“Peter,” said Harmony softly, “aren’t you going to look at me?”
“I’m afraid.”
“That’s cowardice. And I’ve fixed my hair a new way. Do you like it?”
“Splendid,” said Peter to the center table.
“You didn’t look!”
The rout of Harmony’s eyes was supplemented by the rout of Harmony’s hair. Peter, goaded, got up and walked about. Harmony was half exasperated; she would have boxed Peter’s ears with a tender hand had she dared.
His hands thrust savagely in his pockets, Peter turned and faced her at last.
“First of all,” he said, “I am going back to America, Harmony. I’ve got all I can get here, all I came for—” He stopped, seeing her face. “Well, of course, that’s not true, I haven’t. But I’m going back, anyhow. You needn’t look so stricken: I haven’t lost my chance. I’ll come back sometime again and finish, when I’ve earned enough to do it.”
“You will never come back, Peter. You have spent all your money on others, and now you are going back just where you were, and—you are leaving me here alone!”
“You are alone, anyhow,” said Peter, “making your own way and getting along. And McLean will be here.”
“Are you turning me over to him?”
No reply. Peter was pacing the floor.
“Peter!”
“Yes, dear?”
“Do you remember the night in Anna’s room at the Schwartz when you proposed to me?”
No reply. Peter found another pin.
“And that night in the old lodge when you proposed to me again?”
Peter turned and looked at her, at her slender, swaying young figure, her luminous eyes, her parted, childish lips.
“Peter, I want you to—to ask me again.”
“No!”
“Why?”
“Now, listen to me, Harmony. You’re sorry for me, that’s all; I don’t want to be pitied. You stay here and work. You’ll do big things. I had a talk with the master while I was searching for you, and he says you can do anything. But he looked at me—and a sight I was with worry and fright—and he warned me off, Harmony. He says you must not marry.”
“Old pig!” said Harmony. “I will marry if I please.”
Nevertheless Peter’s refusal and the master’s speech had told somewhat. She was colder, less vibrant. Peter came to her, stood close, looking down at her.
“I’ve said a lot I didn’t mean to,” he said. “There’s only one thing I haven’t said, I oughtn’t to say it, dear. I’m not going to marry you—I won’t have such a thing on my conscience. But it doesn’t hurt a woman to know that a man loves her. I love you, dear. You’re my heaven and my earth—even my God, I’m afraid. But I will not marry you.”
“Not even if I ask you to?”
“Not even then, dear. To share my struggle—”
“I see,” slowly. “It is to be a struggle?”
“A hard fight, Harmony. I’m a pauper practically.”
“And what am I?”
“Two poverties don’t make a wealth, even of happiness,” said Peter steadily. “In the time to come, when you would think of what you might have been, it would be a thousand deaths to me, dear.”
“People have married, women have married and carried on their work, too, Peter.”
“Not your sort of women or your sort of work. And not my sort of man, Harry. I’m jealous—jealous of every one about you. It would have to be the music or me.”
“And you make the choice!” said Harmony proudly. “Very well, Peter, I shall do as you say. But I think it is a very curious sort of love.”
“I wonder,” Peter cried, “if you realize what love it is that loves you enough to give you up.”
“You have not asked me if I care, Peter.”
Peter looked at her. She was very near to tears, very sad, very beautiful.
“I’m afraid to ask,” said Peter, and picking up his hat he made for the door. There he turned, looked back, was lost.
“My sweetest heart!” he cried, and took her in his hungry arms. But even then, with her arms about his neck at last, with her slender body held to him, her head on his shoulder, his lips to her soft throat, Peter put her from him as a starving man might put away food.
He held her off and looked at her.
“I’m a fool and a weakling,” he said gravely. “I love you so much that I would sacrifice you. You are very lovely, my girl, my girl! As long as I live I shall carry your image in my heart.”
Ah, what the little Georgiev had said on his way to the death that waited down the staircase. Peter, not daring to look at her again, put away her detaining hand, squared his shoulders, went to the door.
“Good-bye, Harmony,” he said steadily. “Always in my heart!”
Very near the end now: the little Marie on the way to America, with the recording angel opening a new page in life’s ledger for her and a red-ink line erasing the other; with Jimmy and his daddy wandering through the heaven of friendly adventure and green fields, hand in hand; with the carrier resting after its labors in the pigeon house by the rose-fields of Sofia; with the sentry casting martial shadows through the barred windows of the hospital; and the little Georgiev, about to die, dividing his heart, as a heritage, between his country and a young girl.
Very near the end, with the morning light of the next day shining into the salon of Maria Theresa and on to Peter’s open trunk and shabby wardrobe spread over chairs. An end of trunks and departure, as was the beginning.
Early morning at the Gottesacker, or God’s acre, whence little Jimmy had started on his comfortable journey. Early morning on the frost-covered grass, the frozen roads, the snap and sparkle of the Donau. Harmony had taken her problem there, in the early hour before Monia would summon her to labor—took her problem and found her answer.
The great cemetery was still and deserted. Harmony, none too warmly clad, walked briskly, a bunch of flowers in oiled paper against the cold. Already the air carried a hint of spring; there was a feeling of resurrection and promise. The dead earth felt alive under-foot.
Harmony knelt by the grave and said the little prayer the child had repeated at night and morning. And, because he had loved it, with some vague feeling of giving him comfort, she recited the little verse:—
“Ah well! For us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes: And in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away.”
When she looked up Le Grande was standing beside her.
There was no scene, hardly any tears. She had brought out a great bunch of roses that bore only too clearly the stamp of whence they came. One of the pickaninnies had carried the box and stood impassively by, gazing at Harmony.
Le Grande placed her flowers on the grave. They almost covered it, quite eclipsed Harmony’s.
“I come here every morning,” she said simply.
She had a cab waiting, and offered to drive Harmony back to the city. Her quiet almost irritated Harmony, until she had looked once into the woman’s eyes. After that she knew. It was on the drive back, with the little darky on the box beside the driver, that Harmony got her answer.
Le Grande put a hand over Harmony’s.
“I tried to tell you before how good I know you were to him.”
“We loved him.”
“And I resented it. But Dr. Byrne was right—I was not a fit person to—to have him.”
“It was not that—not only that—”
“Did he ever ask for me? But of course not.”
“No, he had no remembrance.”
Silence for a moment. The loose windows of the cab clattered.
“I loved him very much when he came,” said Le Grande, “although I did not want him. I had been told I could have a career on the stage. Ah, my dear, I chose the career—and look at me! What have I? A grave in the cemetery back there, and on it roses sent me by a man I loathe! If I could live it over again!”
The answer was very close now:—