“Where customers wait.” She still carried her violin, and slipped back to her room to put it away. Peter had a glimpse of its poverty and its meagerness. He drew a long breath.
Monia was at the opera, and the Hungarian sat in the kitchen knitting a stocking. The reception room was warm from the day's fire, and in order. All the pins and scraps of the day had been swept up, and the portieres that made fitting-rooms of the corners were pushed back. Peter saw only a big room with empty corners, and that at a glance. His eyes were Harmony's.
He sat down awkwardly on a stiff chair, Harmony on a velvet settee. They were suddenly two strangers meeting for the first time. In the squalor of the Pension Schwarz, in the comfortable intimacies of the Street of Seven Stars, they had been easy, unconstrained. Now suddenly Peter was tongue-tied. Only one thing in him clamored for utterance, and that he sternly silenced.
“I—I could not stay there, Peter. You understood?”
“No. Of course, I understood.”
“You were not angry?”
“Why should I be angry? You came, like an angel of light, when I needed you. Only, of course,—”
“Yes?”
“I'll not say that, I think.”
“Please say it, Peter!”