The room was frigid and Harmony, at the window in her
nightgown, was closing the outer casement. The inner still swung
open. Olga, having put down her pitcher, shivered.
"Surely the Fraulein has not slept with open windows?"
"Always with open windows." Harmony having secured the inner
casement, was wrapping herself in the blue silk kimono with the
faded butterflies. Merely to look at it made Olga shiver afresh.
She shook her head.
"But the air of the night," she said, "it is full of mists and
illnesses! Will you have breakfast now?"
"In ten minutes, after I have bathed."
Olga having put a match to the stove went back to the kitchen,
shaking her head.
"They are strange, the Americans!" she said to latrine. "And if
to be lovely one must bathe daily, and sleep with open windows--"
Harmony had slept soundly after all. Her pique at Byrne had
passed with the reading of his note, and the sensation of his
protection and nearness had been almost physical. In the virginal
little apartment in the lodge of Maria Theresa the only masculine
presence had been that of the Portier, carrying up coals at
ninety Hellers a bucket, or of the accompanist who each alternate
day had played for the Big Soprano to practice. And they had felt
no deprivation, except for those occasional times when Scatchy
developed a reckless wish to see the interior of a dancing-hall
or one of the little theaters that opened after the opera.
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