rmed. Harmony was only grateful, and said so.
And in her gratitude she made no objection to his suggestion that he see
her safely to the old lodge and help her carry her hand-luggage and her
violin to the pension. He paid the trifling score, and followed by many
eyes in the room they went out into the crisp night together.

At the lodge the doors stood wide, and a vigorous sound of scrubbing
showed that the Portier's wife was preparing for the inspection of
possible new tenants. She was cleaning down the stairs by the light of
a candle, and the steam of the hot water on the cold marble invested her
like an aura. She stood aside to let them pass, and then went cumbrously
down the stairs to where, a fork in one hand and a pipe in the other,
the Portier was frying chops for the evening meal.

"What have I said?" she demanded from the doorway. "Your angel is here."

"So!"

"She with whom you sing, old cracked voice! Whose money you refuse,
because she reminds you of your opera singer! She is again here, and
with a man!"

"It is the way of the young and beautiful--there is always a man," said
the Portier, turning a chop.

His wife wiped her steaming hands on her apron and turned away,
exasperated.

"It is the same man whom I last night saw at the gate," she threw back
over her shoulder. "I knew it from the first; but you, great booby, can
see nothing but red lips. Bah!"

Upstairs in the salon of Maria Theresa, lighted by one candle and
freezing cold, in a stiff chair under the great chandelier Peter Byrne
sat and waited and blew on his fingers. Down below, in the Street of
Seven Stars, the arc lights swung in the wind.

CHAPTER IV

The supper that evening was even unusually bad. Frau Schwarz, much
crimped and clad in frayed black satin, presided at the head of the long
table. There were few, almost no Americans, the Americans flocking to
good food at reckless prices in more fashionable pensions; to the Frau
Gallitzenstein's, for instance, in the Kochgasse, where there was to
be had real beefsteak, where turkeys were served at Thanksgiving and
Christmas, and where, were one so minded, one might revel in whipped
cream.

The Pension Schwarz, however, was not without adornment. In the center
of the table was a large bunch of red cotton roses with wire stems and
green paper leaves, and over the side-table, with its luxury of compote
in tall glass dishes and its wealth of small hard cakes, there hung
a framed mo