"Good-night, Peter," whispered Harmony. "Good-night, dear."
CHAPTER XXIV
Walter Stewart had made an uncomplicated recovery, helped along
by relief at the turn events had taken. In a few days he was
going about again, weak naturally, rather handsomer than before
because a little less florid. But the week's confinement had
given him an opportunity to think over many things. Peter had set
him thinking, on the day when he had packed up the last of
Marie's small belongings and sent them down to Vienna.
Stewart, lying in bed, had watched him. "Just how much talk do
you suppose this has made, Byrne?" he asked.
"Haven't an idea. Some probably. The people in the Russian villa
saw it, you know."
Stewart's brows contracted.
"Damnation! Then the hotel has it, of course!"
"Probably."
Stewart groaned. Peter closed Marie's American trunk of which she
had been so proud, and coming over looked down at the injured
man.
"Don't you think you'd better tell the girl all about it?"
"No," doggedly.
"I know, of course, it wouldn't be easy, but--you can't get away
with it, Stewart. That's one way of looking at it. There's
another."
"What's that?"
"Starting with a clean slate. If she's the sort you want to
marry, and not a prude, she'll understand, not at first, but
after she gets used to it."
"She wouldn't understand in a thousand years."
"Then you'd better not marry her. You know, Stewart, I have an
idea that women imagine a good many pretty rotten things about
us, anyhow.
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