But little Scatchett was not interested in Austrian
cigarettes with a government monopoly and gilt tips.
She was looking at the ten-kronen piece.
“Where is the other?” she asked in a whisper.
“In my powder-box.”
Little Scatchett lifted the china lid and dropped
the tiny gold-piece.
“Every little bit,” she said flippantly,
but still in a whisper, “added to what she’s
got, makes just a little bit more.”
“Have you thought of a place to leave it for
her? If Rosa finds it, it’s good-bye.
Heaven knows it was hard enough to get together, without
losing it now. I’ll have to jump overboard
and swim ashore at New York—I haven’t
even a dollar for tips.”
“New York!” said little Scatchett with
her eyes glowing. “If Henry meets me I
know he will—”
“Tut!” The Big Soprano got up cumbrously
and stood looking down. “You and your Henry!
Scatchy, child, has it occurred to your maudlin young
mind that money isn’t the only thing Harmony
is going to need? She’s going to be alone—and
this is a bad town to be alone in. And she is
not like us. You have your Henry. I’m
a beefy person who has a stomach, and I’m thankful
for it. But she is different—she’s
got the thing that you are as well without, the thing
that my lack of is sending me back to fight in a church
choir instead of grand opera.”
Little Scatchett was rather puzzled.
“Temperament?” she asked. It had
always been accepted in the little colony that Harmony
was a real musician, a star in their lesser firmament.
The Big Soprano sniffed.
“If you like,” she said. “Soul
is a better word. Only the rich ought to have
souls, Scatchy, dear.”
This was over the younger girl’s head, and anyhow
Harmony was coming down the hall.
“I thought, under her pillow,” she whispered.
“She’ll find it—”
Harmony came in, to find the Big Soprano heating a
curler in the flame of a candle.
Harmony found the little hoard under her pillow that
night when, having seen Scatch and the Big Soprano
off at the station, she had come back alone to the
apartment on the Siebensternstrasse. The trunks
were gone now. Only the concerto score still lay
on the piano, where little Scatchett, mentally on
the dock at New York with Henry’s arms about
her, had forgotten it. The candles in the great
chandelier had died in tears of paraffin that spattered
the floor beneath. One or two of the sockets were
still smoking, and the sharp odor of burning wickends
filled the room.
Harmony had come through the garden quickly.
She had had an uneasy sense of being followed, and
the garden, with its moaning trees and slamming gate
and the great dark house in the background, was a
forbidding place at best. She had rung the bell
and had stood, her back against the door, eyes and
ears strained in the darkness. She had fancied
that a figure had stopped outside the gate and stood
looking in, but the next moment the gate had swung
to and the Portier was fumbling at the lock behind
her.
