“If you’ll put up with me for a day or so I’ll take this list of Anna’s and hunt up some body. Just describe the person you desire and I’ll find her.” He assumed a certainty he was far from feeling, but it reassured the girl. “A woman, of course?”
“Of course. And not young.”
“‘Not young,’” wrote Peter. “Fat?”
Harmony recalled Mrs. Boyer’s ample figure and shook her head.
“Not too stout. And agreeable. That’s most important.”
“‘Agreeable,’” wrote Peter. “Although Anna was hardly agreeable, in the strict sense of the word, was she?”
“She was interesting, and—and human.”
“‘Human!’” wrote Peter. “Wanted, a woman, not young, not too stout, agreeable and human. Shall I advertise?”
The strain was quite gone by that time. Harmony was smiling. Jimmy, waking, called for food, and the morning of the first day was under way.
Peter was well content that morning, in spite of an undercurrent of uneasiness. Before this Anna had shared his proprietorship with him. Now the little household was his. His vicarious domesticity pleased him. He strutted about, taking a new view of his domain; he tightened a doorknob and fastened a noisy window. He inspected the coal- supply and grumbled over its quality. He filled the copper kettle on the stove, carried in the water for Jimmy’s morning bath, cleaned the mouse cage. He even insisted on peeling the little German potatoes, until Harmony cried aloud at his wastefulness and took the knife from him.
And afterward, while Harmony in the sickroom read aloud and Jimmy put the wooden sentry into the cage to keep order, he got out his books and tried to study. But he did little work. His book lay on his knee, his pipe died beside him. The strangeness of the situation came over him, sitting there, and left him rather frightened. He tried to see it from the viewpoint of an outsider, and found himself incredulous and doubting. McLean would resent the situation. Even the Portier was a person to reckon with. The skepticism of the American colony was a thing to fear and avoid.
And over all hung the incessant worry about money; he could just manage alone. He could not, by any method he knew of, stretch his resources to cover a separate arrangement for himself. But he had undertaken to shield a girl-woman and a child, and shield them he would and could.
Brave thoughts were Peter’s that snowy morning in the great salon of Maria Theresa, with the cat of the Portier purring before the fire; brave thoughts, cool reason, with Harmony practicing scales very softly while Jimmy slept, and with Anna speeding through a white world, to the accompaniment of bitter meditation.
Peter had meant to go to Semmering that day, but even the urgency of Marie’s need faded before his own situation. He wired Stewart that he would come as soon as he could, and immediately after lunch departed for the club, Anna’s list in his pocket, Harmony’s requirements in mind. He paused at Jimmy’s door on his way out.
“What shall it be to-day?” he inquired. “A postcard or a crayon?”
“I wish I could have a dog.”
“We’ll have a dog when you are better and can take him walking. Wait until spring, son.”
“Some more mice?”
“You will have them—but not to-day.”
“What holiday comes next?”
“New Year’s Day. Suppose I bring you a New Year’s card.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jimmy. “One I can send to Dad. Do you think he will come back this year?” wistfully.
Peter dropped on his baggy knees beside the bed and drew the little wasted figure to him.
“I think you’ll surely see him this year, old man,” he said huskily.
Peter walked to the Doctors’ Club. On the way he happened on little Georgiev, the Bulgarian, and they went on together. Peter managed to make out that Georgiev was studying English, and that he desired to know the state of health and the abode of the Fraulein Wells. Peter evaded the latter by the simple expedient of pretending not to understand. The little Bulgarian watched him earnestly, his smouldering eyes not without suspicion. There had been much talk in the Pension Schwarz about the departure together of the three Americans. The Jew from Galicia still raved over Harmony’s beauty.
Georgiev rather hoped, by staying by Peter, to be led toward his star. But Peter left him at the Doctors’ Club, still amiable, but absolutely obtuse to the question nearest the little spy’s heart.
The club was almost deserted. The holidays had taken many of the members out of town. Other men were taking advantage of the vacation to see the city, or to make acquaintance again with families they had hardly seen during the busy weeks before Christmas. The room at the top of the stairs where the wives of the members were apt to meet for chocolate and to exchange the addresses of dressmakers was empty; in the reading room he found McLean. Although not a member, McLean was a sort of honorary habitue, being allowed the privilege of the club in exchange for a dependable willingness to play at entertainments of all sorts.
It was in Peter’s mind to enlist McLean’s assistance in his difficulties. McLean knew a good many people. He was popular, goodlooking, and in a colony where, unlike London and Paris, the great majority were people of moderate means, he was conspicuously well off. But he was also much younger than Peter and intolerant with the insolence of youth. Peter was thinking hard as he took off his overcoat and ordered beer.
The boy was in love with Harmony already; Peter had seen that, as he saw many things. How far his love might carry him, Peter had no idea. It seemed to him, as he sat across the reading-table and studied him over his magazine, that McLean would resent bitterly the girl’s position, and that when he learned it a crisis might be precipitated.
One of three things might happen: He might bend all his energies to second Peter’s effort to fill Anna’s place, to
