The Street of Seven Stars Part 33

"No. He is well. He sent this to the Fraulein Wells."

"I am the Fraulein Wells."

Marie held out the letter and staggered. Harmony put her in a chair; she was bewildered, almost frightened. Crisis of some sort was written on Marie's face. Harmony felt very young, very incapable. The other girl refused coffee, would not even go into the salon until Peter's letter had been read. She was a fugitive, a criminal; the Austrian law is severe to those that harbor criminals. Let Harmony read:--

"DEAR HARRY,--Will you forgive me for this and spread the wings of your splendid charity over this poor child? Perhaps I am doing wrong in sending her to you, but just now it is all I can think of. If she wants to talk let her talk. It will probably help her. Also feed her, will you? And if she cannot sleep, give her one of the blue powders I fixed for Jimmy. I'll be back later to-day if I can make it.

"PETER"

Harmony glanced up from the letter. Marie sat drooping in her chair. Her eyes were sunken in her head. She had recognized her at once, but any surprise she may have felt at finding Harmony in Peter's apartment was sunk in a general apathy, a compound of nervous reaction and fatigue.

During the long hours in the express she had worn herself out with fright and remorse: there was nothing left now but exhaustion.

Harmony was bewildered, but obedient. She went back to the cold kitchen and lighted a fire. She made Marie as comfortable as she could in the salon, and then went into her room to dress. There she read the letter again, and wondered if Peter had gone through life like this, picking up waifs and strays and shouldering their burdens for them. Decidedly, life with Peter was full of surprises.

She remembered, as she hurried into her clothes; the boys' club back in America and the spelling-matches. Decidedly, also, Peter was an occupation, a state of mind, a career. No musician, hoping for a career of her own, could possibly marry Peter.

That was a curious morning in the old lodge of Maria Theresa, while Stewart in the Pension Waldheim struggled back to consciousness, while Peter sat beside him and figured on an old envelope the problem of dividing among four enough money to support one, while McLean ate his heart out in wretchedness in his hotel.

Marie told her story over the early breakfast, sitting with her thin elbows on the table, her pointed chin in her palms.

"And now I am sorry," she finished. "It has done no good. If it had only killed her but she was not much hurt. I saw her rise and bend over him."

Harmony was silent. She had no stock of aphorisms for the situation, no worldly knowledge, only pity.

"Did Peter say he would recover?"

"Yes. They will both recover and go to America. And he will marry her."

Perhaps Harmony would have been less comfortable, Marie less frank, had Marie realized that this establishment of Peter's was not on the same basis as Stewart's had been, or had Harmony divined her thought.

The presence of the boy was discovered by his waking. Marie was taken in and presented. She looked stupefied. Certainly the Americans were a marvelous people--to have taken into their house and their hearts this strange child--if he were strange. Marie's suspicious little slum mind was not certain.

In the safety and comfort of the little apartment the Viennese expanded, cheered. She devoted herself to the boy, telling him strange folk tales, singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs for him. The youngster took a liking to her at once. It seemed to Harmony, going about her morning routine, that Marie was her solution and Peter's.

During the afternoon she took a package to the branch post-office and mailed it by parcel-post to the Wollbadga.s.se. On the way she met Mrs.

Boyer face to face. That lady looked severely ahead, and Harmony pa.s.sed her with her chin well up and the eyes of a wounded animal.

McLean sent a great box of flowers that day. She put them, for lack of a vase, in a pitcher beside Jimmy's bed.

At dusk a telegram came to say that Stewart was better and that Peter was on his way down to Vienna. He would arrive at eight. Time was very short now--seconds flashed by, minutes galloped. Harmony stewed a chicken for supper, and creamed the breast for Jimmy. She fixed the table, flowers in the center, the best cloth, Peter's favorite cheese.

Six o'clock, six-thirty, seven; Marie was telling Jimmy a fairy tale and making the fairies out of rosebuds. The studylamp was lighted, the stove glowing, Peter's slippers were out, his old smoking-coat, his pipe.

A quarter past seven. Peter would be near Vienna now and hungry. If he could only eat his supper before he learned--but that was impossible.

He would come in, as he always did, and slam the outer door, and open it again to close it gently, as he always did, and then he would look for her, going from room to room until he found her--only to-night he would not find her.

