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Page 98

McLean made a lame apology, Peter too sick with disappointment to
speak. Then back to the city again.

He had taken to making a daily round, to the master's, to the
Frau Professor Bergmeister's, along the Graben and the
Karntnerstrasse, ending up at the Doctors' Club in the faint hope
of a letter. Wrath still smouldered deep in Peter; he would not
enter a room at the club if Mrs. Boyer sat within. He had had a
long hour with Dr. Jennings, and left that cheerful person
writhing in abasement. And he had held a stormy interview with
the Frau Schwarz, which left her humble for a week, and
exceedingly nervous, being of the impression from Peter's manner
that in the event of Harmony not turning up an American gunboat
would sail up the right arm of the Danube and bombard the Pension
Schwarz.

Schonbrunn having failed them, McLean and, Peter went back to the
city in the street-car, neither one saying much. Even McLean's
elasticity was deserting him. His eyes, from much peering into
crowds, had taken on a strained, concentrated look.

Peter was shabbier than ever beside the other man's
ultrafashionable dress. He sat, bent forward, his long arms
dangling between his knees, his head down. Their common trouble
had drawn the two together, or had drawn McLean close to Peter,
as if he recognized that there were degrees in grief and that
Peter had received almost a death-wound. His old rage at Peter
had died. Harmony's flight had proved the situation as no amount
of protestation would have done. The thing now was to find the
girl; then he and Peter would start even, and the battle to the
best man.

They had the car almost to themselves. Peter had not spoken since
he sat down. McLean was busy over a notebook, in which he jotted
down from day to day such details of their search as might be
worth keeping. Now and then he glanced at Peter as if he wished
to say something, hesitated, fell to work again over the
notebook. Finally he ventured.

"How's the boy?"

"Not so well to-day. I'm having a couple of men in to see him
to-night. He doesn't sleep."

"Do you sleep?"

"Not much. He's on my mind, of course."

That and other things, Peter.

"Don't you think--wouldn't it be better to have a nurse. You
can't go like this all day and be up all night, you know. And
Marie has him most of the day." McLean, of course, had known
Marie before. "The boy ought to have a nurse, I think."

"He doesn't move without my hearing him."

"That's an argument for me. Do you want to get sick?"

Peter turned a white face toward McLean, a face in which
exasperation struggled with fatigue.

"Good Lord, boy," he rasped, "don't you suppose I'd have a nurse
if I could afford it?"

"Would you let me help? I'd like to do something. I'm a useless
cub in a sick-room, but I could do that. Who's the woman he liked
in the hospital?"

"Nurse Elisabet. I don't know, Mac. There's no reason why I
shouldn't let you help, I suppose. It hurts, of course, but--if
he would be happier--"

"That's settled, then," said McLean. "Nurse Elisabet, if she can
come. And--look here, old man. I 've been trying to say this for
a week and haven't had the nerve. Let me help you out for a
while. You can send it back when you get it, any time, a year or
ten years. I'll not miss it."

But Peter refused. He tempered the refusal in his kindly way.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Sun 28th Dec 2025, 2:42

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart