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Page 70

She loosened herself from his arms.

"What shall I wear? Those horrible things the children bought
me--"

"Throw 'em away."

"They're not worn at all."

"Throw them out. Get rid of the things the children got you. Go
out to-morrow and buy something you like--not that I don't like
you in anything or without--"

"Frank!"

"Be happy, that's the thing. It's the first Christmas without the
family, and I miss them too. But we're together, dear. That's the
big thing. Merry Christmas."

An auspicious opening, that, to Christmas-Day. And they had
carried out the program as outlined. Mrs. Boyer had enjoyed it,
albeit a bit horrified at the Christmas gayety at the Tabarin.

The next morning, however, she awakened with a keen reaction. Her
head ached. She had a sense of taint over her. She was virtue
rampant again, as on the day she had first visited the old lodge
in the Siebensternstrasse.

It is hardly astonishing that by association of ideas Harmony
came into her mind again, a brand that might even yet be snatched
from the burning. She had been a bit hasty before, she admitted
to herself. There was a woman doctor named Gates, although her
address at the club was given as Pension Schwarz. She determined
to do her shopping early and then to visit the house in the
Siebensternstrasse. She was not a hard woman, for all her
inflexible morality, and more than once she had had an uneasy
memory of Harmony's bewildered, almost stricken face the
afternoon of her visit. She had been a watchful mother over a not
particularly handsome family of daughters. This lovely young girl
needed mothering and she had refused it. She would go back, and
if she found she had been wrong and the girl was deserving and
honest, she would see what could be done.

The day was wretched. The snow had turned to rain. Mrs. Boyer,
shopping, dragged wet skirts and damp feet from store to store.
She found nothing that she cared for after all. The garments that
looked chic in the windows or on manikins in the shops, were
absurd on her. Her insistent bosom bulged, straight lines became
curves or tortuous zigzags, plackets gaped, collars choked her or
shocked her by their absence. In the mirror of Marie Jedlicka,
clad in familiar garments that had accommodated themselves to the
idiosyncrasies of her figure, Mrs. Boyer was a plump, rather
comely matron. Here before the plate glass of the modiste, under
the glare of a hundred lights, side by side with a slim Austrian
girl who looked like a willow wand, Mrs. Boyer was grotesque,
ridiculous, monstrous. She shuddered. She almost wept.

It was bad preparation for a visit to the Siebensternstrasse.
Mrs. Boyer, finding her vanity gone, convinced that she was an
absurdity physically, fell back for comfort on her soul. She had
been a good wife and mother; she was chaste, righteous. God had
been cruel to her in the flesh, but He had given her the spirit.

"Madame wishes not the gown? It is beautiful--see the embroidery!
And the neck may be filled with chiffon."

"Young woman," she said grimly, "I see the embroidery; and the
neck may be filled with chiffon, but not for me! And when you
have had five children, you will not buy clothes like that
either."

All the kindliness was gone from the visit to the
Siebensternstrasse; only the determination remained. Wounded to
the heart of her self-esteem, her pride in tatters, she took her
way to the old lodge and climbed the stairs.

She found a condition of mild excitement. Jimmy had slept long
after his bath. Harmony practiced, cut up a chicken for broth,
aired blankets for the chair into which Peter on his return was
to lift the boy.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Thu 25th Dec 2025, 12:28

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart