in a
crowd, with people close, touching her, men staring at her, following
her. He had spent a frightful night in the Opera, scanning seat after
seat, not so much because he hoped to find her as because inaction was
intolerable.

And so, on that afternoon, he made his slow progress along the
Karntnerstrasse, halting now and then to scrutinize the crowd. He even
peered through the doors of shops here and there, hoping while he feared
that the girl might be seeking employment within, as she had before in
the early days of the winter.

Because of his stature and powerful physique, and perhaps, too, because
of the wretchedness in his eyes, people noticed him. There was one place
where Peter lingered, where a new building was being erected, and where
because of the narrowness of the passage the dense crowd was thinned as
it passed. He stood by choice outside a hairdresser's window, where a
brilliant light shone on each face that passed.

Inside the clerks had noticed him. Two of them standing together by the
desk spoke of him: "He is there again, the gray man!"

"Ah, so! But, yes, there is his back!"

"Poor one, it is the Fraulein Engel he waits to see, perhaps."

"More likely Le Grande, the American. He is American."

"He is Russian. Look at his size."

"But his shoes!" triumphantly. "They are American, little one."

The third girl had not spoken; she was wrapping in tissue a great golden
rose made for the hair. She placed it in a box carefully.

"I think he is of the police," she said, "or a spy. There is much talk
of war."

"Foolishness! Does a police officer sigh always? Or a spy have such
sadness in his face? And he grows thin and white."

"The rose, Fraulein."

The clerk who had wrapped up the flower held it out to the customer.
The customer, however, was not looking. She was gazing with strange
intentness at the back of a worn gray overcoat. Then with a curious
clutch at her heart she went white. Harmony, of course, Harmony come to
fetch the golden rose that was to complete Le Grande's costume.

She recovered almost at once and made an excuse to leave by another
exit.

She took a final look at the gray sleeve that was all she could see of
Peter, who had shifted a bit, and stumbled out into the crowd, walking
along with her lip trembling under her veil, and with the slow and
steady ache at her heart that she had thought she had stilled for good.

It had never occurred to Harmony that Peter loved he