n
and lighted a fire. She made Marie as comfortable as she could in the
salon, and then went into her room to dress. There she read the letter
again, and wondered if Peter had gone through life like this, picking up
waifs and strays and shouldering their burdens for them. Decidedly, life
with Peter was full of surprises.

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 eye