Harmony had never been inside one before.  The little music colony had been a tight-closed corporation, retaining its American integrity, in spite of the salon of Maria Theresa and three expensive lessons a week in German.  Harmony knew the art galleries and the churches, which were free, and the opera, thanks to no butter at supper.  But of that backbone of Austrian life, the coffee-house, she was profoundly ignorant.

Her companion found her a seat in a corner near a heater and disappeared for an instant on the search for the Paris edition of the “Herald.”  The girl followed him with her eyes.  Seen under the bright electric lights, he was not handsome, hardly good-looking.  His mouth was wide, his nose irregular, his hair a nondescript brown,—­but the mouth had humor, the nose character, and, thank Heaven, there was plenty of hair.  Not that Harmony saw all this at once.  As he tacked to and fro round the tables, with a nod here and a word there, she got a sort of ensemble effect—­a tall man, possibly thirty, broadshouldered, somewhat stooped, as tall men are apt to be.  And shabby, undeniably shabby!

The shabbiness was a shock.  A much-braided officer, trim from the points of his mustache to the points of his shoes, rose to speak to him.  The shabbiness was accentuated by the contrast.  Possibly the revelation was an easement to the girl’s nervousness.  This smiling and unpressed individual, blithely waving aloft the Paris edition of the “Herald” and equally blithely ignoring the maledictions of the student from whom he had taken it—­even Scatchy could not have called him a vulture or threatened him with the police.

He placed the paper before her and sat down at her side, not to interfere with her outlook over the room.

“Warmer?” he asked.

“Very much.”

“Coffee is coming.  And cinnamon cakes with plenty of sugar.  They know me here and they know where I live.  They save the sugariest cakes for me.  Don’t let me bother you; go on and read.  See which of the smart set is getting a divorce—­or is it always the same one?  And who’s President back home.”

“I’d rather look round.  It’s curious, isn’t it?”

“Curious?  It’s heavenly!  It’s the one thing I am going to take back to America with me—­one coffee-house, one dozen military men for local color, one dozen students ditto, and one proprietor’s wife to sit in the cage and shortchange the unsuspecting.  I’ll grow wealthy.”

“But what about the medical practice?”

He leaned over toward her; his dark-gray eyes fulfilled the humorous promise of his mouth.

“Why, it will work out perfectly,” he said whimsically.  “The great American public will eat cinnamon cakes and drink coffee until the feeble American nervous system will be shattered.  I shall have an office across the street!”

After that, having seen how tired she looked, he forbade conversation until she had had her coffee.  She ate the cakes, too, and he watched her with comfortable satisfaction.