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Page 90

"Marie? I sent her to Vienna."

Stewart fell back, relieved, not even curious.

"Thank Heaven for that!" he said. "I don't want to see her again.
I'd do something I'd be sorry for. The kindest thing to say for
her is that she was not sane."

"No," said Peter gravely, "she was hardly sane."

Stewart caught his steady gaze and glanced away. For him Marie's
little tragedy had been written and erased. He would forget it
magnanimously. He had divided what he had with her, and she had
repaid him by attempting his life. And not only his life, but
Anita's. Peter followed his line of reasoning easily.

"It's quite a frequent complication, Stewart," he said, "but
every man to whom it happens regards himself more or less as a
victim. She fell in love with you, that's all. Her conduct is
contrary to the ethics of the game, but she's been playing poor
cards all along."

"Where is she?"

"That doesn't matter, does it?"

Stewart had lain back and closed his eyes. No, it didn't matter.
A sense of great relief overwhelmed him. Marie was gone,
frightened into hiding. It was as if a band that had been about
him was suddenly loosed: he breathed deep, he threw out his arms
and laughed from sheer reaction. Then, catching Peter's not
particularly approving eyes, he colored.

"Good Lord, Peter!" he said, "you don't know what I've gone
through with that little devil. And now she's gone!" He glanced
round the disordered room, where bandages and medicines crowded
toilet articles on the dressing-table, where one of Marie's small
slippers still lay where it had fallen under the foot of the bed,
where her rosary still hung over the corner of the table. "Ring
for the maid, Peter, will you! I've got to get this junk out of
here. Some of Anita's people may come."

During that afternoon ride, while the train clump-clumped down
the mountains, Peter thought of all this. Some of Marie's "junk"
was in his bag; her rosary lay in his breastpocket, along with
the pin he had sent her at Christmas. Peter happened on it, still
in its box, which looked as if it had been cried over. He had
brought it with him. He admired it very much, and it had cost
money he could ill afford to spend.

It was late when the train drew into the station. Peter,
encumbered with Marie's luggage and his own, lowered his window
and added his voice to the chorus of plaintive calls: "Portier!
Portier!" they shouted. "Portier!" bawled Peter.

He was obliged to resort to the extravagance of a taxicab.
Possibly a fiacre would have done as well, but it cost almost as
much and was slower. Moments counted now: a second was an hour,
an hour a decade. For he was on his way to Harmony. Extravagance
became recklessness. As soon die for a sheep as a lamb! He
stopped the taxicab and bought a bunch of violets, stopped again
and bought lilies of the valley to combine with the violets, went
out of his tray to the American grocery and bought a jar of
preserved fruit.

By that time he was laden. The jar of preserves hung in one
shabby pocket, Marie's rosary dangled from another; the violets
were buttoned under his overcoat against the cold.

At the very last he held the taxi an extra moment and darted into
the delicatessen shop across the Siebensternstrasse. From there,
standing inside the doorway, he could see the lights in the salon
across the way, the glow of his lamp, the flicker that was the
fire. Peter whistled, stamped his cold feet, quite neglected--in
spite of repeated warnings from Harmony--to watch the Herr
Schenkenkaufer weigh the cheese, accepted without a glance a
ten-Kronen piece with a hole in it.

"And how is the child to-day?" asked the Herr Schenkenkaufer,
covering the defective gold piece with conversation.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Sat 27th Dec 2025, 8:49

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart