"Do you realize that your belief that Katherine was pleased at being conquered is not at all modern?--it's absolutely medieval."

"Well, we are all medieval--quite largely--are we not?"

"Possibly--in spots. When the girl of to-day is not overpoweringly advanced, perhaps she is quite far behind. But I should hardly have expected so distinctly a medieval opinion from you."

"Heavens! why not? I sound horribly Bostonian. Am I so hopelessly advanced that you can credit me with no human sentiments at all?"

"Well, that," said Smith, "was scarcely my thought."

"It sounded very much like it. However, I'm glad if I were mistaken."

"You know very well," said her companion, in a lower voice, "what I think of you. I think--"

"Oh, but I don't--really," Helen quickly parried. This was getting hazardous; the conversation must be switched at once. "No matter what you think of me, you are almost sure to be quite mistaken. But some things I am willing to confess. And one of them, which may be very primitive, is this--that just because I myself am not a wild, tigress-like creature is no indication that I cannot realize how she would feel. Is it, now?"

Smith said nothing for a long moment.

"I'm very glad that you feel that way about it," he said at last, rather to himself, however, than to her. And for the rest of the intermission he hardly spoke.

It was by this time about half-past ten. Here and there in the house a vacated seat showed that some hopeless and inveterate commuter had felt the call of his homeward street car or train. Never in Boston can an entire audience remain to the close of an entertainment; the lure of the thronging, all-pervading suburb is too strong. Helen, idly watching the exodus of these prudent or sleepy citizens, heard outside what might have been the warning bell that called them forth. She directed Smith's attention to the coincidence.

"They have to go home, you know; and that sounds like the signal they obey."

"It sounds to me like a fire engine," said her companion.

But further speculation was cut short by the sight of "A Road," where presently was to be seen the old man who was so oddly mistook for a "young, budding virgin," and on which soon beat the doubtful rays of the "blessed sun"--or moon, as the case might be. The intermission between the last two scenes of the act was a brief one only--the mere moment required for the rising of a scene curtain upon the banquet hall of Katherine's father. But during that little interval, two things came to Smith's notice; the first being the sound of vague noises in the outside world, and the second the peculiar behavior of a man in evening clothes at the extreme side of the stage aperture.

The seats which the two occupied were in the lower rows of the parquet, close under the right-hand stage box; and from where they sat it was thus possible to look into the wings on the opposite side of the stage.

It was in the little opening between the proscenium and the curtain that the man in evening dress unexpectedly appeared. His appearance caught Smith's eye, and he watched curiously to see what was to follow.

In his hand this person held a watch at which he glanced hastily, and then made two steps to come before the footlights. But just as he was nearly clear of the scenes, some one out of sight in the wing evidently summoned him, for he stopped short, and then turned back. After a brief colloquy, in which the watch was again consulted, he retired, and a moment later the curtain went up.

It seemed to Smith, watching closely, his curiosity aroused by this half-seen and wholly uncomprehended episode, that the actors in the last act were playing under the pressure of an odd excitement, a sort of suppressed anxiety and haste. It seemed to him they hurried through their lines, and the messengers to the brides came back with an electric promptness more to be desired in real life than in the circ.u.mstances of the play.

Finally the whole was done--all except Katherine's final address to the ladies, and this took but a brief moment. Smith, listening tensely to sounds from without, turned and spoke to Helen; and as the curtain fell they started quickly up the aisle. Their seats chanced to be open to the side aisle of the house, and a moment later Smith was handing his check to the cloakroom attendant, with a "Hurry up, please"--and a lubricant to celerity.

The applause was still to be heard in the theater, but after one brief bow the actors appeared no more, and the house began to empty. By this time Smith had reclaimed the wraps, and he and Helen, ready for the open air, moved out through the lobby and onto the sidewalk in front of the theater.

On the sidewalk there was a curious tone of constrained excitement.

Evidently something much out of the ordinary had happened--or was happening. People stood in groups, staring northward up Tremont Street; and almost all the pa.s.sers-by, as though impelled by a nameless, inexplicable force that could not be controlled, were hurrying in the same direction. An ambulance with clattering gong dashed by. The urgent crowds, pouring out of the big theater, were pressing Smith and Helen toward the curb.

