The fire was over. Mrs. Jack and those who were with her went out on the street when they heard the first engine leaving. And there on the pavement were Mr. Jack, Edith, and Alma. They had met some old friends at the hotel and had left Amy and her companions with them.

Mr. Jack looked in good spirits, and his manner showed, mildly and pleasantly, that he had partaken of convivial refreshment. Over his arm he was carrying a woman’s coat, which he now slipped round his wife’s shoulders, saying:

“Mrs. Feldman sent you this, Esther. She said you could send it back tomorrow.”

All this time she had had on nothing but her evening dress. She had remembered to tell the servants to wear their coats, but both she and Miss Mandell had forgotten theirs.

“How sweet of her!” cried Mrs. Jack, her face beginning to glow as she thought how kind everyone was in a time of stress. “Aren’t people good?”

Other refugees, too, were beginning to straggle back now and were watching from the corner, where the police still made them wait. Most of the fire-engines had already gone, and the rest were throbbing quietly with a suggestion of departure. One by one the great trucks thundered away. And presently the policemen got the signal to let the tenants return to their rooms.

Stephen Hook said good night and walked off, and the others started across the street towards the building. From all directions people were now streaming through the arched entrances into the court, collecting maids, cooks, and chauffeurs as they came. An air of disorder and authority had been reestablished among them, and one could hear masters and mistresses issuing commands to their servants. The cloister-like arcades were filled with men and women shuffling quietly into their entryways.

The spirit of the crowd was altogether different now from what it had been a few hours earlier. All these people had recaptured their customary assurance and poise. The informality and friendliness that they had shown to one another during the excitement had vanished. It was almost as if they were now a little ashamed of the emotions which had betrayed them into injudicious cordialities and unwonted neighbourliness. Each little family group had withdrawn frigidly into its own separate entity and was filing back into its own snug cell.

In the Jacks’ entry a smell of smoke, slightly stale and acrid, still clung to the walls, but the power had been restored and the elevator was running again. Mrs. Jack noticed with casual surprise that the doorman, Henry, took them up, and she asked if Herbert had gone home. He paused just perceptibly, and then answered in a flat tone:

“Yes, Mrs. Jack.”

“You all must be simply worn out!” she said warmly, with her instant sympathy. “Hasn’t it been a thrilling evening?” she went on eagerly. “In all your life did you ever know of such excitement, such confusion, as we had to-night?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said, in a voice so curiously unyielding that she felt stopped and baffled by it, as she had many times before. And she thought:

“What a strange man he is! And what a difference between people! Herbert is so warm, so jolly, so human. You can talk to him. But this one — he’s so stiff and formal you can never get inside of him. And if you try to speak to him, he snubs you — puts you in your place as if he doesn’t want to have anything to do with you.”

She felt wounded, rebuffed, almost angry. She was herself a friendly person, and she liked people round her to be friendly, too — even the servants. But already her mind was worrying loosely at the curious enigma of the doorman’s personality:

“I wonder what’s wrong with him,” she thought. “He seems always so unhappy, so disgruntled, nursing some secret grievance all the time. I wonder what has done it to him. Oh, well, poor thing, I suppose the life he leads is enough to turn anyone sour — opening doors and calling cabs and helping people in and out of cars and answering questions all night long. But then, Herbert has it even worse — shut up in this stuffy elevator and riding up and down all the time where he can’t see anything and where nothing ever happens — and yet he’s always so sweet and so obliging about everything!”

And, giving partial utterance to her thoughts, she said:

“I suppose Herbert had a harder time of it to-night than any of you, getting all these people out.”

Henry made no answer whatever. He simply seemed not to have heard her. He had stopped the elevator and opened the door at their own landing, and now said in his hard, expressionless voice: “This is your floor, Mrs. Jack.”

After they got out and the car had gone down, she was so annoyed that she turned to her family and guests with flaming cheeks, and said angrily:

“Honestly, that fellow makes me tired! He’s such a grouch! And he’s getting worse every day! It’s got so now he won’t even answer when you speak to him!”

