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Page 74

Back and forth waged the battle, Mrs. Boyer assailing, Harmony
offering little defense but standing firm on her refusal to go as
long as Peter would let her remain.

"It means so much to me," she ventured, goaded. "And I earn my
lodging and board. I work hard and--I make him comfortable. It
costs him very little and I give him something in exchange. All
men are not alike. If the sort you have known are--are
different--"

This was unfortunate. Mrs. Boyer stiffened. She ceased offensive
tactics, and retired grimly into the dignity of her high calling
of virtuous wife and mother. She washed her hands of Harmony and
Peter. She tied on her veil with shaking hands, and prepared to
leave Harmony to her fate.

"Give me your mother's address," she demanded.

"Certainly not."

"You absolutely refuse to save yourself?"

"From what? From Peter? There are many worse people than Peter to
save myself from, Mrs. Boyer--uncharitable people, and--and cruel
people."

Mrs. Boyer shrugged her plump shoulders.

"Meaning me!" she retorted. "My dear child, people are always
cruel who try to save us from ourselves."

Unluckily for Harmony, one of Anna's specious arguments must pop
into her head at that instant and demand expression.

"People are living their own lives these days, Mrs. Boyer; old
standards have gone. It is what one's conscience condemns that is
wrong, isn't it? Not merely breaking laws that were made to fit
the average, not the exception."

Anna! Anna!

Mrs. Boyer flung up her hands.

"You are impossible!" she snapped. "After all, I believe it is
Peter who needs protection! I shall speak to him."

She started down the staircase, but turned for a parting volley.

"And just a word of advice: Perhaps the old standards have gone.
But if you really expect to find a respectable woman to chaperon
YOU, keep your views to yourself."

Harmony, a bruised and wounded thing, crept into Jimmy's room and
sank on her knees beside the bed. One small hand lay on the
coverlet; she dared not touch it for fear of waking him--but she
laid her cheek close to it for comfort. When Peter came in, much
later, he found the boy wide awake and Harmony asleep, a crumpled
heap beside the bed.

"I think she's been crying," Jimmy whispered. "She's been sobbing
in her sleep. And strike a match, Peter; there may be more mice."

CHAPTER XVIII

Mrs. Boyer, bursting with indignation, went to the Doctors' Club.
It was typical of the way things were going with Peter that Dr.
Boyer was not there, and that the only woman in the clubrooms
should be Dr. Jennings. Young McLean was in the reading room,
eating his heart out with jealousy of Peter, vacillating between
the desire to see Harmony that night and fear lest Peter forbid
him the house permanently if he made the attempt. He had found a
picture of the Fraulein Engel, from the opera, in a magazine, and
was sitting with it open before him. Very deeply and really in
love was McLean that afternoon, and the Fraulein Engel and
Harmony were not unlike. The double doors between the reading
room and the reception room adjoining were open. McLean, lost in
a rosy future in which he and Harmony sat together for indefinite
periods, with no Peter to scowl over his books at them, a future
in which life was one long piano-violin duo, with the candles in
the chandelier going out one by one, leaving them at last alone
in scented darkness together--McLean heard nothing until the
mention of the Siebensternstrasse roused him.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Thu 25th Dec 2025, 21:26

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart