhaps there would be a bite for him. He found his father's house surrounded by a cordon of young soldiers--student militiamen from Berkeley, some one said. They ordered him off.
"But--" he cried. "It's my HOME. My father and mother are there."
"They were ordered out two hours since," said a youthful officer, who came up to settle the dispute. "We'll have to dynamite the place.... No water.... Desperate measures necessary...."
He stopped Frank's effort to reply with further stereotyped announcements. "Orders of the Admiral, Mayor, Chief of Police.... Sorry. Can't be helped.... Keep back, everybody. Men have orders to shoot."
He made off tempestuously busy and excited.
Frank shouted after him, "Wait, where have my parents gone? Did they leave any word?"
The young man turned, irritably. "Don't know," he answered, and resumed his vehement activities. Frank, with a strange, empty feeling, retraced his way, fought a path by means of sheer will and the virtue of his police badge across Market street, and struck out toward Lafayette Square. Scarcely realizing it, he was bound for Aleta's apartment.
A warped shaft had incapacitated the automatic elevator, so he climbed three flights of stairs and found Aleta packing.
"Frank!" she cried, and ran to him. "This is good of you." She took both of his hands and clung to them as if she were a little frightened.
"Wait," she said. "I'll bet you've had nothing to eat. I'll make you a cup of coffee and a toasted cracker on the spirit lamp."
Silently he sat on a broken chair and watched her. He was immensely grateful and--he suddenly realized--immensely weary. What a dear girl Aleta was! And he had not thought of her till all else failed him.
Soon the coffee was steaming in two little Dresden cups, one minus a handle. There was a plateful of crackers, buttered and toasted, a bit of Swiss cheese. Frank had never tasted anything so marvelous.
"Where were you going?" he asked, finally.
"To the park ... the panhandle ... everybody's going there."
"Your--mother!" A swift recollection smote him. "Where is she?"
"Mother died last week," Aleta turned away. "I'm rather thankful--now."
Silently he helped her with the packing. There were a suitcase and a satchel for the choice of her possessions. They required much picking and choosing. Many cherished articles must be abandoned.
Suddenly Aleta ran to Frank. The room was rocking. Plaster fell about them. The girl screamed. To his astonishment, Frank found his arms around her waist. He was patting her dark, rumpled hair. Her hands were on his shoulders, and her piquant, wistful face close to his own. She had sought him like a frightened child. And he, with masculine protective impulse, had responded. That was all. Or was it? They looked into each other's eyes, bewildered, shaken. All was quiet now. The temblor had passed instantly and without harm.
In the street they joined a motley aggregation moving westward in horse-driven vehicles, automobiles, invalid chairs, baby buggies and afoot. Rockers, filled with household goods, tied down and pulled by ropes, were part of the procession. Everyone carried or dragged the maximum load his or her strength allowed.
When they reached that long narrow strip of park called the Panhandle it was close to dusk. They advanced some distance ere they found a vacant space. The first two blocks were covered like a gypsy camp with wagons, trunks and spread-out salvage of a hundred hastily abandoned homes. Improvised tents had been fashioned from blankets or sheets. Before one of these a bearded man was praying lustily for salvation. A neighbor watched him, smiling, and drank deeply from a pocket flask. A stout woman haled Aleta. "You and your husband got any blankets?" she asked.
"No," the girl said, reddening. "No, we haven't ... and he's not ..."
"Well, never mind," the woman answered. "Take these two. It may come cold 'fore morning. And I've got more than I can use. We brung the wagon." She drew the girl aside and nudged her in the ribs.
"We ain't married, either--Jim 'n' me. But what's the diff?"
About daylight the next morning Frank was awakened by a soft pattering sound. He jumped to his feet. Was it raining? All about folk stirred, held forth expectant hands to feel the drops. But they were fine white flakes--ashes from the distant conflagration. Aleta still lay moveless, wrapped in her blanket some ten feet away. They had been up most of the night, watching the flames, had seen them creep across Market street, up Powell, Mason, Taylor, Jones streets to Nob Hill. Finally Frank had persuaded Aleta to seek a little rest. Despite her protest that sleep was impossible, he had rolled her in one of the borrowed blankets, wrapping himself, Indianwise, in the other. Toward morning slumber had come to them both.
Aleta, now awake, smiled at Frank and declared herself refreshed. "What had we better do next?" she questioned.
Frank pondered. "Go to the Presidio, I guess. The army's serving food out there, I hear." He returned the blankets to their owner and the two of them set forth. On Oak street, near the mouth of Golden Gate Park, a broken street main spouted geyser-like out of the asphalt. They snatched a hurried drink, laved their faces and hands and went on, passing a cracker wagon, filled with big tin containers, and surrounded by a hungry crowd. The driver was passing out crackers with both hands, casting aside the tins when they were empty.
"It's like the Millennium," Aleta remarked. "All classes of people herded together in common good will. Do you see that well-fed looking fellow carrying the ragged baby? He's a corporation lawyer. He makes $50,000 a year I'm told. And the fat woman he's helping with her numerous brood is a charwoman at the Alcazar theatre."
Frank looked and laughed. "Why--it's my Uncle Robert!" he exclaimed.
Robert Windham held out his free hand to Frank and Aleta. His family was safe, he told them. So were Francisco and Jeanne, who had joined the Windhams when the Stanley home was dynamited. They had gone to Berkeley and would stay with friends of Maizie's.
Frank wrote down the address. He decided to remain in San Francisco. There was Aleta.... And, somehow, Bertha must be located.
Everyone was bound for the Presidio.
"You may find me there later," said Windham. "I've some--er--business on this side."
At the great military post which slopes back on the green headlands from the Golden Gate, Frank and Aleta found a varied company. The hospitals were filled with men and women burned in the fire or hurt by falling walls. There were scores--perhaps a hundred of them. Frank, with his heart in his mouth, made a survey of the hospitals, after finding tent room for Aleta. His press badge gained admittance for him everywhere and he went through a pretence of taking notes. But he was looking for Bertha. At a large tent they were establishing an identification bureau, a rendezvous for separated families, friends or relatives. Many people crowded this with frantic inquiries.
Soup was being served at the mess kitchens. Great wagons filled with loaves of bread drove in and were apportioned. Men, women and children formed in line to get their shares.
The sky was still covered with smoke. Late comers reported that the fire had crossed Van Ness avenue. There were orders posted all about that one must not build fires indoors nor burn lights at night. Those who disobeyed would be shot. The orders were signed by Mayor Schmitz. Saloons had been closed for an indefinite period. Two men, found looting the dead, had been summarily executed by military order. Hundreds of buildings were being dynamited. The dull roar of these frequent explosions was plainly discernible at the Presidio.
After they had eaten Frank said good-bye to Aleta. He was going back to town. The feverish adventure of it called him. And he had learned that there were many other camps of refugees. In one of these he might find Bertha. A milk wagon, clattering over the cobblestones overtook him and, without an invitation, he climbed aboard. Frank had little sense of destination or purpose. He wanted action. The thought of Bertha tugged at him now like a pain, insistent, quenchless. He tried to stifle it by movement, by absorbing interest in the wondrous drama all about him.
Suddenly he sprang from the wagon. They had reached the park where he had learned of Bertha's love. Frank scarcely recognized the tiny pleasure ground, so covered was it with tents and bedding. It swarmed with people--a fact which Frank resented oddly. In the back of his mind was a feeling that this spot was sacred.
He made his way among the litter of fabrics and humanity. These were mostly people from the valley where a foreign section lay. Loudly and excitedly they chattered in strange tongues, waving their hands about. Children wailed. All was disorder, uncontrol.
Sickened of the place Frank turned to go, but something tugged at his coatsleeve; a haggard, elderly dishevelled man.
Frank looked at the fellow in wonder. Then he gave a cry and took the fellow by the shoulders. He had recognized, despite disguising superficialities of garb and manner, Bertha's once spick-and-span butler.
"God Almighty, Jarvis!" Frank could scarcely speak, his heart was pounding so. "Wh--where is she--Bertha?"
"Come with me, sir," said the old man sadly. He led the way past sheet-hung bushes, over crumb-and-paper sprinkled lawns to a little retreat under sheltering trees. One had to stoop to enter that arbored, leaf encircled nest through which the sun fell like a dappled pattern on the grass. Frank adjusted his eyes to the dimmer light before he took in the picture: a girl lying, very pale and still, upon a gorgeous Indian blanket. She looked at him, cried out and stretched her arms forth feebly.
"Bertha!" He knelt down beside her, pressed his lips to hers. Her arms about his neck were cold but strangely vibrant. For a moment they remained thus. Then he questioned, anxiously, "Bertha? What is wrong?"
"Everything! The world!" she whispered. "When you left me dearest, I was happy! I had never dreamed that one could be so glad! But afterward ... I didn't dare to face the morning--and the truth!" Her lips quivered. "I--I couldn't stand it, Frank," she finished weakly.
"She took morphia," said Jarvis. "When the earthquake came I couldn't wake her. I was scared. I carried her out here."
"You tried to kill yourself!" Frank's tone was shocked, condemning. "After Tuesday night?"
Her eyes craved pardon. She essayed to speak but her lips made wordless sounds. Finally she roused a little, caught his hand and held it to her breast.
"Ask your Uncle Robert, dear?" she whispered. Her eyes looked into his with longing, with renunciation. A certain peace stole into them and slowly the eyelids closed.
Frank, who had half grasped the meaning of her words, leaned forward fearfully. The hand which held his seemed colder, more listless. There was something different. Something that he could not name--that frightened him.
Suddenly he realized its meaning. The heart which had pulsed beneath his fingers was still.
Of the trip to Berkeley which followed, Frank could not afterward recall the slightest detail. Between the time when, like a madman, he had tried to rouse his sweetheart from that final lethargy which knew no waking, and the moment when he burst upon his Uncle Robert with what must have seemed an insane question, Frank lost count of time.
He was in the library of an Alameda county lawyer, host of the Stanley and the Windham families. Across the mahogany table, grasping the back of a chair for support, one hand half outstretched in a supplicating gesture, stood his Uncle Robert--pale, shaken ghost of the self-possessed man that he usually was. Between them, imminent with subtle violence, was the echo of Frank's question, hurled, like an explosive missile at the elder man:
"Why did Bertha Larned kill herself?"
After an interval of silence Windham pulled himself together; looked about him hastily ere he spoke. "Hush! Not here! Not now!" The eyes which sought Frank's were brilliant with suffering. "Is she--dead?"
The young man nodded dumbly. Something like a sob escaped the elder. He was first to speak. "Come. We must get out of here. We must have a talk." He opened the door and went out, Frank following. In the street, which sloped sharply downward from a major elevation, they could see the bay of San Francisco, the rising smoke cloud on the farther shore. They walked together upward, away from the houses, toward a grove of eucalyptus trees. Here Robert halted and sat down. He seemed utterly weary. Frank stood looking down across the valley.
"Bertha Larned was my daughter," said his uncle almost fiercely.
Frank did not turn nor start as Windham had expected. One might have thought he did not hear. At length, however, he said slowly, "I suspected that--a little. But I want to know."
"I--can't tell you more," said the other brokenly.
"Who--who was her mother, Uncle Bob?"
"If you love her, Frank, don't ask that question."
The young man snapped a dry twig from a tree and broke it with a sort of silent concentration into half a dozen bits. "Then--it's true ... the tale heard round town! That you and--"
"Yes, yes," Windham interrupted, "Frank, it's true."
"The--procuress?"
"Frank! For God's sake!" Windham's fingers gripped his nephew's arm. "Don't let Maizie know. I've tried to live it down these twenty years...."
"Damn it, do you think I'd tell Aunt Maizie?"
"It's--I can't believe it yet! That you--"
"Maizie wouldn't leave her mother." With a flicker of defiance Robert answered him. "I was young, rudderless, after my people went East.... A little wild, I guess."
"So you sought consolation?"
"Call it what you like," the other answered. "Some things are too strong for men. They overwhelm one--like Fate."
Frank began pacing back and forth, his fingers opening and shutting spasmodically.
"Uncle Bob," he said at length, "... after you married, what became--"
"Her mother sent the child East--to a sister. She was well raised--educated. If she'd only stayed there, in that Massachusetts town!"
"Then--Bertha didn't know?"
"Not till she came to San Francisco, after her mother's death. She had to come to settle the estate. The mother left her everything--a string of tenements. She was rich."
"Bertha came to you, then, I suppose."
"Yes, she came to me," said Robert Windham.
Suddenly, as though the memory overwhelmed him, Windham's face sank forward in his hands.
"She was very sweet," his voice broke pitifully. "I--loved her."
Several days later Frank and his father paid a visit to the ruined city. One had to get passes in Oakland and wear them on one's hat. Sightseers were not admitted nor carried on ferry boats, trains.
Already Telegraph Hill was dotted with new habitations. It was rumored that Andrea Sbarbora, banker and patron of the Italian Colony, was bringing a carload of lumber from Seattle which he would sell to fire sufferers on credit and at cost. The spirit of rehabilitation was strong.
Frank was immensely cheered by it. But Francisco was overwhelmed by the desolation. "I am going South," he told his son. "I can't bear to see this. I don't even know where I am."
It was true. One felt lost in those acres of ashes and debris. Familiar places seemed beyond memorial reconstruction, so smitten was the mind by this horror of leveled buildings, gutted walls and blackened streets.
Francisco and Jeanne went to San Diego. There the former tried to refashion the work of many months--two hundred pages of a novel which the flames destroyed. Robert Windham and his family journeyed to Hawaii. Frank did not see his uncle after that talk in the Berkeley Hills.
Parks and public spaces were covered with little green cottages in orderly rows. Refugee camps one termed then and therein lived 20,000 of the city's homeless.
Street cars were running. Passengers were carried free until the first of May. Patrick Calhoun was trying to convert the cable roads into electric lines in spite of the objection of the improvement clubs. He was negotiating with the Supervisors for a blanket franchise to electrize all of his routes.
"And he'll get it, too," Aleta told Frank as they dined together. "It's arranged, I understand, for quarter of a million dollars."
Frank pondered. "What'll Langdon say to that?"
William H. Langdon was the district attorney, a former superintendent of schools, whom Ruef had put on his Union Labor ticket to give it tone. But Langdon had refused to "take program." He had even raided the "protected" gamblers, ignoring Ruef's hot insinuations of "ingratitude."
"Oh, Ruef's too smart for Langdon," said Aleta. "Every Sunday night he, Schmitz and Big Jim Gallagher hold a caucus. Gallagher is Ruef's representative on the Board. They figure out what will occur at Monday's session of the Supervisors. It's all cut and dried."
"It can't last long," Frank mused. "They're getting too much money. Those fellows who used to earn from $75 to $100 a month are spending five times that amount. Schmitz is building a palace. He rides around in his automobile with a liveried chauffeur. He's going to Europe they say."
The girl glanced up at him half furtively. "Perhaps I'll go to Europe, too."
"What?" Frank eyed her startled. "Not with--"
"Yes, my friend, the Supervisor." Her tone was defiant. "Why shouldn't I?"
"Don't--Aleta."
"But, why not?"
He was silent. But his eyes were on her, pleadingly.
"Would you care, Frank? Would you care--at all?"
"You know I would," he spoke half angrily. The girl traced patterns with her fork upon the table cloth.