Jimmie had already pushed past her through the door and started for the stairs. He saw that she was in such a state that unless she saw someone doing something she would herself start out again.
"Thank you," she said simply. "But I cannot promise to stay in."
"I think you must. You know we're both foolish. We don't either of us really believe that anything's happened to her. But you must stay in. She's sure to come in any minute."
Arguing her into a kind of silent promise that she would not go out and would not worry, Wardwell left the house and started east through Eighteenth Street.
In the open, quiet street, away from the urge of Augusta's excitement, Wardwell felt entirely foolish. He expected to see the strong-willed, self-reliant woman who was Augusta's mother coming along the street at any moment, and he wondered what he should say to her.
Nothing ever did happen, anyway. Rose Wilding had just walked into a drug store or a doctor's, maybe, and had had to wait. That was it, of course.
He walked toward Broadway, taking, without any conscious notion of following a trace, the direction which the old apple woman had given.
Coming out of the quiet cross street he stepped thoughtlessly into the rush of traffic that sweeps through Union Square. An automobile brushed carelessly by within inches of him. A great lumbering truck came charging down upon him. A motorcycle screamed at his ear. He leaped back to the curb, muttering at the grinning fiend in goggles who shot past.
Wardwell stood on the curb looking out over the shifting lines and tides of trucks, handcarts, automobiles, horses and people. He was looking for one person out of the hundreds and hundreds that moved within range of his eye. As well, he thought, look for a particular stone in the paving.
A few men have stepped into the wilderness and never been seen again. But how many, many men, and women, have stepped off a curb into a stream like that and never been seen again.