“And your music?”

She colored, held him closer.

“Some day,” she whispered, “I shall tell you about that.”

Late winter morning in Vienna, with the school-children hurrying home, the Alserstrasse alive with humanity—­soldiers and chimney-sweeps, housewives and beggars.  Before the hospital the crowd lines up along the curb; the head waiter from the coffee-house across comes to the doorway and looks out.  The sentry in front of the hospital ceases pacing and stands at attention.

In the street a small procession comes at the double quick—­a handful of troopers, a black van with tiny, high-barred windows, more troopers.

Inside the van a Bulgarian spy going out to death—­a swarthy little man with black eyes and short, thick hands, going out like a gentleman and a soldier to meet the God of patriots and lovers.

The sentry, who was only a soldier from Salzburg with one lung, was also a gentleman and a patriot.  He uncovered his head.