So far the threatened danger of a mother to Jimmy had not materialized.
Peter was puzzled, but satisfied. He still wrote letters of marvelous adventure; Jimmy still watched for them, listened breathless, treasured them under his pillow. But he spoke less of his father. The open page of his childish mind was being written over with new impressions. "Dad" was already a memory; Peter and Harmony and Anna were realities. Sometimes he called Peter "Dad." At those times Peter caught the boy to him in an agony of tenderness.
And as the little apartment revolved round Jimmy, so was this Christmas-Eve given up to him. All day he had stayed in bed for the privilege of an extra hour propped up among pillows in the salon. All day he had strung little red berries that looked like cranberries for the tree, or fastened threads to the tiny cakes that were for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g only, and sternly forbidden to eat.
A marvelous day that for Jimmy. Late in the afternoon the Portier, with a collar on, had mounted the stairs and sheepishly presented him with a pair of white mice in a wooden cage. Jimmy was thrilled. The cage was on his knees all evening, and one of the mice was clearly ill of a cake with pink icing. The Portier"s gift was a stealthy one, while his wife was having coffee with her cousin, the brushmaker. But the spirit Of Christmas does strange things. That very evening, while the Portier was roistering in a beer hall preparatory to the midnight ma.s.s, came the Portier"s wife, puffing from the stairs, and brought a puzzle book that only the initiated could open, and when one succeeded at last there was a picture of the Christ-Child within.
Young McLean came to call that evening--came to call and remained to worship. It was the first time since Mrs. Boyer that a visitor had come. McLean, interested with everything and palpably not shocked, was a comforting caller. He seemed to Harmony, who had had bad moments since the day of Mrs. Boyer"s visit, to put the hallmark of respectability on the household, to restore it to something it had lost or had never had.
She was quite unconscious of McLean"s admiration. She and Anna put Jimmy to bed. The tree candles were burned out; Peter was extinguishing the dying remnants when Harmony came back. McLean was at the piano, thrumming softly. Peter, turning round suddenly, surprised an expression on the younger man"s face that startled him.
For that one night Harmony had laid aside her mourning, and wore white, soft white, tucked in at the neck, short-sleeved, trailing. Peter had never seen her in white before.
It was Peter"s way to sit back and listen: his steady eyes were always alert, good-humored, but he talked very little. That night he was unusually silent. He sat in the shadow away from the lamp and watched the two at the piano: McLean playing a bit of this or that, the girl bending over a string of her violin. Anna came in and sat down near him.
"The boy is quite fascinated," she whispered. "Watch his eyes!"
"He is a nice boy." This from Peter, as if he argued with himself.
"As men go!" This was a challenge Peter was usually quick to accept.
That night he only smiled. "It would be a good thing for her: his people are wealthy."
Money, always money! Peter ground his teeth over his pipestem. Eminently it would be a good thing for Harmony, this nice boy in his well-made evening clothes, who spoke Harmony"s own language of music, who was almost speechless over her playing, and who looked up at her with eyes in which admiration was not unmixed with adoration.
Peter was restless. As the music went on he tiptoed out of the room and took to pacing up and down the little corridor. Each time as he pa.s.sed the door he tried not to glance in; each time he paused involuntarily.
Jealousy had her will of him that night, jealousy, when he had never acknowledged even to himself how much the girl was to him.
Jimmy was restless. Usually Harmony"s music put him to sleep; but that night he lay awake, even after Peter had closed all the doors. Peter came in and sat with him in the dark, going over now and then to cover him, or to give him a drink, or to pick up the cage of mice which Jimmy insisted on having beside him and which constantly slipped off on to the floor. After a time Peter lighted the night-light, a bit of wick on a cork floating in a saucer of lard oil, and set it on the bedside table.
Then round it he arranged Jimmy"s treasures, the deer antlers, the cage of mice, the box, the wooden sentry. The boy fell asleep. Peter sat in the room, his dead pipe in his teeth, and thought of many things.
It was very late when young McLean left. The two had played until they stopped for very weariness. Anna had yawned herself off to bed. From Jimmy"s room Peter could hear the soft hum of their voices.
"You have been awfully good to me," McLean said as he finally rose to go. "I--I want you to know that I"ll never forget this evening, never."
"It has been splendid, hasn"t it? Since little Scatchy left there has been no one for the piano. I have been lonely sometimes for some one to talk music to."
Lonely! Poor Peter!
"Then you will let me come back?"
"Will I, indeed! I--I"ll be grateful."
"How soon would be proper? I dare say to-morrow you"ll be busy--Christmas and all that."
"Do you mean you would like to come to-morrow?"
"If old Peter wouldn"t be fussed. He might think--"
"Peter always wants every one to be happy. So if you really care--"
"And I"ll not bore you?"
"Rather not!"
"How--about what time?"
"In the afternoon would be pleasant, I think. And then Jimmy can listen.
He loves music."
McLean, having found his fur-lined coat, got into it as slowly as possible. Then he missed a glove, and it must be searched for in all the dark corners of the salon until found in his pocket. Even then he hesitated, lingered, loath to break up this little world of two.
"You play wonderfully," he said.
"So do you."
"If only something comes of it! It"s curious, isn"t it, when you think of it? You and I meeting here in the center of Europe and both of us working our heads off for something that may never pan out."
There was something reminiscent about that to Harmony. It was not until after young McLean had gone that she recalled. It was almost word for word what Peter had said to her in the coffee-house the night they met.
She thought it very curious, the coincidence, and pondered it, being ignorant of the fact that it is always a matter for wonder when the man meets the woman, no matter where. Nothing is less curious, more inevitable, more amazing. "You and I," forsooth, said Peter!
"You and I," cried young McLean!
CHAPTER XVI
Quite suddenly Peter"s house, built on the sand, collapsed. The shock came on Christmas-Day, after young McLean, now frankly infatuated, had been driven home by Peter.
Peter did it after his own fashion. Harmony, with unflagging enthusiasm, was looking tired. Suggestions to this effect rolled off McLean"s back like rain off a roof. Finally Peter gathered up the fur-lined coat, the velours hat, gloves, and stick, and placed them on the piano in front of the younger man.
"I"m sorry you must go," said Peter calmly, "but, as you say, Miss Wells is tired and there is supper to be eaten. Don"t let me hurry you."
The Portier was at the door as McLean, laughing and protesting, went out. He brought a cablegram for Anna. Peter took it to her door and waited uneasily while she read it.
It was an urgent summons home; the old father was very low. He was calling for her, and a few days or week" would see the end. There were things that must be looked after. The need of her was imperative.
With the death the old man"s pension would cease and Anna was the bread-winner.
Anna held the paper out to Peter and sat down. Her nervous strength seemed to have deserted her. All at once she was a stricken, elderly woman, with hope wiped out of her face and something nearer resentment than grief in its place.
"It has come, Peter," she said dully. "I always knew it couldn"t last.
They"ve always hung about my neck, and now--"
"Do you think you must go? Isn"t there some way? If things are so bad you could hardly get there in time, and--you must think of yourself a little, Anna."
"I am not thinking of anything else. Peter, I"m an uncommonly selfish woman, but I--"
Quite without warning she burst out crying, unlovely, audible weeping that shook her narrow shoulders. Harmony heard the sound and joined them. After a look at Anna she sat down beside her and put a white arm over her shoulders. She did not try to speak. Anna"s noisy grief subsided as suddenly as it came. She patted Harmony"s hand in mute acknowledgment and dried her eyes.
"I"m not grieving, child," she said; "I"m only realizing what a selfish old maid I am. I"m crying because I"m a disappointment to myself. Harry, I"m going back to America."