The Street of Seven Stars Part 47

Silence for a moment. The loose windows of the cab clattered.

"I loved him very much when he came," said Le Grande, "although I did not want him. I had been told I could have a career on the stage. Ah, my dear, I chose the career--and look at me! What have I? A grave in the cemetery back there, and on it roses sent me by a man I loathe! If I could live it over again!"

The answer was very close now:--

"Would you stay at home?"

"Who knows, I being I? And my husband did not love me. It was the boy always. There is only one thing worth while--the love of a good man. I have lived, lived hard. And I know."

"But supposing that one has real ability--I mean some achievement already, and a promise--"

Le Grande turned and looked at Harmony shrewdly.

"I see. You are a musician, I believe?"

"Yes."

"And--it is Dr. Byrne?"

"Yes."

Le Grande bent forward earnestly.

"My child," she said, "if one man in all the world looked at me as your doctor looks at you, I--I would be a better woman."

"And my music?"

"Play for your children, as you played for my little boy."

Peter was packing: wrapping medical books in old coats, putting clean collars next to boots, folding pajamas and such-like negligible garments with great care and putting in his dresscoat in a roll. His pipes took time, and the wooden sentry he packed with great care and a bit of healthy emotion. Once or twice he came across trifles of Harmony's, and he put them carefully aside--the sweater coat, a folded handkerchief, a bow she had worn at her throat. The bow brought back the night before and that reckless kiss on her white throat. Well for Peter to get away if he is to keep his resolution, when the sight of a ribbon bow can bring that look of suffering into his eyes.

The Portier below was polishing floors, right foot, left foot, any foot at all. And as he polished he sang in a throaty tenor.

"Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bluhen," he sang at the top of his voice, and coughed, a bit of floor wax having got into the air. The antlers of the deer from the wild-game shop hung now in his bedroom.

When the wildgame seller came over for coffee there would be a discussion probably. But were not the antlers of all deer similar?

The Portier's wife came to the doorway with a cooking fork in her hand.

"A cab," she announced, "with a devil's imp on the box. Perhaps it is that American dancer. Run and pretty thyself!"

It was too late for more than an upward twist of a mustache. Harmony was at the door, but not the sad-eyed Harmony of a week before or the undecided and troubled girl of before that. A radiant Harmony, this, who stood in the doorway, who wished them good-morning, and ran up the old staircase with glowing eyes and a heart that leaped and throbbed. A woman now, this Harmony, one who had looked on life and learned; one who had chosen her fate and was running to meet it; one who feared only death, not life or anything that life could offer.

The door was not locked. Perhaps Peter was not up--not dressed. What did that matter? What did anything matter but Peter himself?

Peter, sorting out lectures on McBurney's Point, had come across a bit of paper that did not belong there, and was sitting by his open trunk, staring blindly at it:--

"You are very kind to me. Yes, indeed.

"H. W."

Quite the end now, with Harmony running across the room and dropping down on her knees among a riot of garments--down on her knees, with one arm round Peter's neck, drawing his tired head lower until she could kiss him.

"Oh, Peter, Peter, dear!" she cried. "I'll love you all my life if only you'll love me, and never, never let me go!"

Peter was dazed at first. He put his arms about her rather unsteadily, because he had given her up and had expected to go through the rest of life empty of arm and heart. And when one has one's arms set, as one may say, for loneliness and relinquishment it is rather difficult--Ah, but Peter got the way of it swiftly.

"Always," he said incoherently; "forever the two of us. Whatever comes, Harmony?"

"Whatever comes."

"And you'll not be sorry?"

"Not if you love me."

Peter kissed her on the eyes very solemnly.

"G.o.d helping me, I'll be good to you always. And I'll always love you."

He tried to hold her away from him for a moment after that, to tell her what she was doing, what she was giving up. She would not be reasoned with.

"I love you," was her answer to every line. And it was no divided allegiance she promised him. "Career? I shall have a career. Yours!"

"And your music?"

She colored, held him closer.

"Some day," she whispered, "I shall tell you about that."

Late winter morning in Vienna, with the school-children hurrying home, the Alserstra.s.se alive with humanity--soldiers and chimney-sweeps, housewives and beggars. Before the hospital the crowd lines up along the curb; the head waiter from the coffee-house across comes to the doorway and looks out. The sentry in front of the hospital ceases pacing and stands at attention.

In the street a small procession comes at the double quick--a handful of troopers, a black van with tiny, high-barred windows, more troopers.

Inside the van a Bulgarian spy going out to death--a swarthy little man with black eyes and short, thick hands, going out like a gentleman and a soldier to meet the G.o.d of patriots and lovers.

The sentry, who was only a soldier from Salzburg with one lung, was also a gentleman and a patriot. He uncovered his head.