CHAPTER LXXXI

READJUSTMENT

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.

[Illustration: "I am going South," Francisco told his son. "I cannot bear this."]

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