Sugihara did not go through the form of cooking luncheon. He knew that his mistress would not eat, and he had as little appetite himself. He folded his arms on the top of the fence and waited for the signal to retreat.
Isabel went into the house repeatedly and dipped her burning face into a basin of water, but returned quickly to her post. The fire was running from the east along California Street hill; she saw the men who had been cutting pictures from their frames in the Institute of Art flee to the west, then watched the Gothic structure flare up and burn like an old hay-stack: that monument to a millionaire whose name would be already forgotten had it not been tacked to the gift. The fire reached California Street, on the edge of the plateau, from the south, coming up the west side of Taylor Street. Other great houses of the rich were so many roaring furnaces—several were curiously neglected and isolated by the fire, that seemed to have gone mad with its own lust. The eastern slopes were a mass of smouldering ruins, not black, but the most exquisite tints of violet, rose, chrome, gray, sepia, yellow. They looked, with their arches and columns, towers and broken walls, like the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill on a colossal scale. About and through them floated clouds of fine white ashes, ghostly restless dust of unthinkable treasure.
Suddenly, hardly crediting her eyes, Isabel saw an automobile labor up the steep acclivity, through that swirling furnace, and dart across California Street and in the direction of Russian Hill. She knew that Gwynne was in it, and a moment later Hofer discharged him at the foot of the steps, then ran the car out Jackson Street at the top of its speed.
Gwynne walked up the steps and along the plank walk. Isabel recognized him by his carriage, for he was as black as a coal-heaver and most of his hair was burned off.
"I should like to wash first," he said, as he came up the house flight. "The water will go with the rest."
"Of course. Do you want anything to eat."
"No, I had some sandwiches a while ago."
He went up to his room and Isabel awaited him in the farthest corner of the living-room, where it may have been a trifle less hot and less noisy than elsewhere.
He came down in a moment. "That was a close shave," he said. "We didn't know what we were in for, and it was either go on and hope for better luck at the top, or dive down into a very good imitation of a live volcano."
He was recognizable, although his khaki clothes were black and burned, and one side of his head made him look as if he had just been discharged from a military hospital.