The Street of Seven Stars | Page 6

open over
his hairy chest and his feet were bare to the stone floor. But to
Harmony that lonely night he was beautiful. She tried to speak and
could not but she held out her hand in impulsive gratitude, and the
Portier in his best manner bent over and kissed it. As she reached the
curve of the stone staircase, carrying her tiny candle, the Portier was
following her with his eyes. She was very like the girl of the opera.
The clang of the door below and the rattle of the chain were comforting
to Harmony's ears. From the safety of the darkened salon she peered
out into the garden again, but no skulking figure detached itself from
the shadows, and the gate remained, for a marvel, closed.
It was when--having picked up her violin in a very passion of
loneliness, only to put it down when she found that the familiar sounds
echoed and reechoed sadly through the silent rooms--it was when she
was ready for bed that she found the money under her pillow, and a
scrawl from Scatchy, a breathless, apologetic scrawl, little Scatchett
having adored her from afar, as the plain adore the beautiful, the
mediocre the gifted:--
DEAREST HARRY [here a large blot, Scatchy being addicted to blots]:
I am honestly frightened when I think what we are doing. But, oh, my
dear, if you could know how pleased we are with ourselves you'd not
deny us this pleasure. Harry, you have it--the real thing, you know,
whatever it is--and I haven't. None of the rest of us had. And you must
stay. To go now, just when lessons would mean everything--well, you
must not think of it. We have scads to take us home, more than we need,
both of us, or at least--well, I'm lying, and you know it. But we have
enough, by being careful, and we want you to have this. It isn't much,
but it may help. Ten Kronen of it I found to-night under my bed, and it

may be yours anyhow.
"Sadie [Sadie was the Big Soprano] keeps saying awful things about
our leaving you here, and she has rather terrified me. You are so
beautiful, Harry,--although you never let us tell you so. And Sadie says
you have a soul and I haven't, and that souls are deadly things to have. I
feel to-night that in urging you to stay I am taking the burden of your
soul on me! Do be careful, Harry. If any one you do not know speaks to
you call a policeman. And be sure you get into a respectable pension.
There are queer ones.
"Sadie and I think that if you can get along on what you get from
home--you said your mother would get insurance, didn't you?--and will
keep this as a sort of fund to take you home if anything should go
wrong--. But perhaps we are needlessly worried. In any case, of course
it's a loan, and you can preserve that magnificent independence of
yours by sending it back when you get to work to make your fortune.
And if you are doubtful at all, just remember that hopeful little mother
of yours who sent you over to get what she had never been able to have
for herself, and who planned this for you from the time you were a
kiddy and she named you Harmony.
"I'm not saying good-bye. I can't.
SCATCH."
That night, while the Portier and his wife slept under their crimson
feather beds and the crystals of the chandelier in the salon shook in the
draft as if the old Austrian court still danced beneath, Harmony fought
her battle. And a battle it was. Scatchy and the Big Soprano had not
known everything. There had been no insurance on her father's life; the
little mother was penniless. A married sister would care for her, but
what then? Harmony had enough remaining of her letter of credit to
take her home, and she had--the hoard under the pillow. To go back and
teach the violin; or to stay and finish under the master, be presented, as
he had promised her, at a special concert in Vienna, with all the
prestige at home that that would mean, and its resulting possibility of
fame and fortune--which?

She decided to stay. There might be a concert or so, and she could
teach English. The Viennese were crazy about English. Some of the
stores advertised "English Spoken." That would be something to fall
back on, a clerkship during the day.
Toward dawn she discovered that she was very cold, and she went into
the Big Soprano's deserted and disordered room. The tile stove was
warm and comfortable, but on the toilet table there lay a disreputable
comb with most