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Page 85

It was then that the Portier remembered Harmony. She would know;
perhaps she had the score.

Harmony was having a bad morning. She had slept little until
dawn, and Peter's stealthy closing of the outer door had wakened
her by its very caution. After that there had been no more sleep.
She had sat up in bed with her chin in her hands and thought.

In the pitiless dawn, with no Peter to restore her to
cheerfulness, things looked black, indeed. To what had she
fallen, that first one man and then another must propose marriage
to her to save her. To save her from what? From what people
thought, or--each from the other?

Were men so evil that they never trusted each other? McLean had
frankly distrusted Peter, had said so. Or could it be that there
was something about her, something light and frivolous? She had
been frivolous. She always laughed at Peter's foolishnesses.
Perhaps that was it. That was it. They were afraid for her. She
had thrown herself on Peter's hands--almost into his arms. She
had made this situation.

She must get away, of course. If only she had some one to care
for Jimmy until Peter returned! But there was no one. The
Portier's wife was fond of Jimmy, but not skillful. And suppose
he were to wake in the night and call for her and she would not
come. She cried a little over this. After a time she pattered
across the room in her bare feet and got from a bureau drawer the
money she had left. There was not half enough to take her home.
She could write; the little mother might get some for her, but at
infinite cost, infinite humiliation. That would have to be a
final, desperate resort.

She felt a little more cheerful when she had had a cup of coffee.
Jimmy wakened about that time, and she went through the details
of his morning toilet with all the brightness she could
assume--bath blankets, warm bath, toenails, finger-nails, fresh
nightgown, fresh sheets, and--final touch of all--a real barber's
part straight from crown to brow. After that ten minutes under
extra comforters while the room aired.

She hung over the boy that morning in an agony of tenderness--he
was so little, so frail, and she must leave him. Only one thing
sustained her. The boy loved her, but it was Peter he idolized.
When he had Peter he needed nothing else. In some curious process
of his childish mind Peter and Daddy mingled in inextricable
confusion. More than once he had recalled events in the roving
life he and his father had led.

"You remember that, don't you?" he would say.

"Certainly I remember," Peter would reply heartily.

"That evening on the steamer when I ate so many raisins."

"Of course. And were ill."

"Not ill--not that time. But you said I'd make a good pudding!
You remember that, don't you?"

And Peter would recall it all.

Peter would be left. That was the girl's comfort.

She made a beginning at gathering her things together that
morning, while the boy dozed and the white mice scurried about
the little cage. She could not take her trunk, or Peter would
trace it. She would have to carry her belongings, a few at a
time, to wherever she found a room. Then when Peter came back she
could slip away and he would never find her.

At noon came the Portier and the sentry, now no longer friends,
and rang the doorbell. Harmony was rather startled. McLean and
Mrs. Boyer had been her only callers, and she did not wish to see
either of them. But after a second ring she gathered her courage
in her hands and opened the door.

She turned pale when she saw the sentry in his belted blue-gray
tunic and high cap. She thought, of course, that Jimmy had been
traced and that now he would be taken away. If the sentry knew
her, however, he kept his face impassive and merely touched his
cap. The Portier stated their errand. Harmony's face cleared. She
even smiled as the Portier extended to her the thumbed score with
its missing corner. What, after all, does it matter which was
right--whether it was A sharp or A natural? What really matters
is that Harmony, having settled the dispute and clinched the
decision by running over the score for a page or two, turned to
find the Portier, ecstatic eyes upturned, hands folded on paunch,
enjoying a delirium of pleasure, and the sentry nowhere in sight.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Fri 26th Dec 2025, 21:48

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart