He wrote home
about it, too, to the place they came from. There has never been
any reply. Then ever since Peter has written these letters. Jimmy
lives for them."
Peter! It was always Peter. Peter did this. Peter said that.
Peter thought thus. A very large part of Harmony's life was Peter
in those days.
She was thinking of him as she waited at the gate of the hospital
for Anna Gates, thinking of his shabby gray suit and unkempt
hair, of his letter that she carried to Jimmy Conroy, of his
quixotic proposal of the night before. Of the proposal, most of
all--it was so eminently characteristic of Peter, from the
conception of the plan to its execution. Harmony's thought of
Peter was very tender that morning as she stood in the arched
gateway out of reach of the wind from the Schneeberg. The
tenderness and the bright color brought by the wind made her very
beautiful. Little Marie, waiting across the Alserstrasse for a
bus, and stamping from one foot to the other to keep warm,
recognized and admired her. After all, the American women were
chic, she decided, although some of the doctors had wives of a
dowdiness--Himmel! And she could copy the Fraulein's hat for two
Kronen and a bit of ribbon she possessed.
The presentation of the bathrobe was a success. Six nurses and a
Dozent with a red beard stood about and watched Jimmy put into
it, and the Dozent, who had been engaged for five years and could
not marry because the hospital board forbade it, made a speech
for Jimmy in awe-inspiring German, ending up with a poem that was
intended to be funny, but that made the nurses cry.
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