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Page 119

It was in Peter's mind to take the mice to Harmony, confess his
defeat and approaching retreat, and ask her to care for them.
Then he decided against this palpable appeal for sympathy,
elected to go empty-handed and discover merely how comfortable
she was or was not. When the time came he would slip out of her
life, sending her a letter and leaving McLean on guard.

Harmony was at home. Peter climbed the dark staircase--where
Harmony had met the little Georgiev, and where he had gone down
to his death--climbed steadily, but without his usual elasticity.
The place appalled him--its gloom, its dinginess, its somber
quiet. In the daylight, with the pigeons on the sills and the
morning sunlight printing the cross of the church steeple on the
whitewashed wall, it was peaceful, cloisterlike, with landings
that were crypts. But at night it was almost terrifying, that
staircase.

Harmony was playing. Peter heard her when he reached the upper
landing, playing a sad little strain that gripped his heart. He
waited outside before ringing, heard her begin something
determinedly cheerful, falter, cease altogether. Peter rang.

Harmony herself admitted him. Perhaps--oh, certainly she had
expected him! It would be Peter, of course, to come and see how
she was getting on, how she was housed. She held out her hand and
Peter took it. Still no words, only a half smile from her and no
smile at all from Peter, but his heart in his eyes.

"I hoped you would come, Peter. We may have the reception room."

"You knew I would come," said Peter. "The reception room?"

"Where customers wait." She still carried her violin, and slipped
back to her room to put it away. Peter had a glimpse of its
poverty and its meagerness. He drew a long breath.

Monia was at the opera, and the Hungarian sat in the kitchen
knitting a stocking. The reception room was warm from the day's
fire, and in order. All the pins and scraps of the day had been
swept up, and the portieres that made fitting-rooms of the
corners were pushed back. Peter saw only a big room with empty
corners, and that at a glance. His eyes were Harmony's.

He sat down awkwardly on a stiff chair, Harmony on a velvet
settee. They were suddenly two strangers meeting for the first
time. In the squalor of the Pension Schwarz, in the comfortable
intimacies of the Street of Seven Stars, they had been easy,
unconstrained. Now suddenly Peter was tongue-tied. Only one thing
in him clamored for utterance, and that he sternly silenced.

"I--I could not stay there, Peter. You understood?"

"No. Of course, I understood."

"You were not angry?"

"Why should I be angry? You came, like an angel of light, when I
needed you. Only, of course,--"

"Yes?"

"I'll not say that, I think."

"Please say it, Peter!"

Peter writhed; looked everywhere but at her.

"Please, Peter. You said I always came when you needed me,
only--"

"Only--I always need you!" Peter, Peter!

"Not always, I think. Of course, when one is in trouble one needs
a woman; but--"

"Well, of course--but--I'm generally in trouble, Harry dear."

Frightfully ashamed of himself by that time was Peter, ashamed of
his weakness. He sought to give a casual air to the speech by
stooping for a neglected pin on the carpet. By the time he had
stuck it in his lapel he had saved his mental forces from the
rout of Harmony's eyes.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Mon 29th Dec 2025, 22:44

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart