PART III

THE NESTLING

I

Stefan's initial and astonishing success was not to be repeated that

winter. The great Constantine, anxious to benefit by the flood tide of

his client's popularity, had indeed called at the studio in search

of more material, but after a careful survey, had decided against

exhibiting “Tempest” and “Pursuit.” Before these pictures he had stood

wrapped in speculation for some time, pursing his lips and fingering

the over-heavy seals of his fob. Mary had watched him eagerly, deeply

curious as to the effect of the paintings. But Stefan had been careless

to the point of rudeness; he had long since lost interest in his old

work. When at last the swarthy little dealer, who was a Greek Jew, and

had the keen, perceptions of both races, had shaken his head, Mary was

not surprised, was indeed almost glad.

“Mr. Byrd,” Constantine had pronounced, in his heavy, imperfect English,

“I think we would make a bad mistake to exhibit these paintings now.

Technically they are clever, oh, very clever indeed, but they would

be unpopular; and this once,” he smiled shrewdly, “the public would

be right about it. Your Danaë was a big conception as well as fine

painting; it had inspiration--feeling--” his thick but supple hands

circled in emphasis--“we don't want to go back simply to cleverness.

When you paint me something as big again as that one I exhibit it;

otherwise,” with a shrug, “I think we spoil our market.”

After this visit Stefan, quite unperturbed, had turned the two fantasies

to the wall.

“I dare say Constantine is right about them,” he said; “they are rather

crazy things, and anyhow, I'm sick of them.”

Mary was quite relieved to have them hidden. The merman in particular

had got upon her nerves of late.

As the winter advanced, the Byrds' circle of acquaintances grew,

and many visitors dropped into the studio for tea. These showed much

interest in Stefan's new picture, a large study of Mary in the guise of

Demeter, for which she was posing seated, robed in her Berber gown. Miss

Mason in particular was delighted with the painting, which she dubbed

a “companion piece” to the Danaë. The story of Constantine's decision

against the two salon canvases got about and, amusingly enough,

heightened the Byrds' popularity. The Anglo-Saxon public is both to

take its art neat, preferring it coated with a little sentiment. It now

became accepted that Stefan's genius was due to his wife, whose love had

lighted the torch of inspiration.

“Ah, Mr. Byrd,” Miss Mason had summed up the popular view, in one of her

rare romantic moments, “the love of a good woman--!” Stefan had looked

completely vague at this remark, and Mary had burst out laughing.

“Why, Sparrow,” for so, to Miss Mason's delight, she had named her,

“don't be Tennysonian, as Stefan would say. It was Stefan's power to

feel love, and not mine to call it out, that painted the Danaë,” and she

looked at him with proud tenderness.

But the Sparrow was unconvinced. “You can't tell me. If 'twas all in

him, why didn't some other girl over in Paris call it out long ago?”

“Lots tried,” grinned Stefan, with his cheeky-boy expression.

“Ain't he terrible,” Miss Mason sighed, smiling. She adored Mary's

husband, but consistently disapproved of him.

Try as she would, Mary failed to shake her friends' estimate of her

share in the family success. It became the fashion to regard her as

a muse, and she, who had felt oppressed by Stefan's lover-like

deification, now found her friends, too, conspiring to place her on a

pedestal. Essentially simple and modest, she suffered real discomfort

from the cult of adoration that surrounded her. Coming from a British

community which she felt had underestimated her, she now found herself

made too much of. A smaller woman would have grown vain amid so much

admiration; Mary only became inwardly more humble, while outwardly

carrying her honors with laughing deprecation.

For some time after the night of Constance's reception, Stefan had shown

every evidence of contentment, but as the winter dragged into a cold

and slushy March he began to have recurrent moods of his restless

irritability. By this time Mary was moving heavily; she could no longer

keep brisk pace with him in his tramps up the Avenue, but walked more

slowly and for shorter distances. She no longer sprang swiftly from

her chair or ran to fetch him a needed tool; her every movement was

matronly. But she was so well, so entirely normal, as practically to be

unconscious of a change to which her husband was increasingly alive.

Another source of Stefan's dissatisfaction lay in the progress of his

Demeter. This picture showed the Goddess enthroned under the shade of a

tree, beyond which spread harvest fields in brilliant sunlight. At her

feet a naked boy, brown from the sun, played with a pile of red and

golden fruits. In the distance maids and youths were dancing. The

Goddess sat back drowsily, her eyelids drooping, her hands and arms

relaxed over her chair. She had called all this richness into being, and

now in the heat of the day she rested, brooding over the fecund earth.

So far, the composition was masterly, but the tones lacked the necessary

depth; they were vivid where they should have been warm, and he felt the

deficiency without yet having been able to remedy it.

“Oh, damn!” said Stefan one morning, throwing down his brush. “This

picture is architectural, absolutely. What possessed me to try such a

conception? I can only do movement. I can't be static. Earth! I don't

understand it--everything good I've done has been made of air and fire,

or water.” He turned an irritable face to Mary.

“Why did you encourage me in this?”

She looked up in frank astonishment, about to reply, but he forestalled

her.

“Oh, yes, I know I was pleased with the idea--it isn't your fault, of

course, and yet--Oh, what's the use!” He slapped down his pallette and

made for the door. “I'm off to get some air,” he called.

Mary felt hurt and uneasy. The nameless doubts of the autumn again

assailed her. What would be the end, she wondered, of her great

adventure? The distant prospect vaguely troubled her, but she turned

easily from it to the immediate future, which held a blaze of joy

sufficient to obliterate all else.

The thought of her baby was to Mary like the opening of the gates of

paradise to Christian the Pilgrim. Her heart shook with joy of it. She

passed through her days now only half conscious of the world about

her. She had, together with her joy, an extraordinary sense of physical

well-being, of the actual value of the body. For the first time she

became actively interested in her beauty. Even on her honeymoon she had

never dressed to please her husband with the care she now gave to the

donning of her loose pink and white negligées and the little boudoir

caps she had bought to wear with them. That Stefan paid her fewer

compliments, that he often failed to notice small additions to her

wardrobe, affected her not at all. “Afterwards he will be pleased;

afterwards he will love me more than ever,” she thought, but, even so,

knew that it was not for him she was now fair, but for that other. She

did not love Stefan less, but her love was to be made flesh, and it was

that incarnation she now adored. If she had been given to self-analysis

she might have asked what it boded that she had never--save for that one

moment's adoration of his genius the day he completed the Danaë--felt

for Stefan the abandonment of love she felt for his coming child. She

might have wondered, but she did not, for she felt too intensely in

these days to have much need of thought. She loved her husband--he was

a great man--they were to have a child. The sense of those three facts

made up her cosmos.

Farraday had asked her in vain on more than one occasion for another

manuscript. The last time she shook her head, with one of her rare

attempts at explanation, made less rarely to him than to her other

friends.

“No, Mr. Farraday, I can't think about imaginary children just now.

There's a spell over me--all the world waits, and I'm holding my breath.

Do you see?”

He took her hand between both his.

“Yes, my dear child, I do,” he answered, his mouth twisting into its

sad and gentle smile. He had come bringing a sheaf of spring flowers,

narcissus, and golden daffodils, which she was holding in her lap. He

thought as he said good-bye that she looked much more like Persephone

than the Demeter of Stefan's picture.

In spite of her deep-seated emotion, Mary was gay and practical

enough in these late winter days, with her small household tasks, her

occasional shopping, and her sewing. This last had begun vaguely to

irritate Stefan, so incessant was it.

“Mary, do put down that sewing,” he would exclaim; or “Don't sing the

song of the shirt any more to-day;” and she would laughingly fold her

work, only to take it up instinctively again a few minutes later.

One evening he came upon her bending over a table in their sitting room,

tracing a fine design on cambric with a pencil. Something in her pose

and figure opened a forgotten door of memory; he watched her puzzled for

a moment, then with a sudden exclamation ran upstairs, and returned with

a pad of paper and a box of water-color paints. He was visibly excited.

“Here, Mary,” he said, thrusting a brush into her hand and clearing a

place on the table. “Do something for me. Make a drawing on this pad,

anything you like, whatever first comes into your head.” His tone was

eagerly importunate. She looked up in surprise, “Why, you funny boy!

What shall I draw?”

“That's just it--I don't know. Please draw whatever you want to--it

doesn't matter how badly--just draw something.”

Mystified, but acquiescent, Mary considered for a moment, looking from

paper to brush, while Stefan watched eagerly.

“Can't I use a pencil?” she asked.

“No, a brush, please, I'll explain afterwards.”

“Very well.” She attacked the brown paint, then the red, then mixed some

green. In a few minutes the paper showed a wobbly little house with a

red roof and a smudged foreground of green grass with the suggestion of

a shade-giving tree.

“There,” she laughed, handing him the pad, “I'm afraid I shall never be

an artist,” and she looked up.

His face had dropped. He was staring at the drawing with an expression

of almost comic disappointment.

“Why, Stefan,” she laughed, rather uncomfortably, “you didn't think I

could draw, did you?”

“No, no, it isn't that, Mary. It's just--the house. I thought you

might--perhaps draw birds--or flowers.”

“Birds?--or flowers?” She was at a loss.

“It doesn't matter; just an idea.”

He crumpled up the little house, and closed the paintbox. “I'm going out

for awhile; good-bye, dearest”; and, with a kiss, he left the room.

Mary sat still, too surprised for remonstrance, and in a moment heard

the bang of the flat door.

“Birds, or flowers?” Suddenly she remembered something Stefan had told

her, on the night of their engagement, about his mother. So that was it.

Tears came to her eyes. Rather lonely, she went to bed.

Meanwhile Stefan, his head bare in the cold wind, was speeding up the

Avenue on the top of an omnibus.

“Houses are cages,” he said to himself. For some reason, he felt

hideously depressed.

* * * * *

“I called on Miss Berber last evening,” Stefan announced casually at

breakfast the next morning.

“Did you?” replied Mary, surprised, putting down her cup. “Well, did you

have a nice time?”

“It was mildly amusing,” he said, opening the newspaper. The subject

dropped.

II

Mary, who had lived all her life in a small town within sight of the

open fields, was beginning to feel the confinement of city life.

Even during her year in London she had joined other girls in weekend

bicycling excursions out of town, or tubed to Golder's Green or

Shepherd's Bush in search of country walks. Now that the late snows of

March had cleared away, she began eagerly to watch for swelling buds in

the Square, and was dismayed when Stefan told her that the spring, in

this part of America, was barely perceptible before May.

“That's the first objection I've found to your country, Stefan,” she

said.

He was scowling moodily out of the window. “The first? I see nothing but

objections.”

“Oh, come!” she smiled at him; “it hasn't been so bad, has it?”

“Better than I had expected,” he conceded. “But it will soon be April,

and I remember the leaves in the Luxembourg for so many Aprils back.”

She came and put her arm through his. “Do you want to go, dear?”

“Oh, hang it all, Mary, you don't suppose I want to leave you?” he

answered brusquely, releasing his arm. “I want my own place, that's

all.”

She had, in her quieter way, become just as homesick for England, though

sharing none of his dislike of her adopted land.

“Well, shall we both go?” she suggested.

He laughed shortly. “Don't be absurd, dearest--what would your doctor

say to such a notion? No, we've got to stick it out,” and he ruffled his

hair impatiently.

With a suppressed sigh Mary changed the subject. “By the by, I want you

to meet Dr. Hillyard; I have asked her to tea this afternoon.”

“Do you honestly mean it when you say she is not an elderly ironsides

with spectacles?”

“I honestly assure you she is young and pretty. Moreover, I forbid you

to talk like an anti-suffragist,” she laughed.

“Very well, then, I will be at home,” with an answering grin.

