The Street of Seven Stars
   only known it, her small chin up and her color high again; playing the       “Humoresque,” of all things, in the hope, of course, that he would hear it and guess from her choice the wild merriment of her mood. Peter rapped once or twice, but obtained no answer, save that the “Humoresque” rose a bit higher; and, Dr. Gates coming along the hall just then, he was forced to light a cigarette to cover his pausing.     

       Dr. Gates, however, was not suspicious. She was a smallish woman of forty or thereabout, with keen eyes behind glasses and a masculine disregard of clothes, and she paused by Byrne to let him help her into her ulster.     

       “New girl, eh?” she said, with a birdlike nod toward the door. “Very gay, isn't she, to have just finished a supper like that! Honestly, Peter, what are we going to do?”      

       “Growl and stay on, as we have for six months. There is better food, but not for our terms.”      

       Dr. Gates sighed, and picking a soft felt hat from the table put it on with a single jerk down over her hair.     

       “Oh, darn money, anyhow!” she said. “Come and walk to the corner with me. I have a lecture.”      

       Peter promised to follow in a moment, and hurried back to his room. There, on a page from one of his lecture notebooks, he wrote—     

       “Are you ill? Or have I done anything?”      

       “P. B.”      

       This with great care he was pushing under Harmony's door when the little Bulgarian came along and stopped, smiling. He said nothing, nor did Peter, who rose and dusted his knees. The little Bulgarian spoke no English and little German. Between them was the wall of language. But higher than this barrier was the understanding of their common sex. He held out his hand, still smiling, and Peter, grinning sheepishly, took it. Then he followed the woman doctor down the stairs.     

       To say that Peter Byrne was already in love with Harmony would be absurd. She attracted him, as any beautiful and helpless girl attracts an unattracted man. He was much more concerned, now that he feared he had offended her, than he would have been without this fillip to his interest. But even his concern 
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