The Street of Seven Stars Part 19

Not that Mrs. Boyer troubled herself about such things. She was exceedingly orthodox, even in the matter of a hereafter, where the most orthodox are apt to stretch a point, finding no attraction whatever in the thing they are asked to believe. Mrs. Boyer, who would have regarded it as heterodox to subst.i.tute any other instrument for the harp of her expectation, tied on her gingham ap.r.o.n before Marie Jedlicka's mirror, and thought of Harmony and of the girls at home.

She told her husband over the supper-table and found him less shocked than she had expected.

"It's not your affair or mine," he said. "It's Byrne's business."

"Think of the girl!"

"Even if you are right it's rather late, isn't it?"

"You could tell him what you think of him."

Dr. Boyer sighed over a cup of very excellent coffee. Much living with a representative male had never taught his wife the reserves among members of the s.e.x masculine.

"I might, but I don't intend to," he said. "And if you listen to me you'll keep the thing to yourself."

"I'll take precious good care that the girl gets no pupils," snapped Mrs. Boyer. And she did with great thoroughness.

We trace a life by its scars. Destiny, marching on by a thousand painful steps, had left its usual mark, a footprint on a naked soul. The soul was Harmony's; the foot--was it not encased at that moment in Mrs.

Boyer's comfortable house shoes?

Anna was very late that night. Peter, having put Mrs. Boyer on her car, went back quickly. He had come out without his overcoat, and with the sunset a bitter wind had risen, but he was too indignant to be cold. He ran up the staircase, hearing on all sides the creaking and banging with which the old house resented a gale, and burst into the salon of Maria Theresa.

Harmony was sitting sidewise in a chair by the tea-table with her face hidden against its worn red velvet. She did not look up when he entered.

Peter went over and put a hand on her shoulder. She quivered under it and he took it away.

"Crying?"

"A little," very smothered. "Just dis-disappointment. Don't mind me, Peter."

"You mean about the pupil?"

Harmony sat up and looked at him. She still wore her hat, now more than ever askew, and some of the dye from the velvet had stained her cheek.

She looked rather hectic, very lovely.

"Why did she change so when she saw you?"

Peter hesitated. Afterward he thought of a dozen things he might have said, safe things. Not one came to him.

"She--she is an evil-thinking old woman, Harry," he said gravely.

"She did not approve of the way we are living here, is that it?"

"Yes."

"But Anna?"

"She did not believe there was an Anna. Not that it matters," he added hastily. "I'll make Anna go to her and explain. It's her infernal jumping to a conclusion that makes me crazy."

"She will talk, Peter. I am frightened."

"I'll take Anna to-night and we'll go to Boyer's. I'll make that woman get down on her knees to you. I'll--"

"You'll make bad very much worse," said Harmony dejectedly. "When a thing has to be explained it does no good to explain it."

The salon was growing dark. Peter was very close to her again. As in the dusky kitchen only a few days before, he felt the compelling influence of her nearness. He wanted, as he had never wanted anything in his life before, to take her in his arms, to hold her close and bid defiance to evil tongues. He was afraid of himself. To gain a moment he put a chair between them and stood, strong hands gripping its back, looking down at her.

"There is one thing we could do."

"What, Peter?"

"We could marry. If you cared for me even a little it--it might not be so bad for you."

"But I am not in love with you. I care for you, of course, but--not that way, Peter. And I do not wish to marry."

"Not even if I wish it very much?"

"No."

"If you are thinking of my future--"

"I'm thinking for both of us. And although just now you think you care a little for me, you do not care enough, Peter. You are lonely and I am the only person you see much, so you think you want to marry me. You don't really. You want to help me."

Few motives are unmixed. Poor Peter, thus accused, could not deny his altruism.

And in the face of his poverty and the little he could offer, compared with what she must lose, he did not urge what was the compelling motive after all, his need of her.

"It would be a rotten match for you," he agreed. "I only thought, perhaps--You are right, of course; you ought not to marry."

"And what about you?"

"I ought not, of course."

Harmony rose, smiling a little.

"Then that's settled. And for goodness' sake, Peter, stop proposing to me every time things go wrong." Her voice changed, grew grave and older, much older than Peter's. "We must not marry, either of us, Peter. Anna is right. There might be an excuse if we were very much in love: but we are not. And loneliness is not a reason."

"I am very lonely," said Peter wistfully.

CHAPTER XIII

Peter took the polished horns to the hospital the next morning and approached Jimmy with his hands behind him and an atmosphere of mystery that enshrouded him like a cloak. Jimmy, having had a good night and having taken the morning's medicine without argument, had been allowed up in a roller chair. It struck Peter with a pang that the boy looked more frail day by day, more transparent.

"I have brought you," said Peter gravely, "the cod-liver oil."

"I've had it!"