And the absence from Harmony had shown him
just where he stood.
He was in love, crazy in love. Every fiber of his long body
glowed with it, ached with it. And every atom of his reason told
him what mad folly it was, this love. Even if Harmony cared--and
at the mere thought his heart pounded--what madness for her, what
idiocy for him! To ask her to accept the half of--nothing, to
give up a career to share his struggle for one, to ask her to
bury her splendid talent and her beauty under a bushel that he
might wave aloft his feeble light!
And there was no way out, no royal road to fortune by the route
he had chosen; nothing but grinding work, with a result
problematical and years ahead. There were even no legacies to
expect, he thought whimsically. Peter had known a chap once,
struggling along in gynecology, who had had a fortune left him by
a G. P., which being interpreted is Grateful Patient. Peter's
patients had a way of living, and when they did drop out, as
happened now and then, had also a way of leaving Peter an unpaid
bill in token of appreciation; Peter had even occasionally helped
to bury them, by way, he defended himself, of covering up his
mistakes.
Peter, sitting back in his corner, allowed the wonderful scenery
to slip by unnoticed. He put Harmony the Desirable out of his
mind, and took to calculating on a scrap of paper what could be
done for Harmony the Musician. He could hold out for three
months, he calculated, and still have enough to send Harmony home
and to get home himself on a slow boat.
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