He straightened under it. He knew the old city fairly
well--enough to love it and to loathe it in one breath. He had
seen its tragedies and passed them by, or had, in his haphazard
way, thrown a greeting to them, or even a glass of native wine.
And he knew the musical temperament; the all or nothing of its
insistent demands; its heights that are higher than others, its
wretchednesses that are hell. Once in the Hofstadt Theater, where
he had bought standing room, he had seen a girl he had known in
Berlin, where he was taking clinics and where she was cooking her
own meals. She had been studying singing. In the Hofstadt Theater
she had worn a sable coat and had avoided his eyes.

Perhaps the old coffee-house had seen nothing more absurd, in its
years of coffee and billiards and Munchener beer, than Peter's
new resolution that night: this poverty adopting poverty, this
youth adopting youth, with the altruistic purpose of saving it
from itself.

And this, mind you, before Peter Byrne had heard Harmony's story
or knew her name, Rosa having called her "The Beautiful One" in
her narrative, and the delicatessen-seller being literal in his
repetition.

Back to "The Beautiful One" went Peter Byrne, and, true to his
new part of protector and guardian, squared his shoulders and
tried to look much older than he really was, and responsible. The
result was a grimness that alarmed Harmony back to the forgotten
proprieties.

"I think I must go," she said hurriedly, after a glance at his