The Street of Seven Stars | Page 8

plenty--but the rates! The willow
plume looked prosperous, and she had a way of making the plainest
garments appear costly. Landladies looked at the plume and the suit
and heard the soft swish of silk beneath, which marks only self-respect
in the American woman but is extravagance in Europe, and added to
their regular terms until poor Harmony's heart almost stood still. And
then at last toward evening she happened on a gloomy little pension
near the corner of the Alserstrasse, and it being dark and the plume not

showing, and the landlady missing the rustle owing to cotton in her ears
for earache, Harmony found terms that she could meet for a time.
A mean little room enough, but with a stove. The bed sagged in the
center, and the toilet table had a mirror that made one eye appear higher
than the other and twisted one's nose. But there was an odor of stewing
cabbage in the air. Also, alas, there was the odor of many previous
stewed cabbages, and of dusty carpets and stale tobacco. Harmony had
had no lunch; she turned rather faint.
She arranged to come at once, and got out into the comparative purity
of the staircase atmosphere and felt her way down. She reeled once or
twice. At the bottom of the dark stairs she stood for a moment with her
eyes closed, to the dismay of a young man who had just come in with a
cheese and some tinned fish under his arm.
He put down his packages on the stone floor and caught her arm.
"Not ill, are you?" he asked in English, and then remembering. "Bist du
krank?" He colored violently at that, recalling too late the familiarity of
the "du."
Harmony smiled faintly.
"Only tired," she said in English. "And the odor of cabbage--".
Her color had come back and she freed herself from his supporting
hand. He whistled softly. He had recognized her.
"Cabbage, of course!" he said. "The pension upstairs is full of it. I live
there, and I've eaten so much of it I could be served up with pork."
"I am going to live there. Is it as bad as that?"
He waved a hand toward the parcels on the floor.
"So bad," he observed, "that I keep body and soul together by buying
strong and odorous food at the delicatessens--odorous, because only
rugged flavors rise above the atmosphere up there. Cheese is the only

thing that really knocks out the cabbage, and once or twice even cheese
has retired defeated."
"But I don't like cheese." In sheer relief from the loneliness of the day
her spirits were rising.
"Then coffee! But not there. Coffee at the coffee-house on the corner. I
say--" He hesitated.
"Yes?"
"Would you--don't you think a cup of coffee would set you up a bit?"
"It sounds attractive,"--uncertainly.
"Coffee with whipped cream and some little cakes?"
Harmony hesitated. In the gloom of the hall she could hardly see this
brisk young American--young, she knew by his voice, tall by his
silhouette, strong by the way he had caught her. She could not see his
face, but she liked his voice.
"Do you mean--with you?"
"I'm a doctor. I am going to fill my own prescription."
That sounded reassuring. Doctors were not as other men; they were
legitimate friends in need.
"I am sure it is not proper, but--"
"Proper! Of course it is. I shall send you a bill for professional services.
Besides, won't we be formally introduced to-night by the landlady?
Come now--to the coffee-house and the Paris edition of the 'Herald'!"
But the next moment he paused and ran his hand over his chin. "I'm
pretty disreputable," he explained. "I have been in a clinic all day, and,
hang it all, I'm not shaved."
"What difference does that make?"

"My dear young lady," he explained gravely, picking up the cheese and
the tinned fish, "it makes a difference in me that I wish you to realize
before you see me in a strong light."
He rapped at the Portier's door, with the intention of leaving his parcels
there, but receiving no reply tucked them under his arm. A moment
later Harmony was in the open air, rather dazed, a bit excited, and
lovely with the color the adventure brought into her face. Her
companion walked beside her, tall, slightly stooped. She essayed a
fugitive little sideglance up at him, and meeting his eyes hastily averted
hers.
They passed a policeman, and suddenly there flashed into the girl's
mind little Scatchett's letter.
"Do be careful, Harry. If any one you do not know speaks to you, call a
policeman."
CHAPTER III
The coffee-house was warm and bright. Round its small tables were
gathered miscellaneous groups, here and there a woman, but