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Page 67

"Some more mice?"

"You will have them--but not to-day."

"What holiday comes next?"

"New Year's Day. Suppose I bring you a New Year's card."

"That's right," agreed Jimmy. "One I can send to Dad. Do you
think he will come back this year?" wistfully.

Peter dropped on his baggy knees beside the bed and drew the
little wasted figure to him.

"I think you'll surely see him this year, old man," he said
huskily.

Peter walked to the Doctors' Club. On the way he happened on
little Georgiev, the Bulgarian, and they went on together. Peter
managed to make out that Georgiev was studying English, and that
he desired to know the state of health and the abode of the
Fraulein Wells. Peter evaded the latter by the simple expedient
of pretending not to understand. The little Bulgarian watched him
earnestly, his smouldering eyes not without suspicion. There had
been much talk in the Pension Schwarz about the departure
together of the three Americans. The Jew from Galicia still raved
over Harmony's beauty.

Georgiev rather hoped, by staying by Peter, to be led toward his
star. But Peter left him at the Doctors' Club, still amiable, but
absolutely obtuse to the question nearest the little spy's heart.

The club was almost deserted. The holidays had taken many of the
members out of town. Other men were taking advantage of the
vacation to see the city, or to make acquaintance again with
families they had hardly seen during the busy weeks before
Christmas. The room at the top of the stairs where the wives of
the members were apt to meet for chocolate and to exchange the
addresses of dressmakers was empty; in the reading room he found
McLean. Although not a member, McLean was a sort of honorary
habitue, being allowed the privilege of the club in exchange for
a dependable willingness to play at entertainments of all sorts.

It was in Peter's mind to enlist McLean's assistance in his
difficulties. McLean knew a good many people. He was popular,
goodlooking, and in a colony where, unlike London and Paris, the
great majority were people of moderate means, he was
conspicuously well off. But he was also much younger than Peter
and intolerant with the insolence of youth. Peter was thinking
hard as he took off his overcoat and ordered beer.

The boy was in love with Harmony already; Peter had seen that, as
he saw many things. How far his love might carry him, Peter had
no idea. It seemed to him, as he sat across the reading-table and
studied him over his magazine, that McLean would resent bitterly
the girl's position, and that when he learned it a crisis might
be precipitated.

One of three things might happen: He might bend all his energies
to second Peter's effort to fill Anna's place, to find the right
person; he might suggest taking Anna's place himself, and insist
that his presence in the apartment would be as justifiable as
Peter's; or he might do at once the thing Peter felt he would do
eventually, cut the knot of the difficulty by asking Harmony to
marry him. Peter, greeting him pleasantly, decided not to tell
him anything, to keep him away if possible until the thing was
straightened out, and to wait for an hour at the club in the hope
that a solution might stroll in for chocolate and gossip.

In any event explanation to McLean would have required
justification. Peter disliked the idea. He could humble himself,
if necessary, to a woman; he could admit his asininity in
assuming the responsibility of Jimmy, for instance, and any woman
worthy of the name, or worthy of living in the house with
Harmony, would understand. But McLean was young, intolerant. He
was more than that, though Peter, concealing from himself just
what Harmony meant to him, would not have admitted a rival for
what he had never claimed. But a rival the boy was. Peter, calmly
reading a magazine and drinking his Munich beer, was in the grip
of the fiercest jealousy. He turned pages automatically, to
recall nothing of what he had read.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Thu 25th Dec 2025, 5:48

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart