For Harmony was the cook. It had taken many arguments and much
coaxing to make Peter see it that way. In vain Harmony argued the
extravagance of Rosa, now married to the soldier from Salzburg
with one lung, or the tendency of the delicatessen seller to
weigh short if one did not watch him. Peter was firm.
It was Dr. Gates, after all, who found the solution.
"Don't be too obstinate, Peter," she admonished him. "The child
needs occupation; she can't practice all day. You and I can keep
up the financial end well enough, reduced as it is. Let her keep
house to her heart's content. That can be her contribution to the
general fund."
And that eventually was the way it settled itself, not without
demur from Harmony, who feared her part was too small, and who
irritated Anna almost to a frenzy by cleaning the apartment from
end to end to make certain of her usefulness.
A curious little household surely, one that made the wife of the
Portier shake her head, and speak much beneath her breath with
the wife of the brushmaker about the Americans having queer ways
and not as the Austrians.
The short month had seen a change in all of them. Peter showed it
least of all, perhaps. Men feel physical discomfort less keenly
than women, and Peter had been only subconsciously wretched. He
had gained a pound or two in flesh, perhaps, and he was
unmistakably tidier. Anna Gates was growing round and rosy, and
Harmony had trimmed her a hat.
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