Schonbrunn having failed them, McLean and, Peter went back to the city in the street-car, neither one saying much. Even McLean's elasticity was deserting him. His eyes, from much peering into crowds, had taken on a strained, concentrated look.
Peter was shabbier than ever beside the other man's ultrafashionable dress. He sat, bent forward, his long arms dangling between his knees, his head down. Their common trouble had drawn the two together, or had drawn McLean close to Peter, as if he recognized that there were degrees in grief and that Peter had received almost a death-wound. His old rage at Peter had died. Harmony's flight had proved the situation as no amount of protestation would have done. The thing now was to find the girl; then he and Peter would start even, and the battle to the best man.
They had the car almost to themselves. Peter had not spoken since he sat down. McLean was busy over a notebook, in which he jotted down from day to day such details of their search as might be worth keeping. Now and then he glanced at Peter as if he wished to say something, hesitated, fell to work again over the notebook. Finally he ventured.
"How's the boy?"
"Not so well to-day. I'm having a couple of men in to see him to-night. He doesn't sleep."
"Do you sleep?"
"Not much. He's on my mind, of course."
That and other things, Peter.
"Don't you think--wouldn't it be better to have a nurse. You can't go like this all day and be up all night, you know. And Marie has him most of the day." McLean, of course, had known Marie before. "The boy ought to have a nurse, I think."
"He doesn't move without my hearing him."
"That's an argument for me. Do you want to get sick?"
Peter turned a white face toward McLean, a face in which exasperation struggled with fatigue.
"Good Lord, boy," he rasped, "don't you suppose I'd have a nurse if I could afford it?"
"Would you let me help? I'd like to do something. I'm a useless cub in a sick-room, but I could do that. Who's the woman he liked in the hospital?"
"Nurse Elisabet. I don't know, Mac. There's no reason why I shouldn't let you help, I suppose. It hurts, of course, but--if he would be happier--"
"That's settled, then," said McLean. "Nurse Elisabet, if she can come. And--look here, old man. I 've been trying to say this for a week and haven't had the nerve. Let me help you out for a while. You can send it back when you get it, any time, a year or ten years. I'll not miss it."