"Come on," said the New Yorker, "something's up; let's get out of this." He took the girl's arm, and they crossed Boylston Street and made their stand on the opposite, less crowded walk that edged the Common.

On the sidewalk about them knots of people were eagerly talking, all looking northward as though drawn by the same magnetic force. And as Smith and his companion raised their eyes, they saw in the northern sky an ugly crimson glare that seemed to widen and grow brighter even in the moment as they watched it. From far up Tremont Street, carried by the wind, came an odd murmur of confused noises, and nearer by the sharper sounds of clanging bells and the clatter of galloping horses'

feet on the pavement. The crowds were hurrying up the walk, and out in the street, where it was less crowded, men were running in the same direction. The trolley cars seemed to have been blocked; none were coming from the north.

"Great Scott! That must be something terrific!" Smith said, and he felt the beat of his heart perceptibly quicken.

But before he had time to make any further remark, from directly behind them came with the electric unexpectedness of a sharp thunder clap one loud cry, compelling, exigent, almost barbaric.

"Fire!" it said. "Fire!"

CHAPTER XXI

In the eastern sky abode only the pale gold reflection of the city's lights. To the westward, across the Common, the soft blackness under the stars descended even to the treetops. But the attention of Smith and Helen, gazing north on Tremont Street, was fixed on the unsteady glow of threatening, reddish light thrown up against the absorbing fabric of the air.

"Good heavens! Just look at that!" Smith said, pointing.

"It must be a very bad fire--don't you think so?" inquired the girl.

"It looks from here like a corker. It's certainly bad enough to make it well worth seeing," he returned. "Do you want to telephone your mother that you're going?"

"Are we going, then?" asked Helen.

"To the fire?" demanded her companion. "Of course we are going. Fires are my business, besides being the greatest spectacles in the world.

Let's go over to the Aquitaine, and we'll telephone."

A few minutes later they came out again; Smith motioned to the driver of a taxi.

"Get in," he said to Helen. "You shall ride to the fire like a lady, in a cab."

As he spoke he noted how the wind was blowing the girl's hair about her face, and for just an instant he gave that vision its individual due.

"Take us as near the fire as you can get," he directed the chauffeur.

From Boylston Street up Tremont to its intersection with Beacon is a ride of barely two minutes. It seemed as though almost no time had elapsed before the taxi came to a stop beside the Palmer House. The two occupants descended; Smith paid the man; the vehicle slid off into s.p.a.ce beyond their ken. And at that very moment their eyes sprang to where, barely a block away, great tongues of red fire licked above a wide building's roof--and all else but that thing faded into nothing.

"This way," said the New Yorker, tersely. They crossed School Street, continuing up Tremont until they were opposite the old King's Chapel Burial Ground. From this point, over the top of the City Hall, they could see the flames riding high in air above a big five- and seven-story building.

"My G.o.d! That must be Black's Hotel!" said a voice in the crowd behind them.

"Sure, that's what it is," volunteered a policeman who was keeping the fire lines.

"Were any lives lost?" Smith asked.

"No. Every one got out all right. It didn't start in the hotel.

They're very careful, and they have a fine fire drill, anyway. There was plenty of time to warn every one."

Out of the north came a crisp wind. Not content with blowing, as it had done before, Helen's hair about her ears, it also whipped her skirts urgently about her. Smith calculated this wind, and shook his head dubiously.

"Twenty-five miles an hour, I should think," he said. "Rather bad night for a big fire. I wonder if we can get a little closer."

From where they stood it seemed that the fire was in the heart of the block bounded by Court Square, Court, School, and Washington Streets.

The north half of this block was occupied chiefly by Black's Hotel, one of the best-known hostelries in New England, and the south half by the newspaper plant of the Boston _News_ and by several smaller buildings.

Between the two sections of the block ran a narrow lane known as Williams Court; and at the time when Smith and Helen became spectators, the fire was pouring from every window of the big hotel and proving triumphant over all efforts to keep it from leaping the almost imperceptible southern barrier.

"How long has this been going?" Smith asked the policeman.