The Street of Seven Stars Part 2

"So bad," he observed, "that I keep body and soul together by buying strong and odorous food at the delicatessens--odorous, because only rugged flavors rise above the atmosphere up there. Cheese is the only thing that really knocks out the cabbage, and once or twice even cheese has retired defeated."

"But I don't like cheese." In sheer relief from the loneliness of the day her spirits were rising.

"Then coffee! But not there. Coffee at the coffee-house on the corner. I say--" He hesitated.

"Yes?"

"Would you--don't you think a cup of coffee would set you up a bit?"

"It sounds attractive,"--uncertainly.

"Coffee with whipped cream and some little cakes?"

Harmony hesitated. In the gloom of the hall she could hardly see this brisk young American--young, she knew by his voice, tall by his silhouette, strong by the way he had caught her. She could not see his face, but she liked his voice.

"Do you mean--with you?"

"I'm a doctor. I am going to fill my own prescription."

That sounded rea.s.suring. Doctors were not as other men; they were legitimate friends in need.

"I am sure it is not proper, but--"

"Proper! Of course it is. I shall send you a bill for professional services. Besides, won't we be formally introduced to-night by the landlady? Come now--to the coffee-house and the Paris edition of the 'Herald'!" But the next moment he paused and ran his hand over his chin.

"I'm pretty disreputable," he explained. "I have been in a clinic all day, and, hang it all, I'm not shaved."

"What difference does that make?"

"My dear young lady," he explained gravely, picking up the cheese and the tinned fish, "it makes a difference in me that I wish you to realize before you see me in a strong light."

He rapped at the Portier's door, with the intention of leaving his parcels there, but receiving no reply tucked them under his arm. A moment later Harmony was in the open air, rather dazed, a bit excited, and lovely with the color the adventure brought into her face. Her companion walked beside her, tall, slightly stooped. She essayed a fugitive little side-glance up at him, and meeting his eyes hastily averted hers.

They pa.s.sed a policeman, and suddenly there flashed into the girl's mind little Scatchett's letter.

"Do be careful, Harry. If any one you do not know speaks to you, call a policeman."

CHAPTER III

The coffee-house was warm and bright. Round its small tables were gathered miscellaneous groups, here and there a woman, but mostly men--uniformed officers, who made of the neighborhood coffee-house a sort of club, where under their breath they criticized the Government and retailed small regimental gossip; professors from the university, still wearing under the beards of middle life the fine horizontal scars of student days; elderly doctors from the general hospital across the street; even a Hofrath or two, drinking beer and reading the "Fliegende Blaetter" and "Simplicissimus"; and in an alcove round a billiard table a group of noisy Korps students. Over all a permeating odor of coffee, strong black coffee, made with a fig or two to give it color. It rose even above the blue tobacco haze and dominated the atmosphere with its spicy and stimulating richness. A bustle of waiters, a hum of conversation, the rattle of newspapers and the click of billiard b.a.l.l.s--this was the coffee-house.

Harmony had never been inside one before. The little music colony had been a tight-closed corporation, retaining its American integrity, in spite of the salon of Maria Theresa and three expensive lessons a week in German. Harmony knew the art galleries and the churches, which were free, and the opera, thanks to no b.u.t.ter at supper. But of that backbone of Austrian life, the coffee-house, she was profoundly ignorant.

Her companion found her a seat in a corner near a heater and disappeared for an instant on the search for the Paris edition of the "Herald." The girl followed him with her eyes. Seen under the bright electric lights, he was not handsome, hardly good-looking. His mouth was wide, his nose irregular, his hair a nondescript brown,--but the mouth had humor, the nose character, and, thank Heaven, there was plenty of hair. Not that Harmony saw all this at once. As he tacked to and fro round the tables, with a nod here and a word there, she got a sort of ensemble effect--a tall man, possibly thirty, broadshouldered, somewhat stooped, as tall men are apt to be. And shabby, undeniably shabby!

The shabbiness was a shock. A much-braided officer, trim from the points of his mustache to the points of his shoes, rose to speak to him. The shabbiness was accentuated by the contrast. Possibly the revelation was an eas.e.m.e.nt to the girl's nervousness. This smiling and unpressed individual, blithely waving aloft the Paris edition of the "Herald" and equally blithely ignoring the maledictions of the student from whom he had taken it--even Scatchy could not have called him a vulture or threatened him with the police.

He placed the paper before her and sat down at her side, not to interfere with her outlook over the room.

"Warmer?" he asked.

"Very much."

"Coffee is coming. And cinnamon cakes with plenty of sugar. They know me here and they know where I live. They save the sugariest cakes for me.

Don't let me bother you; go on and read. See which of the smart set is getting a divorce--or is it always the same one? And who's President back home."

"I'd rather look round. It's curious, isn't it?"

"Curious? It's heavenly! It's the one thing I am going to take back to America with me--one coffee-house, one dozen military men for local color, one dozen students ditto, and one proprietor's wife to sit in the cage and shortchange the unsuspecting. I'll grow wealthy."

"But what about the medical practice?"

He leaned over toward her; his dark-gray eyes fulfilled the humorous promise of his mouth.

"Why, it will work out perfectly," he said whimsically. "The great American public will eat cinnamon cakes and drink coffee until the feeble American nervous system will be shattered. I shall have an office across the street!"

After that, having seen how tired she looked, he forbade conversation until she had had her coffee. She ate the cakes, too, and he watched her with comfortable satisfaction.

"Nod your head but don't speak," he said. "Remember, I am prescribing, and there's to be no conversation until the coffee is down. Shall I or shall I not open the cheese?"

But Harmony did not wish the cheese, and so signified. Something inherently delicate in the unknown kept him from more than an occasional swift glance at her. He read aloud, as she ate, bits of news from the paper, pausing to sip his own coffee and to cast an eye over the crowded room. Here and there an officer, gazing with too open admiration on Harmony's lovely face, found himself fixed by a pair of steel-gray eyes that were anything but humorous at that instant, and thought best to s.h.i.+ft his gaze.

The coffee finished, the girl began to gather up her wraps. But the unknown protested.

"The function of a coffee-house," he explained gravely, "is twofold.

Coffee is only the first half. The second half is conversation."

"I converse very badly."

"So do I. Suppose we talk about ourselves. We are sure to do that well.

Shall I commence?"

Harmony was in no mood to protest. Having swallowed coffee, why choke over conversation? Besides, she was very comfortable. It was warm there, with the heater at her back; better than the little room with the sagging bed and the doors covered with wall paper. Her feet had stopped aching, too, She could have sat there for hours. And--why evade it?--she was interested. This whimsical and respectful young man with his absurd talk and his shabby clothes had roused her curiosity.

"Please," she a.s.sented.

"Then, first of all, my name. I'm getting that over early, because it isn't much, as names go. Peter Byrne it is. Don't shudder."

"Certainly I'm not shuddering."

"I have another name, put in by my Irish father to conciliate a German uncle of my mother's. Augustus! It's rather a mess. What shall I put on my professional bra.s.splate? If I put P. Augustus Byrne n.o.body's fooled.

They know my wretched first name is Peter."

"Or Patrick."

"I rather like Patrick--if I thought it might pa.s.s as Patrick! Patrick has possibilities. The diminutive is Pat, and that's not bad. But Peter!"