“Of course,” went on Peter, humbling himself for Harmony’s sake, “I suppose it has been rather unconventional, but Dr. Gates is not a young woman by any means, and she takes very good care of Miss Wells. There were reasons why this seemed the best thing to do. Miss Wells was alone and—”
“There is a Dr. Gates?”
“Of course. If you will come back and wait she’ll be along very soon.”
Mrs. Boyer was convinced and defrauded in one breath; convinced that there might be a Dr. Gates, but equally convinced that the situation was anomalous and certainly suspicious; defrauded in that she had lost the anticipated pleasure of giving Peter a piece of her mind. She walked along beside him without speaking until they reached the street-car line. Then she turned.
“You called her—you spoke to her very affectionately, young man,” she accused him.
Peter smiled. The car was close. Some imp of recklessness, some perversion of humor seized him.
“My dear Mrs. Boyer,” he said, “that was in jest purely. Besides, I did not know that you were there!”
Mrs. Boyer was a literal person without humor. It was outraged American womanhood incarnate that got into the street-car and settled its broadcloth of the best quality indignantly on the cane seat. It was outraged American womanhood that flung open the door of Marie Jedlicka’s flat, and stalking into Marie Jedlicka’s sitting room confronted her husband as he read a month-old newspaper from home.
“Did you ever hear of a woman doctor named Gates?” she demanded.
Boyer was not unaccustomed to such verbal attacks. He had learned to meet domestic broadsides with a shield of impenetrable good humor, or at the most with a return fire of mild sarcasm.
“I never hear of a woman doctor if it can be avoided.”
“Dr. Gates—Anna Gates?”
“There are a number here. I meet them in the hospital, but I don’t know their names.”
“Where does Peter Byrne live?”
“In a pension, I believe, my dear. Are we going to have anything to eat or do we sup of Peter Byrne?”
Mrs. Boyer made no immediate reply. She repaired to the bedroom of Marie Jedlicka, and placed her hat, coat and furs on one of the beds with the crocheted coverlets. It is a curious thing about rooms. There was no change in the bedroom apparent to the eye, save that for Marie’s tiny slippers at the foot of the wardrobe there were Mrs. Boyer’s substantial house shoes. But in some indefinable way the room had changed. About it hung an atmosphere of solid respectability, of impeccable purity that soothed Mrs. Boyer’s ruffled virtue into peace. Is it any wonder that there is a theory to the effect that things take on the essential qualities of people who use them, and that we are haunted by things, not people? That when grandfather’s wraith is seen in his old armchair it is the chair that produces it, while grandfather himself serenely haunts the shades of some vast wilderness of departed spirits?
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 substitute any other instrument for the harp of her expectation, tied on her gingham apron 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 sex 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.
