It was open and he rushed in, searching, calling. But he got no
answer. Bertha, servants, aunt--all apparently had fled.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE TURMOIL
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.
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