She remembered, as she hurried into her clothes; the boys’ club back in America and the spelling-matches.  Decidedly, also, Peter was an occupation, a state of mind, a career.  No musician, hoping for a career of her own, could possibly marry Peter.

That was a curious morning in the old lodge of Maria Theresa, while Stewart in the Pension Waldheim struggled back to consciousness, while Peter sat beside him and figured on an old envelope the problem of dividing among four enough money to support one, while McLean ate his heart out in wretchedness in his hotel.

Marie told her story over the early breakfast, sitting with her thin elbows on the table, her pointed chin in her palms.

“And now I am sorry,” she finished.  “It has done no good.  If it had only killed her but she was not much hurt.  I saw her rise and bend over him.”

Harmony was silent.  She had no stock of aphorisms for the situation, no worldly knowledge, only pity.

“Did Peter say he would recover?”

“Yes.  They will both recover and go to America.  And he will marry her.”

Perhaps Harmony would have been less comfortable, Marie less frank, had Marie realized that this establishment of Peter’s was not on the same basis as Stewart’s had been, or had Harmony divined her thought.

The presence of the boy was discovered by his waking.  Marie was taken in and presented.  She looked stupefied.  Certainly the Americans were a marvelous people—­to have taken into their house and their hearts this strange child—­if he were strange.  Marie’s suspicious little slum mind was not certain.

In the safety and comfort of the little apartment the Viennese expanded, cheered.  She devoted herself to the boy, telling him strange folk tales, singing snatches of songs for him.  The youngster took a liking to her at once.  It seemed to Harmony, going about her morning routine, that Marie was her solution and Peter’s.

During the afternoon she took a package to the branch post-office and mailed it by parcel-post to the Wollbadgasse.  On the way she met Mrs. Boyer face to face.  That lady looked severely ahead, and Harmony passed her with her chin well up and the eyes of a wounded animal.

McLean sent a great box of flowers that day.  She put them, for lack of a vase, in a pitcher beside Jimmy’s bed.

At dusk a telegram came to say that Stewart was better and that Peter was on his way down to Vienna.  He would arrive at eight.  Time was very short now—­seconds flashed by, minutes galloped.  Harmony stewed a chicken for supper, and creamed the breast for Jimmy.  She fixed the table, flowers in the center, the best cloth, Peter’s favorite cheese.  Six o’clock, six-thirty, seven; Marie was telling Jimmy a fairy tale and making the fairies out of rosebuds.  The studylamp was lighted, the stove glowing, Peter’s slippers were out, his old smoking-coat, his pipe.

A quarter past seven.  Peter would be near Vienna now and hungry.  If he could only eat his supper before he learned—­but that was impossible.  He would come in, as he always did, and slam the outer door, and open it again to close it gently, as he always did, and then he would look for her, going from room to room until he found her—­only to-night he would not find her.