And so he was, and on his best behavior, when the little doctor arrived

an hour later. She had been found by the omniscient Miss Mason,

and after several visits Mary had more than endorsed the Sparrow's

enthusiastic praise.

When the slight, well-tailored little figure entered the room Stefan

found it hard to believe that this fresh-faced girl was the physician,

already a specialist in her line, to whom Mary's fate had been

entrusted. For the first time he wondered if he should not have shared

with Mary some responsibility for her arrangements. But as, with an

unwonted sense of duty, he questioned the little doctor, his doubts

vanished. Without a trace of the much hated professional manner she gave

him glimpses of wide experience, and at one point mentioned an operation

she had just performed--which he knew by hearsay as one of grave

difficulty--with the same enthusiastic pleasure another young woman

might have shown in the description of a successful bargain-hunt. She

was to Stefan a new type, and he was delighted with her. Mary, watching

him, thought with affectionate irony that had the little surgeon been

reported plain of face he would have denied himself in advance both the

duty and the pleasure of meeting her.

Over their tea, Dr. Hillyard made a suggestion.

“Where are you planning to spend the summer?” she asked.

Stefan looked surprised. “We thought we ought to be here, near you,” he

answered.

“Oh, no,” the doctor shook her head; “young couples are always

martyrizing themselves for these events. By May it will be warm, and

Mrs. Byrd isn't acclimatized to our American summers. Find a nice

place not too far from the city--say on Long Island--and I can run out

whenever necessary. You both like the country, I imagine?”

Stefan was overjoyed. He jumped up.

“Dr. Hillyard, you've saved us. We thought we had to be prisoners,

and I've been eating my heart out for France. The country will be a

compromise.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, smiling a little, “Mrs. Byrd has been longing

for England for a month or more.”

“I never said so!” and “She never told me!” exclaimed Mary and Stefan

simultaneously.

“No, you didn't,” the little doctor nodded wisely at her patient, “but I

know.”

Stefan immediately began to plan an expedition in search of the ideal

spot, as unspoiled if possible as Shadeham, but much nearer town.

All through dinner he discussed it, his spirits hugely improved, and

immediately after rang up Constance Elliot for advice.

“Hold the line,” the lady's voice replied, “while I consult.” In a

minute or two she returned.

“Mr. Farraday is dining with us, and I've asked him. He lives at Crab's

Bay, you know.”

“No, I don't,” objected Stefan.

“Well, he does,” her voice laughed back. “He was born there. He says

if you like he will come over and talk to you about it, and I, like a

self-sacrificing hostess, am willing to let him.”

“Splendid idea,” said Stefan, “ask him to come right over. Mary,” he

called, hanging up the receiver, “Constance is sending Farraday across

to advise us.”

“Oh, dear,” said she; “sometimes I feel almost overwhelmed by all the

favors we receive from our friends.”

“Fiddlesticks! They are paid by the pleasure of our society. You

don't seem to realize that we are unusually interesting and attractive

people,” laughed he with a flourish.

“Vain boy!”

“So I am, and vain of being vain. I believe in being as conceited as

possible, conceited enough to make one's conceit good.”

She smiled indulgently, knowing that, as he was talking nonsense, he

felt happy.

Farraday appeared in a few minutes, and they settled in a group round

the fire with coffee and cigarettes. Stefan offered Mary one. She shook

her head.

“I'm not smoking now, you know.”

“Did Dr. Hillyard say so?” he asked quickly.

“No, but--”

“Then don't be poky, dearest.” He lit the cigarette and held it out to

her, but she waved it back.

“Don't tease, dear,” she murmured, noticing that Farraday was watching

them. Stefan with a shrug retained the cigarette in his left hand, and

smoked it ostentatiously for some minutes, alternately with his own.

Mary, hoping he was not going to be naughty, embarked on the Long Island

topic.

“We want to be within an hour of the city,” she explained, “but in

pretty country. We want to keep house, but not to pay too much. We

should like to be near the sea. Does that sound wildly impossible?”

Farraday fingered his cigarette reflectively.

“I rather think,” he said at last, “that my neighborhood most nearly

meets the requirements. I have several hundred acres at Crab's Bay,

which belonged to my father, running from the shore halfway to the

railroad station. The village itself is growing suburban, but the

properties beyond mine are all large, and keep the country open. We are

only an hour from the city--hardly more, by automobile.”

“Are there many tin cans?” enquired Stefan, flippantly. “In Michigan I

remember them as the chief suburban decoration.”

“Yes?” said Farraday, in his invariably courteous tone, “I've never been

there. It is a long way from New York.”

“Touché,” cried Stefan, grinning. “But you would think pessimism

justified if you'd ever had my experience of rural life.”

“Was your father really American?” enquired his guest with apparent

irrelevance.

“Yes, and a minister.”

“Oh, a minister. I see,” the other replied, quietly.

“Explains it, does it?” beamed Stefan, who was nothing if not quick.

They all laughed, and the little duel was ended. Mary took up the broken

discussion.

“Is there the slightest chance of our finding anything reasonably cheap

in such a neighborhood?” she asked.

“I was just coming to that,” said Farraday. “You would not care to be

in the village, and any houses that might be for rent there would be

expensive, I'm afraid. But it so happens there is a cottage on the edge

of my property where my father's old farmer used to live. After his

death I put a little furniture in the place, and have occasionally used

it. But it is entirely unnecessary to me, and you are welcome to it

for the summer if it would suit you. The rent would be nominal. I don't

regard it commercially, it's too near my own place.”

Mary flushed. “It's most awfully good of you,” she said, “but I don't

know if we ought to accept. I'm afraid you may be making it convenient

out of kindness.”

“Mary, how British!” Stefan interrupted. He had taken lately so to

labeling her small conventionalities. “Why accuse Mr. Farraday of

altruistic insincerity? I think his description sounds delightful. Let's

go tomorrow and see the cottage.”

“If you will wait till Sunday,” Farraday smiled, “I shall be delighted

to drive you out. It might be easier for Mrs. Byrd.”

Mary again demurred on the score of giving unnecessary trouble, but

Stefan overrode her, and Farraday was obviously pleased with the plan.

It was arranged that he should call for them in his car the following

Sunday, and that they should lunch with him and his mother. When he had

left Stefan performed a little pas seul around the room.

“Tra-la-la!” he sang; “birds, Mary, trees, water. No more chimney pots,

no more walking up and down that tunnel of an avenue. See what it is to

have admiring friends.”

Mary flushed again. “Why will you spoil everything by putting it like

that?”

He stopped and patted her cheek teasingly.

“It's me they admire, Mary, the great artist, creator of the famous

Danaë,” and he skipped again, impishly.

Mary was obliged to laugh. “You exasperating creature!” she said, and

went to bed, while he ran up to the studio to pull out the folding easel

and sketching-box of his old Brittany days.

III

When on the following Sunday morning Farraday drove up to the house,

Mary was delighted to find Constance Elliot in the tonneau.

“Theodore has begun golfing again, now that the snow has gone,” she

greeted her, “so that I am a grass widow on holidays as well as all the

week.”

“Why don't you learn to play, too?” Mary asked, as they settled

themselves, Stefan sitting in front with Farraday, who was driving.

“Oh, for your English feet, my dear!” sighed Constance. “They are bigger

than mine--I dare say so, as I wear fours--but you can walk on them.

I was brought up to be vain of my extremities, and have worn two-inch

heels too long to be good for more than a mile. The links would kill me.

Besides,” she sighed again prettily, “dear Theodore is so much happier

without me.”

“How can you, Constance!” objected Mary.

“Yes, my dear,” went on the other, her beautiful little hands, which she

seldom gloved, playing with the inevitable string of jade, “the result

of modern specialization. Theodore is a darling, and in theory a

Suffragist, but he has practised the matrimonial division of labor so

long that he does not know what to do with the woman out of the home.”

