books.jibble.org

Page 43

"Then there are no 'good' people in the polygamous countries, I
suppose! When there were twelve women to every man, a man took a
dozen wives. To-day in our part of the globe there is one
woman--and a fifth over--for every man. Each man gets one woman,
and for every five couples there is a derelict like myself,
mateless."

Anna's amazing frankness about herself often confused Harmony.
Her resentment at her single condition, because it left her
childless, brought forth theories that shocked and alarmed the
girl. In the atmosphere in which Harmony had been reared single
women were always presumed to be thus by choice and to regard
with certain tolerance those weaker sisters who had married.
Anna, on the contrary, was frankly a derelict, frankly regretted
her maiden condition and railed with bitterness against her
enforced childlessness. The near approach of Christmas had for
years found her morose and resentful. There are, here and there,
such women, essentially mothers but not necessarily wives, their
sole passion that of maternity.

Anna, argumentative and reckless, talked on. She tore away, in
her resentment, every theory of existence the girl had ever
known, and offered her instead an incredible liberty in the name
of the freedom of the individual. Harmony found all her
foundations of living shaken, and though refusing to accept
Anna's theories, found her faith in her own weakened. She sat
back, pale and silent, listening, while Anna built up out of her
discontent a new heaven and a new earth, with liberty written
high in its firmament.

When her reckless mood had passed Anna was regretful enough at
the girl's stricken face.

"I'm a fool!" she said contritely. "If Peter had been here he'd
have throttled me. I deserve it. I'm a theorist, pure and simple,
and theorists are the anarchists of society. There's only one
comfort about us--we never live up to our convictions. Now forget
all this rot I've been talking."

Peter brought up the mail that afternoon, a Christmas card or two
for Anna, depressingly early, and a letter from the Big Soprano
for Harmony from New York. The Big Soprano was very glad to be
back and spent two pages over her chances for concert work.

". . . I could have done as well had I stayed at home. If I had
had the money they wanted, to go to Geneva and sing 'Brunnhilde,'
it would have helped a lot. I could have said I'd sung in opera
in Europe and at least have had a hearing at the Met. But I
didn't, and I'm back at the church again and glad to get my old
salary. If it's at all possible, stay until the master has
presented you in a concert. He's quite right, you haven't a
chance unless he does. And now I'll quit grumbling.

"Scatchy met her Henry at the dock and looked quite lovely,
flushed with excitement and having been up since dawn curling her
hair. He was rather a disappointment--small and blond, with light
blue eyes, and almost dapper. But oh, my dear, I wouldn't care
how pale a man's eyes were if he looked at me the way Henry
looked at her.

"They asked me to luncheon with them, but I knew they wanted to
be alone together, and so I ate a bite or two, all I could
swallow for the lump in my throat, by myself. I was homesick
enough in old Wien, but I am just as homesick now that I am here,
for we are really homesick only for people, not places. And no
one really cared whether I came back or not."

Peter had been miserable all day, not with regret for the day
before, but with fear. What if Harmony should decide that the
situation was unpleasant and decide to leave? What if a reckless
impulse, recklessly carried out, were to break up an arrangement
that had made a green oasis of happiness and content for all of
them in the desert of their common despair?

If he had only let her go and apologized! But no, he had had to
argue, to justify himself, to make an idiot of himself generally.
He almost groaned aloud as he opened the gate end crossed the
wintry garden.

He need not have feared. Harmony had taken him entirely at his
word. "I am not a beast. I'll let you alone," he had said. She
had had a bad night, as nights go. She had gone through the
painful introspection which, in a thoroughly good girl, always
follows such an outburst as Peter's. Had she said or done
anything to make him think--Surely she had not! Had she been
wrong about Peter after all? Surely not again.

Previous Page | Next Page

Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Mon 22nd Dec 2025, 23:29

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart