On one point they differed. The score was old and soiled with
much thumbing. At one point, destroyed long since, the sentry
sang A sharp: the Portier insisted on A natural. They argued
together over three Steins of beer; the waiter, referred to,
decided for A flat. It was a serious matter to have one's teeth
set, as one may say, for a natural and then to be shocked with an
unexpected half-tone up or down! It destroyed the illusion; it
disappointed; it hurt.
The sentry stuck to the sharp--it was sung so at the Salzburg
opera. The Portier snapped his thumb at the Salzburg opera.
Things were looking serious; they walked back to the locale in
silence. The sentry coughed. Possibly there was something, after
all, in the one-lung rumor.
It was then that the Portier remembered Harmony. She would know;
perhaps she had the score.
Harmony was having a bad morning. She had slept little until
dawn, and Peter's stealthy closing of the outer door had wakened
her by its very caution. After that there had been no more sleep.
She had sat up in bed with her chin in her hands and thought.
In the pitiless dawn, with no Peter to restore her to
cheerfulness, things looked black, indeed. To what had she
fallen, that first one man and then another must propose marriage
to her to save her. To save her from what? From what people
thought, or--each from the other?
Were men so evil that they never trusted each other? McLean had
frankly distrusted Peter, had said so.
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