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Page 11

"I'd rather look round. It's curious, isn't it?"

"Curious? It's heavenly! It's the one thing I am going to take
back to America with me--one coffee-house, one dozen military men
for local color, one dozen students ditto, and one proprietor's
wife to sit in the cage and shortchange the unsuspecting. I'll
grow wealthy."

"But what about the medical practice?"

He leaned over toward her; his dark-gray eyes fulfilled the
humorous promise of his mouth.

"Why, it will work out perfectly," he said whimsically. "The
great American public will eat cinnamon cakes and drink coffee
until the feeble American nervous system will be shattered. I
shall have an office across the street!"

After that, having seen how tired she looked, he forbade
conversation until she had had her coffee. She ate the cakes,
too, and he watched her with comfortable satisfaction.

"Nod your head but don't speak," he said. "Remember, I am
prescribing, and there's to be no conversation until the coffee
is down. Shall I or shall I not open the cheese?"

But Harmony did not wish the cheese, and so signified. Something
inherently delicate in the unknown kept him from more than an
occasional swift glance at her. He read aloud, as she ate, bits
of news from the paper, pausing to sip his own coffee and to cast
an eye over the crowded room. Here and there an officer, gazing
with too open admiration on Harmony's lovely face, found himself
fixed by a pair of steel-gray eyes that were anything but
humorous at that instant, and thought best to shift his gaze.

The coffee finished, the girl began to gather up her wraps. But
the unknown protested.

"The function of a coffee-house," he explained gravely, "is
twofold. Coffee is only the first half. The second half is
conversation."

"I converse very badly."

"So do I. Suppose we talk about ourselves. We are sure to do that
well. Shall I commence?"

Harmony was in no mood to protest. Having swallowed coffee, why
choke over conversation? Besides, she was very comfortable. It
was warm there, with the heater at her back; better than the
little room with the sagging bed and the doors covered with wall
paper. Her feet had stopped aching, too, She could have sat there
for hours. And--why evade it?--she was interested. This whimsical
and respectful young man with his absurd talk and his shabby
clothes had roused her curiosity.

"Please," she assented.

"Then, first of all, my name. I'm getting that over early,
because it isn't much, as names go. Peter Byrne it is. Don't
shudder."

"Certainly I'm not shuddering."

"I have another name, put in by my Irish father to conciliate a
German uncle of my mother's. Augustus! It's rather a mess. What
shall I put on my professional brassplate? If I put P. Augustus
Byrne nobody's fooled. They know my wretched first name is
Peter."

"Or Patrick."

"I rather like Patrick--if I thought it might pass as Patrick!
Patrick has possibilities. The diminutive is Pat, and that's not
bad. But Peter!"

"Do you know," Harmony confessed half shyly, "I like Peter as a
name."

"Peter it shall be, then. I go down to posterity and fame as
Peter Byrne. The rest doesn't amount to much, but I want you to
know it, since you have been good enough to accept me on faith.
I'm here alone, from a little town in eastern Ohio; worked my way
through a coeducational college in the West and escaped
unmarried; did two years in a drygoods store until, by saving and
working in my vacations, I got through medical college and tried
general practice. Didn't like it--always wanted to do surgery. A
little legacy from the German uncle, trying to atone for the
'Augustus,' gave me enough money to come here. I've got a chance
with the Days--surgeons, you know--when I go back, if I can hang
on long enough. That's all. Here's a traveler's check with my
name on it, to vouch for the truth of this thrilling narrative.
Gaze on it with awe; there are only a few of them left!"

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Tue 16th Dec 2025, 13:38

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart