something reminiscent after all in her figure and carriage. The little Georgiev paused, halfway down, and thought a moment. It was impossible, of course. All women reminded him of the American. Had he not, only the day before, followed for two city blocks a woman old enough to be his mother, merely because she carried a violin case? But there was something about the girl he had just passed—Bah!
A bad week for Harmony followed, a week of weary days and restless nights when she slept only to dream of Peter—of his hurt and incredulous eyes when he found she had gone; of Jimmy—that he needed her, was worse, was dying. More than once she heard him sobbing and wakened to the cooing of the pigeons on the windowsill. She grew thin and sunken-eyed; took to dividing her small hoard, half of it with her, half under the carpet, so that in case of accident all would not be gone.
This, as it happened, was serious. One day, the sixth, she came back wet to the skin from an all-day rain, to find that the carpet bank had been looted. There was no clue. The stolid Hungarian, startled out of her lethargy, protested innocence; the little dressmaker, who seemed honest and friendly, wept in sheer sympathy. The fact remained—half the small hoard was gone.
Two days more, a Sunday and a Monday. On Sunday Harmony played, and Georgiev in the room below, translating into cipher a recent conference between the Austrian Minister of War and the German Ambassador, put aside his work and listened. She played, as once before she had played when life seemed sad and tragic, the “Humoresque.” Georgiev, hands behind his head and eyes upturned, was back in the Pension Schwarz that night months ago when Harmony played the “Humoresque” and Peter stooped outside her door. The little Bulgarian sighed and dreamed.
Harmony, a little sadder, a little more forlorn each day, pursued her hopeless quest. She ventured into the heart of the Stadt and paid a part of her remaining money to an employment bureau, to teach English or violin, whichever offered, or even both. After she had paid they told her it would be difficult, almost impossible without references. She had another narrow escape as she was leaving. She almost collided with Olga, the chambermaid, who, having clashed for the last time with Katrina, was seeking new employment. On another occasion she saw Marie in the crowd and was obsessed with a longing to call to her, to ask for Peter, for Jimmy. That meeting took the heart out of the girl. Marie was white and weary—perhaps the boy was worse. Perhaps Peter—Her heart contracted. But that was absurd, of course, Peter was always well and strong.
Two things occurred that week, one unexpected, the other inevitable. The unexpected occurrence was that Monia Reiff, finding Harmony being pressed for work, offered the girl a situation. The wage was small, but she could live on it.
The inevitable was that she met Georgiev on the stairs without her veil.
It was the first day in the workroom. The apprentices were carrying home boxes for a ball that night. Thread was needed, and quickly. Harmony, who did odds and ends of sewing, was most easily spared. She slipped on her jacket and hat and ran down to the shop near by.
It was on the return that she met Georgiev coming down. The afternoon was dark and the staircase unlighted. In the gloom one face was as another. Georgiev, listening intently, hearing footsteps, drew back into the embrasure of a window and waited. His swarthy face was tense, expectant. As the steps drew near, were light feminine instead of stealthy, the little spy relaxed somewhat. But still he waited, crouched.
It was a second before he recognized Harmany, another instant before he realized his good fortune. She had almost passed. He put out an unsteady hand.
“Fraulein!”
“Herr Georgiev!”
The little Bulgarian was profoundly stirred. His fervid eyes gleamed. He struggled against the barrier of language, broke out in passionate Bulgar, switched to German punctuated with an English word here and there. Made intelligible, it was that he had found her at last. Harmony held her spools of thread and waited for the storm of languages to subside. Then:—
“But you are not to say you have seen me, Herr Georgiev.”
“No?”
Harmony colored.
“I am—am hiding,” she explained. “Something very uncomfortable happened and I came here. Please don’t say you have seen me.”
Georgiev was puzzled at first. She had to explain very slowly, with his ardent eyes on her. But he understood at last and agreed of course. His incredulity was turning to certainty. Harmony had actually been in the same building with him while he sought her everywhere else.
“Then,” he said at last, “it was you who played Sunday.”
“I surely.”
She made a move to pass him, but he held out an imploring hand.
“Fraulein, I may see you sometimes?”
“We shall meet again, of course.”
“Fraulein,—with all respect,—sometime perhaps you will walk out with me?”
“I am very busy all day.”
“At night, then? For the exercise? I, with all respect, Fraulein!”
Harmony was touched.
“Sometime,” she consented. And then impulsively: “I am very lonely, Herr Georgiev.”
She held out her hand, and the little Bulgarian bent over it and kissed it reverently. The Herr Georgiev’s father was a nobleman in his own country, and all the little spy’s training had been to make of a girl in Harmony’s situation lawful prey. But in the spy’s glowing heart there was nothing for Harmony to fear. She knew it. He stood, hat in hand, while she went up the staircase. Then:—
“Fraulein!” anxiously.
