Under this lightness Harmony sensed the real anxiety. Ten dollars was fifty Kronen, and fifty Kronen was a great deal of money. She reached over and patted his arm.
“You'll make it up in some way. Can't you cut off some little extravagance?”
“I might cut down on my tailor bills.” He looked down at himself whimsically. “Or on ties. I'm positively reckless about ties!”
They walked on in silence. A detachment of soldiery, busy with that eternal military activity that seems to get nowhere, passed on a dog-trot. Peter looked at them critically.
“Bosnians,” he observed. “Raw, half-fed troops from Bosnia, nine out of ten of them tubercular. It's a rotten game, this military play of Europe. How's Jimmy?”
“We left him very happy with your letter.”
Peter flushed. “I expect it was pretty poor stuff,” he apologized. “I've never seen the Alps except from a train window, and as for a chamois—”
“He says his father will surely send him the horns.”
Peter groaned.
“Of course!” he said. “Why, in Heaven's name, didn't I make it an eagle? One can always buy a feather or two. But horns? He really liked the letter?”