"I had something to say to you. I--I dare say it is hardly pension etiquette for you to go over to your room and let me say it there?"
Harmony smiled above the flannel.
"Could you call it through the door?"
"Hardly."
"Fiddlesticks!" said Dr. Gates, rising. "I'll go over, of course, but not for long. There's no fire."
With her hand on the knob, however, Harmony interfered.
"Please!" she implored. "I am not dressed and I'd rather not." She turned to Peter. "You can say it before her, can't you? She--I have told her all about things."
Peter hesitated. He felt ridiculous for the second time that night. Then:-"It was merely an idea I had. I saw a little apartment furnished--you could learn to use the stove, unless, of course, you don't like housekeeping--and food is really awfully cheap. Why, at these delicatessen places and bakeshops--"
Here he paused for breath and found Dr. Gates's quizzical glance fixed on him, and Harmony's startled eyes.
"What I am trying to say," he exploded, "is that I believe if you would marry me it would solve some of your troubles anyhow." He was talking for time now, against Harmony's incredulous face. "You'd be taking on others, of course. I'm not much and I'm as poor--well, you know. It--it was the apartment that gave me the idea--"
"And the stove!" said Harmony; and suddenly burst into joyous laughter. After a rather shocked instant Dr. Gates joined her. It was real mirth with Harmony, the first laugh of days, that curious laughter of women that is not far from tears.
Peter sat on the bed uncomfortably. He grinned sheepishly and made a last feeble attempt to stick to his guns.
"I mean it. You know I'm not in love with you or you with me, of course. But we are such a pair of waifs, and I thought we might get along. Lord knows I need some one to look after me!"
"And Emma?"
"There is no Emma. I made her up."
Harmony sobered at that.
"It is only"--she gasped a little for breath--"it is only your--your transparency, Peter." It was the first time she had called him Peter. "You know how things are with me and you want to help me, and out of your generosity you are willing to take on another burden. Oh, Peter!"
And here, Harmony being an emotional young person, the tears beat the laughter to the surface and had to be wiped away under the cover of mirth.