She was quite unconscious of McLean's admiration. She and Anna
put Jimmy to bed. The tree candles were burned out; Peter was
extinguishing the dying remnants when Harmony came back. McLean
was at the piano, thrumming softly. Peter, turning round
suddenly, surprised an expression on the younger man's face that
startled him.
For that one night Harmony had laid aside her mourning, and wore
white, soft white, tucked in at the neck, short-sleeved,
trailing. Peter had never seen her in white before.
It was Peter's way to sit back and listen: his steady eyes were
always alert, good-humored, but he talked very little. That night
he was unusually silent. He sat in the shadow away from the lamp
and watched the two at the piano: McLean playing a bit of this or
that, the girl bending over a string of her violin. Anna came in
and sat down near him.
"The boy is quite fascinated," she whispered. "Watch his eyes!"
"He is a nice boy." This from Peter, as if he argued with
himself.
"As men go!" This was a challenge Peter was usually quick to
accept. That night he only smiled. "It would be a good thing for
her: his people are wealthy."
Money, always money! Peter ground his teeth over his pipestem.
Eminently it would be a good thing for Harmony, this nice boy in
his well-made evening clothes, who spoke Harmony's own language
of music, who was almost speechless over her playing, and who
looked up at her with eyes in which admiration was not unmixed
with adoration.
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