The little Georgiev hardly ate or slept. Much hammering went on all day in the small room below Harmony’s on the Wollbadgasse. At night, when the man in the green velours hat took a little sleep, mysterious packages were carried down the whitewashed staircase and loaded into wagons waiting below. Once on her windowsill Harmony found among the pigeons a carrier pigeon with a brass tube fastened to its leg.
On the morning after Harmony’s flight from the garden in the Street of Seven Stars, she received a visit from Georgiev. She had put in a sleepless night, full of heart-searching. She charged herself with cowardice in running away from Peter and Jimmy when they needed her, and in going back like a thief the night before. The conviction that the boy was not so well brought with it additional introspection—her sacrifice seemed useless, almost childish. She had fled because two men thought it necessary, in order to save her reputation, to marry her; and she did not wish to marry. Marriage was fatal to the career she had promised herself, had been promised. But this career, for which she had given up everything else—would she find it in the workroom of a dressmaker?
Ah, but there was more to it than that. Suppose—how her cheeks burned when she thought of it!—suppose she had taken Peter at his word and married him? What about Peter’s career? Was there any way by which Peter’s poverty for one would be comfort for two? Was there any reason why Peter, with his splendid ability, should settle down to the hack-work of general practice, the very slough out of which he had so painfully climbed?
Either of two things—go back to Peter, but not to marry him, or stay where she was. How she longed to go back only Harmony knew. There in the little room, with only the pigeons to see, she held out her arms longingly. “Peter!” she said. “Peter, dear!”
She decided, of course, to stay where she was, a burden to no one. The instinct of the young girl to preserve her good name at any cost outweighed the vision of Peter at the window, haggard and tired, looking out. It was Harmony’s chance, perhaps, to do a big thing; to prove herself bigger than her fears, stronger than convention. But she was young, bewildered, afraid. And there was this element, stronger than any of the others—Peter had never told her he loved her. To go back, throwing herself again on his mercy, was unthinkable. On his love—that was different. But what if he did not love her? He had been good to her; but then Peter was good to every one.
There was something else. If the boy was worse what about his mother? Whatever she was or had been, she was his mother. Suppose he were to die and his mother not see him? Harmony’s sense of fairness rebelled. In the small community at home mother was sacred, her claims insistent.
It was very early, hardly more than dawn. The pigeons cooed on the sill; over the ridge of the church roof, across, a luminous strip foretold the sun. An oxcart, laden with vegetables for the market, lumbered along the streets. Puzzled and unhappy, Harmony rose and lighted her fire, drew on her slippers and the faded silk kimono with the pink butterflies.
In the next room the dressmaker still slept, dreaming early morning dreams of lazy apprentices, overdue bills, complaining customers.
Harmony moved lightly not to disturb her. She set her room in order, fed the pigeons,—it was then she saw the carrier with its message,—made her morning coffee by setting the tiny pot inside the stove. And all the time, moving quietly through her morning routine, she was there in that upper room in body only.
In soul she was again in the courtyard back of the old lodge, in the Street of Seven Stars, with the rabbits stirring in the hutch, and Peter, with rapt eyes, gazing out over the city. Bed, toilet-table, coffee-pot, Peter; pigeons, rolls, Peter; sunrise over the church roof, and Peter again. Always Peter!
Monia Reiff was stirring in the next room. Harmony could hear her, muttering and putting coal on the stove and calling to the Hungarian maid for breakfast. Harmony dressed hastily. It was one of her new duties to prepare the workroom for the day. The luminous streak above the church was rose now, time for the day to begin.
She was not certain at once that some one had knocked at the door, so faint was the sound.
She hesitated, listened. The knob turned slightly. Harmony, expecting Monia, called “Come in.”
It was the little Georgiev, very apologetic, rather gray of face. He stood in the doorway with his finger on his lips, one ear toward the stairway. It was very silent. Monia was drinking her coffee in bed, whither she had retired for warmth.
“Pardon!” said the Bulgarian in a whisper. “I listened until I heard you moving about. Ah, Fraulein, that I must disturb you!”
“Something has happened!” exclaimed Harmony, thinking of Peter, of course.
“Not yet. I fear it is about to happen. Fraulein, do me the honor to open your window. My pigeon comes now to you to be fed, and I fear—on the sill, Fraulein.”
Harmony opened the window. The wild pigeons scattered at once, but the carrier, flying out a foot or two, came back promptly and set about its breakfast.
“Will he let me catch him?”
“Pardon, Fraulein, If I may enter—”
“Come in, of course.”
Evidently the defection of the carrier had been serious. A handful of grain on a wrong windowsill, and kingdoms overthrown! Georgiev caught the pigeon and drew the message from the tube. Even Harmony grasped the seriousness of the situation. The little Bulgarian’s face, from gray became livid; tiny beads of cold sweat came out on his forehead.
“What have I done?” cried Harmony. “Oh, what have I done? If I had known about the pigeon—”
Georgiev recovered himself.
“The Fraulein can do nothing wrong,” he said. “It is a matter of an hour’s delay, that is all. It may not be too late.”
Monia Reiff, from the next room, called loudly for more coffee. The sulky Hungarian brought it without a glance in their direction.
“Too late for what?”
“Fraulein, if I may trouble you—but glance from the window to the street below. It is of an urgency, or I— Please, Fraulein!”
