Smith only nodded. Feeling her mood, he left her to speak when she was ready, and presently she did so.
"Shall we go now?" she asked.
"Suppose we do. I want to show you, if I can—and to see myself—what is left of the shopping and hotel and theater district. There can't be much left."
They turned back in the way they had come, for Tremont Street above this point was no thoroughfare. By a somewhat circuitous route at last they reached the corner of the Common; and here, at the edge of the great throng of curious onlookers, they paused.
"There's where I didn't sleep last night," said Smith.
The Hotel Aquitaine, such as it was, stood gauntly staring at them from its dozens of empty windows. The building itself was intact, but every piece of inflammable material in its contents seemed to have been wiped out of existence as utterly as though made of tissue paper. With a little shudder Helen turned away, and they moved onward.
For all Smith's fire-line badge, they were not permitted to enter the patrolled district, and they could only join the throng which was circling about the outskirts. This was not a very inspiring nor even a very interesting thing, although the people for the most part were oddly silent, seeming to have been numbed by the extent of the disaster. Helen found before very long that she had seen enough.
"What a fearful crowd! I think I'd rather go where there aren't quite so many people," she told Smith.
"All right—wait until I see what happened to Jordan's store; then we'll go."
Five minutes later they were heading back southward in the direction of their bridge.