She did not say good-bye to Jimmy. She stood in the doorway and said a little prayer for him. Marie had made the flower fairies on needles, and they stood about his head on the pillow--pink and yellow and white elves with fluffy skirts. Then, very silently, she put on her hat and jacket and closed the outer door behind her. In the courtyard she turned and looked up. The great chandelier in the salon was not lighted, but from the cas.e.m.e.nt windows shone out the comfortable glow of Peter's lamp.

CHAPTER XXI

Peter had had many things to think over during the ride down the mountains. He had the third-cla.s.s compartment to himself, and sat in a corner, soft hat over his eyes. Life had never been particularly simple to Peter--his own life, yes; a matter of three meals a day--he had had fewer--a roof, clothing. But other lives had always touched him closely, and at the contact points Peter glowed, fused, amalgamated. Thus he had been many people--good, indifferent, bad, but all needy. Thus, also, Peter had committed vicarious crimes, suffered vicarious illnesses, starved, died, loved--vicariously.

And now, after years of living for others, Peter was living at last for himself--and suffering.

Not that he understood exactly what ailed him. He thought he was tired, which was true enough, having had little sleep for two or three nights. Also he explained to himself that he was smoking too much, and resolutely--lighted another cigarette.

Two things had revealed Peter's condition to himself: McLean had said: "You are crazy in love with her." McLean's statement, lacking subtlety, had had a certain quality of directness. Even then Peter, utterly miserable, had refused to capitulate, when to capitulate would have meant the surrender of the house in the Siebensternstra.s.se. And the absence from Harmony had shown him just where he stood.

He was in love, crazy in love. Every fiber of his long body glowed with it, ached with it. And every atom of his reason told him what mad folly it was, this love. Even if Harmony cared--and at the mere thought his heart pounded--what madness for her, what idiocy for him! To ask her to accept the half of--nothing, to give up a career to share his struggle for one, to ask her to bury her splendid talent and her beauty under a bushel that he might wave aloft his feeble light!

And there was no way out, no royal road to fortune by the route he had chosen; nothing but grinding work, with a result problematical and years ahead. There were even no legacies to expect, he thought whimsically.

Peter had known a chap once, struggling along in gynecology, who had had a fortune left him by a G. P., which being interpreted is Grateful Patient. Peter's patients had a way of living, and when they did drop out, as happened now and then, had also a way of leaving Peter an unpaid bill in token of appreciation; Peter had even occasionally helped to bury them, by way, he defended himself, of covering up his mistakes.

Peter, sitting back in his corner, allowed the wonderful scenery to slip by unnoticed. He put Harmony the Desirable out of his mind, and took to calculating on a sc.r.a.p of paper what could be done for Harmony the Musician. He could hold out for three months, he calculated, and still have enough to send Harmony home and to get home himself on a slow boat.

The Canadian lines were cheap. If Jimmy lived perhaps he could take him along: if not--

He would have to put six months' work in the next three. That was not so hard. He had got along before with less sleep, and thrived on it. Also there must be no more idle evenings, with Jimmy in the salon propped in a chair and Harmony playing, the room dark save for the glow from the stove and for the one candle at Harmony's elbow.

All roads lead to Rome. Peter's thoughts, having traveled in a circle, were back again to Harmony the Desirable--Harmony playing in the firelight, Harmony Hushed over the brick stove, Harmony paring potatoes that night in the kitchen when he--Harmony! Harmony!

Stewart knew all about the accident and its cause. Peter had surmised as much when the injured man failed to ask for Marie.

He tested him finally by bringing Marie's name into the conversation.

Stewart ignored it, accepted her absence, refused to be drawn.

That was at first. During the day, however, as he gained strength, he grew restless and uneasy. As the time approached for Peter to leave, he was clearly struggling with himself. The landlady had agreed to care for him and was bustling about the room. During one of her absences he turned to Peter.

"I suppose Marie hasn't been round?"

"She came back last night."

"Did she tell you?"

"Yes, poor child."

"She's a devil!" Stewart said, and lay silent. Then: "I saw her shoot that thing out in front of us, but there was no time--Where is she now?"

"Marie? I sent her to Vienna."

Stewart fell back, relieved, not even curious.

"Thank Heaven for that!" he said. "I don't want to see her again. I'd do something I'd be sorry for. The kindest thing to say for her is that she was not sane."

"No," said Peter gravely, "she was hardly sane."

Stewart caught his steady gaze and glanced away. For him Marie's little tragedy had been written and erased. He would forget it magnanimously.

He had divided what he had with her, and she had repaid him by attempting his life. And not only his life, but Anita's. Peter followed his line of reasoning easily.