A good friend came to stay with them, and brought unfailing cheerfulness. It was Charles Fortune, who had come down at Harding's invitation. He was as comical as ever, and made Elsa laugh with ripples of merriment while he satirised the world as he knew it, with shrewd and penetrating wit. He played the jester industriously to get that laughter from her, though sometimes she had to beg of him not to make her laugh so much because it hurt her. Then he played the piano late into the afternoon, until the twilight in the room faded into darkness except for the ruddy glow of the log fire, or after dinner in the evenings until Brand carried his wife to bed. He played Chopin best, with a magic touch, but Elsa liked him to play Bach and Schumann, and sometimes Mozart, because that brought back her girlhood in the days before the war.
So it was one evening when Brand sat on a low stool by the sofa on which Elsa lay, with her fingers playing in his hair, or resting on his shoulder, while Fortune filled the room with melody.
Once or twice Elsa spoke to Brand in a low voice. I heard some of her words as I lay on a bearskin by the fire.
"I am wonderfully happy, my dear," she said once, and Brand pulled her hand down and kissed it.
A little later she spoke again.
"Love is so much better than hate. Then why should people go to war?"
"God knows, my dear," said Brand.
It was some time after that, when Fortune was playing softly, that I heard Elsa give a big, tired sigh, and say the word "Peace!"
Charles Fortune played something of Beethoven's now, with grand crashing chords which throbbed through the
