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Page 38

It was Dr. Gates, after all, who found the solution.

"Don't be too obstinate, Peter," she admonished him. "The child
needs occupation; she can't practice all day. You and I can keep
up the financial end well enough, reduced as it is. Let her keep
house to her heart's content. That can be her contribution to the
general fund."

And that eventually was the way it settled itself, not without
demur from Harmony, who feared her part was too small, and who
irritated Anna almost to a frenzy by cleaning the apartment from
end to end to make certain of her usefulness.

A curious little household surely, one that made the wife of the
Portier shake her head, and speak much beneath her breath with
the wife of the brushmaker about the Americans having queer ways
and not as the Austrians.

The short month had seen a change in all of them. Peter showed it
least of all, perhaps. Men feel physical discomfort less keenly
than women, and Peter had been only subconsciously wretched. He
had gained a pound or two in flesh, perhaps, and he was
unmistakably tidier. Anna Gates was growing round and rosy, and
Harmony had trimmed her a hat. But the real change was in Harmony
herself.

The girl had become a woman. Who knows the curious psychology by
which such changes come--not in a month or a year; but in an
hour, a breath. One moment Harmony was a shy, tender young
creature, all emotion, quivering at a word, aloof at a glance,
prone to occasional introspection and mysterious daydreams; the
next she was a young woman, tender but not shyly so, incredibly
poised, almost formidably dignified on occasion, but with little
girlish lapses into frolic and high spirits.

The transition moment with Harmony came about in this wise: They
had been settled for three weeks. The odor of stewing cabbages at
the Pension Schwarz had retired into the oblivion of lost scents,
to be recalled, along with its accompanying memory of discomfort,
with every odor of stewing cabbages for years to come. At the
hospital Jimmy had had a bad week again. It had been an anxious
time for all of them. In vain the sentry had stopped outside the
third window and smiled and nodded through it; in vain--when the
street was deserted and there was none to notice--he went through
a bit of the manual of arms on the pavement outside, ending by
setting his gun down with a martial and ringing clang.

In vain had Peter exhausted himself in literary efforts, climbing
unheard-of peaks, taking walking-tours through such a Switzerland
as never was, shooting animals of various sorts, but all
hornless, as he carefully emphasized.

And now Jimmy was better again. He was propped up in bed, and
with the aid of Nurse Elisabet he had cut out a paper sentry and
set it in the barred window. The real sentry had been very much
astonished; he had almost fallen over backward. On recovering he
went entirely through the manual of arms, and was almost seen by
an Oberst-lieutenant. It was all most exciting.

Harmony had been to see Jimmy on the day in question. She had
taken him some gelatin, not without apprehension, it being her
first essay in jelly and Jimmy being frank with the candor of
childhood. The jelly had been a great success.

It was when she was about to go that Jimmy broached a matter very
near his heart.

"The horns haven't come, have they?" he asked wistfully.

"No, not yet."

"Do you think he got my letter about them?"

"He answered it, didn't he?"

Jimmy drew a long breath. "It's very funny. He's mostly so quick.
If I had the horns, Sister Elisabet would tie them there at the
foot of the bed. And I could pretend I was hunting."

Harmony had a great piece of luck that day. As she went home she
saw hanging in front of the wild-game shop next to the
delicatessen store a fresh deer, and this time it was a stag.
Like the others it hung head down, and as it swayed on its hook
its great antlers tapped against the shop door as if mutely
begging admission.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Mon 22nd Dec 2025, 13:24

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart