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It was when the three men who had conducted the search had finished, when the boxes of ammunition had been gathered in the hall, and the chattering sewing-girls had gone back to work, that Harmony, on her way to her dismantled room, passed through the upper passage. She glanced down the staircase where little Georgiev had so manfully descended. "I carry always in my heart your image.
He held her off and looked at her. "I'm a fool and a weakling," he said gravely. "I love you so much that I would sacrifice you. You are very lovely, my girl, my girl! As long as I live I shall carry your image in my heart." Ah, what the little Georgiev had said on his way to the death that waited down the staircase.
Soldiers they are of the provinces mostly, and not for a lady to confront." "They are coming up!" He listened. The clank of scabbards against the stone stairs was unmistakable. The little Georgiev straightened, threw out his chest, turned to descend, faltered, came back a step or two. His small black eyes were fixed on Harmony's face. "Fraulein," he said huskily, "you are very lovely.
Peter climbed the dark staircase where Harmony had met the little Georgiev, and where he had gone down to his death climbed steadily, but without his usual elasticity. The place appalled him its gloom, its dinginess, its somber quiet.
The little Georgiev made no protest, submitted to the inevitable like a gentleman and a soldier, went out of her life, indeed, as unobtrusively as he had entered it. The carrier pigeon preened itself comfortably on the edge of the washstand. Harmony ceased her hysterical crying at last and pondered what was best to do. Monia was still breakfasting so incredibly brief are great moments.
On the morning after Harmony's flight from the garden in the Street of Seven Stars, she received a visit from Georgiev. She had put in a sleepless night, full of heart-searching. She charged herself with cowardice in running away from Peter and Jimmy when they needed her, and in going back like a thief the night before.
Frau Schwarz, on the edge of Peter's tub-shaped bed, needed no English to convey the fact that Peter was a bad lot. Not that she resorted only to the sign language. "The women were also wicked," she said. "Of a man what does one expect? But of a woman! And the younger one looked Herr Gott! She had the eyes of a saint! The little Georgiev was mad for her.
The situation dawned on the girl then, at least partially. "They are coming for you?" "It is possible. But there are many soldiers in Vienna." "And I with the pigeon Oh, it's too horrible! Herr Georgiev, stay here in this room. Lock the door. Monia will say that it is mine " "Ah no, Fraulein! It is quite hopeless. Nor is it a matter of the pigeon. It is war, Fraulein. Do not distress yourself.
It was rumored also that she wore no chemise, but instead an infinitely coquettish series of lace and nainsook garments of a fineness! Harmony played for them that day, played, perhaps, as she had not played since the day she had moved the master to tears, played to Peter as she had seen him at the window, to Jimmy, to the little Georgiev as he went down the staircase.
A gasjet dared over his head, and she recognized the short heavy figure and ardent eyes of Georgiev. She had her veil down luckily, and he gave no sign of recognition. She passed on, and she heard him a second later descending. But there had been something reminiscent after all in her figure and carriage. The little Georgiev paused, halfway down, and thought a moment. It was impossible, of course.
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