That night, while the Portier and his wife slept under their
crimson feather beds and the crystals of the chandelier in the
salon shook in the draft as if the old Austrian court still
danced beneath, Harmony fought her battle. And a battle it was.
Scatchy and the Big Soprano had not known everything. There had
been no insurance on her father's life; the little mother was
penniless. A married sister would care for her, but what then?
Harmony had enough remaining of her letter of credit to take her
home, and she had--the hoard under the pillow. To go back and
teach the violin; or to stay and finish under the master, be
presented, as he had promised her, at a special concert in
Vienna, with all the prestige at home that that would mean, and
its resulting possibility of fame and fortune--which?

She decided to stay. There might be a concert or so, and she
could teach English. The Viennese were crazy about English. Some
of the stores advertised "English Spoken." That would be
something to fall back on, a clerkship during the day.

Toward dawn she discovered that she was very cold, and she went
into the Big Soprano's deserted and disordered room. The tile
stove was warm and comfortable, but on the toilet table there lay
a disreputable comb with most of the teeth gone. Harmony kissed
this unromantic object! Which reveals the fact that, genius or
not, she was only a young and rather frightened girl, and that
every atom of her ached with loneliness.

She did not sleep at all, but sat curled up on the bed with her
feet under her and thought things out. At dawn the Portier,
crawling out into the cold from under his feathers, opened the