“Well, Esther, maybe he’s tired out to-night,” suggested Mr. Jack pacifically. “They’ve all been under a pretty severe strain, you know.”

“So I suppose that’s our fault?” said Mrs. Jack ironically. And then, going into the living-room and seeing again the chaos left there by Mr. Logan’s performance, she had a sudden flare of her quick and jolly wit, and with a comical shrug said: “Vell, ve should have a fire sale!”— which restored her to good humour.

Everything seemed curiously unchanged — curiously, because so much had happened since their excited departure. The place smelled close and stale, and there was still a faint tang of smoke. Mrs. Jack told Nora to open the windows. Then the three maids automatically resumed their interrupted routine and quickly tidied up the room.

Mrs. Jack excused herself for a moment and went into her own room. She took off the borrowed coat and hung it in the closet, and carefully brushed and adjusted her somewhat disordered hair.

Then she went over to the window, threw up the sash as far as it would go, and filled her lungs full of the fresh, invigorating air. She found it good. The last taint of smoke was washed clean and sweet away by the cool breath of October. And in the white light of the moon the spires and ramparts of Manhattan were glittering with cold magic. Peace fell upon her spirit. Strong comfort and assurance bathed her whole being. Life was so solid and splendid, and so good.

A tremor, faint and instant, shook her feet. She paused, startled; waited, listening . . . Was the old trouble with George there again to shake the deep perfection of her soul? He had been strangely quiet to-night. Why, he had hardly said two words all evening. What was the matter with him? . . . And what was the rumour she had heard this night? Something about stocks falling. During the height of the party she had overheard Lawrence Hirsch say something like that. She hadn’t paid any attention at the time, but now it came back. “Faint tremors in the market”— that’s what he had said. What was this talk of tremors?

— Ah, there it was a second time! What was it?

— Trains again!

It passed, faded, trembled delicately away into securities of eternal stone, and left behind the blue dome of night, and of October. The smile came back into her eyes. The brief and troubled frown had lifted. Her look as she turned and started towards the living-room was almost dulcet and cherubic — the look of a good child who ends the great adventure of another day.

Edith and Alma had retired immediately on coming in, and Lily Mandell, who had gone into one of the bedrooms to get her wraps, now came out wearing her splendid cape.

“Darling, it has been too marvellous,” she said throatily, wearily, giving Mrs. Jack an affectionate kiss. “Fire, smoke, Piggy Logan, everything — I’ve simply adored it!”

Mrs. Jack shook with laughter.

“Your parties are too wonderful!” Miss Mandell concluded. “You never know what’s going to happen next!”

With that she said her good-byes and left.

George was also going now, but Mrs. Jack took him by the hand and said coaxingly:

“Don’t go yet. Stay a few minutes and talk to me.”

Mr. Jack was obviously ready for his bed. He kissed his wife lightly on the cheek, said good night casually to George, and went to his room. Young men could come, and young men could go, but Mr. Jack was going to get his sleep.

Outside, the night was growing colder, with a suggestion of frost in the air. The mammoth city lay fathoms deep in sleep. The streets were deserted, save for an occasional taxi-cab that drilled past on some urgent nocturnal quest. The pavements were vacant and echoed hollowly to the footfalls of a solitary man who turned the corner into Park and headed briskly north towards home and bed. The lights were out in all the towering office buildings, except for a single window high up in the face of a darkened cliff which betrayed the presence of some faithful slave of business who was working through the night upon a dull report that had to be ready in the morning.

At the side entrance of the great apartment house, on the now empty cross street, one of the dark green ambulances of the police department had slid up very quietly and was waiting with a softly throbbing motor. No one was watching it.

Shortly a door which led down to a basement opened. Two policemen came out, bearing a stretcher, which had something sheeted on it that was very still. They slid this carefully away into the back of the green ambulance.