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Page 115

The boy listened. He was silent when Peter had finished. Speech
was increasingly an effort.

"I should--like--to go there," he whispered at last.

He did not speak again during all the long afternoon, but just at
dusk he roused again.

"I would like--to see--the sentry," he said with difficulty.

And so again, and for the last time, Rosa's soldier from Salzburg
with one lung.

Through all that long day, then, Harmony sat over her work,
unaccustomed muscles aching, the whirring machines in her ears.
Monia, upset over the morning's excitement, was irritable and
unreasonable. The gold-tissue costume had come back from Le
Grande with a complaint. Below in the courtyard all day curious
groups stood gaping up the staircase, where the morning had seen
such occurrences.

At the noon hour, while the girls heated soup and carried in
pails of salad from the corner restaurant, Harmony had fallen
into the way of playing for them. To the music-loving Viennese
girls this was the hour of the day. To sit back, soup bowl on
knee, the machines silent, Monia quarreling in the kitchen with
the Hungarian servant, and while the pigeons ate crusts on the
window-sills, to hear this American girl play such music as was
played at the opera, her slim figure swaying, her whole beautiful
face and body glowing with the melody she made, the girls found
the situation piquant, altogether delightful. Although she did
not suspect it, many rumors were rife about Harmony in the
workroom. She was not of the people, they said--the daughter of a
great American, of course, run away to escape a loveless
marriage. This was borne out by the report of one of them who had
glimpsed the silk petticoat. It was rumored also that she wore no
chemise, but instead an infinitely coquettish series of lace and
nainsook garments--of a fineness!

Harmony played for them that day, played, perhaps, as she had not
played since the day she had moved the master to tears, played to
Peter as she had seen him at the window, to Jimmy, to the little
Georgiev as he went down the staircase. And finally with a choke
in her throat to the little mother back home, so hopeful, so
ignorant.

In the evening, as was her custom, she took the one real meal of
the day at the corner restaurant, going early to avoid the crowd
and coming back quickly through the winter night. The staircase
was always a peril, to be encountered and conquered night after
night and even in the daytime not to be lightly regarded. On her
way up this night she heard steps ahead, heavy, measured steps
that climbed steadily without pauses. For an instant Harmony
thought it sounded like Peter's step and she went dizzy.

But it was not Peter. Standing in the upper hall, much as he had
stood that morning over the ammunition boxes, thumbs in, heels
in, toes out, chest out, was the sentry.

Harmony's first thought was of Georgiev and more searching of the
building. Then she saw that the sentry's impassive face wore
lines of trouble. He saluted. "Please, Fraulein."

"Yes?"

"I have not told the Herr Doktor."

"I thank you."

"But the child dies."

"Jimmy?"

"He dies all of last night and to-day. To-night, it is, perhaps,
but of moments."

Harmony clutched at the iron stair-rail for support. "You are
sure? You are not telling me so that I will go back?"

"He dies, Fraulein. The Herr Doktor has not slept for many hours.
My wife, Rosa, sits on the stair to see that none disturb, and
her cousin, the wife of the Portier, weeps over the stove.
Please, Fraulein, come with me."

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Mon 29th Dec 2025, 14:15

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart