"Oh, wait!" shouted Ida, her mouth full of pins. "I had to change my waist. Oh, _do_ wait for me. Where is it _at_? Please wait; I"m coming right down in just a minute."
"Hurry up, hurry up!" cried Vandover. "It will be all out by the time we get there. I"m coming up to help."
"No, no, no!" she screamed. "Don"t; you rattle me. I"m all mixed up. Oh, _darn_ it, I can"t find my czarina!"
But at last she came running down, breathless, shrugging herself into her bolero jacket. They all hurried into the street and turned in the direction of the blaze. Other people were walking rapidly in the same direction, and there was an opening and shutting of windows and front doors. A steamer thundered past, clanging and smoking, followed by a score of half-exhausted boys. It took them longer to reach the fire than they expected, and by the time they had come within two blocks of it they were quite out of breath. Here the excitement was lively; the sidewalks were full of people going in the same direction; on all sides there were guesses as to where the fire was. On the front steps of many houses stood middle-aged gentlemen, still holding their evening papers and cigars, very amused and interested in watching the crowd go past.
One heard them from time to time calling to their little sons, who were dancing on the sidewalks, forbidding them to go; in the open windows above could be seen the other members of the family, their faces faintly tinged with the glow, looking and pointing, or calling across the street to their friends in the opposite houses. Every one was in good humour; it was an event, a fete for the entire neighbourhood.
Vandover and his party came at last to the first engines violently pumping and coughing, the huge gray horses standing near by, already unhitched and blanketed, indifferently feeding in their nosebags. Some of the crowd preferred to watch the engines rather than the fire, and there were even some who were coming away from it, exclaiming "false alarm" or "all out now."
The party had come up quite close; they could smell the burning wood and could see the roofs of the nearer houses beginning to stand out sharp and black against the red glow beyond. It was a barn behind a huge frame house that was afire, the dry hay burning like powder, and by the time they reached it the flames were already dwindling. The hose was lying like a python all about the streets, while upon the neighbouring roofs were groups of firemen with helmets and axes; some were shouting into the street below, and others were holding the spouting nozzles of the hose. "Ah," exclaimed an old man, standing near to Ida and Vandover, "ah, _I_ was here when it first broke out; you ought to have seen the flames then! Look, there"s a tree catching!"
The crowd became denser; policemen pushed it back and stretched a rope across the street. There was a world of tumbling yellow smoke that made one"s eyes smart, and a great crackling and snapping of flames. Terribly excited little boys were about everywhere whistling and calling for each other as the crowd separated them.
They watched the fire for some time, standing on a pile of boards in front of a half-built house, but as it dwindled they wearied of it.
"Want to go?" asked Vandover at last.
"Yes," answered Ida, "we might as well. Oh, where"s Bessie and Ellis?"
They were nowhere to be seen. Vandover whistled and Ida even called, but in vain. The little boys in the crowd mimicked Ida, crying back, "Hey!
Bessie! Oh, _Bes-see_, mommer wants you!" The men who stood near laughed at this, but it annoyed Vandover much more than it did Ida.
"Ah, well, never mind," she said at length. "Let them go. Now shall _we_ go?"
It was too late for the theatre, but to return home was out of the question. They started off aimlessly downtown.
While he talked Vandover was perplexed. Ida was gayly dressed and was one of those girls who cannot open their mouths nor raise a finger in the street without attracting attention. Vandover was not at all certain that he cared to be seen on Kearney Street as Ida Wade"s escort; one never knew who one was going to meet. Ida was not a bad girl, she was not notorious, but, confound it, it would look queer; and at the same time, while Ida was the kind of girl that one did not want to be seen with, she was not the kind of girl that could be told so. In an upper box at the Tivoli it would have been different--one could keep in the background; but to appear on Kearney Street with a girl who wore a hat like that and who would not put on her gloves--ah, no, it was out of the question.
Ida was talking away endlessly about a kindergarten in which she had subst.i.tuted the last week.
She told him about the funny little n.i.g.g.e.r girl, and about the games and songs and how they played birds and hopped around and cried, "Twit, twit," and the game of the b.u.t.terflies visiting the flowers. She even sang part of a song about the waves.
"Every little wave had its night-cap on; Its white-cap, night-cap, white-cap on."
"It"s more _fun_ than enough," she said.
"Say, Ida," interrupted Vandover at length, "I"m pretty hungry. Can"t we go somewhere and eat something? I"d like a Welsh rabbit."
"All right," she answered. "Where do you want to go?"
"Well," replied Vandover, running over in his mind the places he might reach by unfrequented streets. "There"s Marchand"s or Tortoni"s or the Poodle Dog."
"Suits _me_," she answered, "any one you like. Say, Van," she added, "weren"t you boys at the Imperial the other night? What kind of a place is that?"
On the instant Vandover wondered what she could mean. Was it possible that Ida would go to a place like that with him?
"The Imperial?" he answered. "Oh, I don"t know; the Imperial is a sort of a nice place. It has private rooms, like all of these places. The cooking is simply out of sight. I think there is a bar connected with it." Then he went on to talk indifferently about the kindergarten, though his pulse was beating fast, and his nerves were strung taut. By and by Ida said:
"I didn"t know there was a bar at the Imperial. I thought it was just some kind of an oyster joint. Why, I heard of a very nice girl, a swell girl, going in there."
"Oh, yes," said Vandover, "they do. I say, Ida," he went on, "what"s the matter with going down _there_?"
"The _Imperial_?" exclaimed Ida. "Well, I guess _not_!"
"Why, it"s all right, if I"m with you," retorted Vandover, "but if you don"t like it we can go anywhere else."
"Well, I guess we _will_ go anywhere else," returned Ida, and for the time the subject was dropped.
They took a Sutter Street car and got off at Grant Avenue, having decided to go to Marchand"s.
"That"s the Imperial down there, isn"t it?" asked Ida as they reached the sidewalk. Vandover made a last attempt:
"I say, Ida, come on, let"s go there. It"s all right if I"m with you.
Ah, come along; what"s the odds?"
"_No_--_no_--NO," she answered decisively. "What kind of a girl do you think I am, anyway?"
"Well, I tell you what," answered Vandover, "just come down _by_ the place, and if you don"t like the looks of it you needn"t go in. I want to get some cigarettes, anyhow. You can walk down with me till I do _that_."
"I"ll walk down with you," replied Ida, "but I shan"t go in."
They drew near to the Imperial. The street about was deserted, even the usual hacks that had their stand there were gone.
"You see," explained Vandover as they pa.s.sed slowly in front of the doors, "this is all quiet enough. If you pulled down your veil no one would know the difference, and here"s the ladies" entrance, you see, right at the side."
"All right, come along, let"s go in," exclaimed Ida suddenly, and before he knew it they had swung open the little door of the ladies" entrance with its frosted pane of gla.s.s and had stepped inside.
It was between nine and ten o"clock, and the Imperial was quiet as yet; a few men were drinking in the barroom outside, and Toby, the red-eyed waiter, was talking in low tones to a girl under one of the electric lights.
Vandover and Ida went into one of the larger rooms in the rear pa.s.sage and shut the door. Ida pushed her bolero jacket from her shoulders, saying, "This seems nice and quiet enough."
"Well, of course," answered Vandover, as though dismissing the question for good. "Now, what are we going to have? I say we have champagne and oysters."
"Let"s have Cliquot, then," exclaimed Ida, which was the only champagne she had ever heard of besides the California brands.
She was very excited. This was the kind of "gay" time she delighted in, tete-a-tete champagne suppers with men late at night. She had never been in such a place as the Imperial before, and the daring and novelty of what she had done, the whiff of the great city"s vice caught in this manner, sent a little tremor of pleasure and excitement over all her nerves.
They did not hurry over their little supper, but ate and drank slowly, and had more oysters to go with the last half of their bottle. Ida"s face was ablaze, her eyes flashing, her blond hair disordered and falling about her cheeks.
Vandover put his arm about her neck and drew her toward him, and as she sank down upon him, smiling and complaisant, her hair tumbling upon her shoulders and her head and throat bent back, he leaned his cheek against hers, speaking in a low voice.
"No--no," she murmured, smiling; "never--ah, if I hadn"t come--no, Van--please--" And then with a long breath she abandoned herself.
About midnight he left her at the door of her house on Golden Gate Avenue. On their way home Ida had grown more serious than he had ever known her to be. Now she began to cry softly to herself. "Oh, Van," she said, putting her head down upon his shoulder, "oh, I am so _sorry_. You don"t think any less of me, do you? Oh, Van, you must be true to me now!"
Chapter Six