bass to the Portier's
tenor. Together they pored over the score, and even on their way to the
beer hall hummed together such bits as they recalled.

On one point they differed. The score was old and soiled with much
thumbing. At one point, destroyed long since, the sentry sang A sharp:
the Portier insisted on A natural. They argued together over three
Steins of beer; the waiter, referred to, decided for A flat. It was a
serious matter to have one's teeth set, as one may say, for a natural
and then to be shocked with an unexpected half-tone up or down! It
destroyed the illusion; it disappointed; it hurt.

The sentry stuck to the sharp--it was sung so at the Salzburg opera.
The Portier snapped his thumb at the Salzburg opera. Things were looking
serious; they walked back to the locale in silence. The sentry coughed.
Possibly there was something, after all, in the one-lung rumor.

It was then that the Portier remembered Harmony. She would know; perhaps
she had the score.

Harmony was having a bad morning. She had slept little until dawn, and
Peter's stealthy closing of the outer door had wakened her by its very
caution. After that there had been no more sleep. She had sat up in bed
with her chin in her hands and thought.

In the pitiless dawn, with no Peter to restore her to cheerfulness,
things looked black, indeed. To what had she fallen, that first one man
and then another must propose marriage to her to save her. To save her
from what? From what people thought, or--each from the other?

Were men so evil that they never trusted each other? McLean had frankly
distrusted Peter, had said so. Or could it be that there was something
about her, something light and frivolous? She had been frivolous. She
always laughed at Peter's foolishnesses. Perhaps that was it. That
was it. They were afraid for her. She had thrown herself on Peter's
hands--almost into his arms. She had made this situation.

She must get away, of course. If only she had some one to care for Jimmy
until Peter returned! But there was no one. The Portier's wife was fond
of Jimmy, but not skillful. And suppose he were to wake in the night and
call for her and she would not come. She cried a little over this. After
a time she pattered across the room in her bare feet and got from a
bureau drawer the money she had left. There was not half enough to take
her home. She could write; the little mother might get some for her, but
at infinite cost, infinite humi