“This is Queensborough Bridge,” she pointed out in a few minutes,

as they sped up a huge iron-braced incline. “It looks like eight

pepper-castors on a grid, surmounted by bayonets, but it is very

convenient.”

Mary laughed. Constance's flow of small talk always put her in good

spirits. She looked about her with interest as the car emerged from

the bridge into a strange waste land of automobile factories, new

stone-faced business buildings, and tumbledown wooden cottages. The

houses, in their disarray, lay as if cast like seeds from some titanic

hand, to fall, wither or sprout as they listed, regardless of plan. The

bridge seemed to divide a settled civilization from pioneer country, and

as they left the factories behind and emerged into fields dotted with

advertisements and wooden shacks Mary was reminded of stories she had

read of the far West, or of Australia. Stefan leant back from the front

seat, and waved at the view.

“Behold the tin can,” he cried, “emblem of American civilization!” She

saw that he was right; the fields on either side were dotted with tins,

bottles, and other husks of dinners past and gone. Gradually, however,

this stage was left behind: they began to pass through villages of

pleasant wooden houses painted white or cream, with green shutters,

or groups of red-tiled stucco dwellings surrounded by gardens in the

English manner. Soon these, too, were left, and real country appeared,

prettily wooded, in which low-roofed homesteads clung timidly to the

roadside as if in search of company.

“What dear little houses!” Mary exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Constance, “that is the Long Island farmhouse type, as good

architecturally as anything America has produced, but abandoned in favor

of Oriental bungalows, Italian palaces and French châteaux.”

“I should adore a little house like one of those.”

“Wait till you see Mr. Farraday's cottage; it's a lamb, and his home

like it, only bigger. What can one call an augmented lamb? I can only

think of sheep, which doesn't sound well.”

“I'm afraid we should say it was 'twee' in England,” Mary smiled, “which

sounds worse.”

“Yes, I'd rather my house were a sheep than a 'twee,' because I do at

least know that a sheep is useful, and I'm sure a 'twee' can't be.”

“It's not a noun, Constance, but an adjective, meaning sweet,”

translated Mary, laughing. She loved Constance's nonsense because it

was never more than that. Stefan's absurdities were always personal and,

often, not without a hidden sting.

“Well,” Constance went on, “you must be particularly 'twee' then,

to James' mother, who is a Quaker from Philadelphia, and an American

gentlewoman of the old school. His father was a New Englander, and took

his pleasures sadly, as I tell James he does; but his mother is as warm

as a dear little toast, and as pleasant--well--as the dinner bell.”

“What culinary similes, Constance!”

“My dear, from sheep to mutton is only a step, and I'm so hungry I can

think only in terms of a menu. And that,” she prattled on, “reminds me

of Mr. McEwan, whose face is the shape of a mutton chop. He is sure to

be there, for he spends half his time with James. Do you like him?”

“Yes, I do,” said Mary; “increasingly.”

“He's one of the best of souls. Have you heard his story?”

“No, has he one?”

“Indeed, yes,” replied Constance. “The poor creature, who, by the way,

adores you, is a victim of Quixotism. When he first came to New York he

married a young girl who lived in his boarding-house and was in trouble

by another man. Mac found her trying to commit suicide, and, as the

other man had disappeared, married her to keep her from it. She was

pretty, I believe, and I think he was fond of her because of her

terrible helplessness. The first baby died, luckily, but when his own

was born a year or two later the poor girl was desperately ill, and lost

most of what little mind she possessed. She developed two manias--the

common spendthrift one, and the conviction that he was trying to divorce

her. That was ten years ago. He has to keep her at sanitariums with a

companion to check her extravagance, and he pays her weekly visits to

reassure her as to the divorce. She costs him nearly all he makes, in

doctors' bills and so forth--he never spends a penny on himself, except

for a cheap trip to Scotland once a year. Yet, with it all, he is one of

the most cheerful souls alive.”

“Poor fellow!” said Mary. “What about the child?”

“He's alive, but she takes very little notice of him. He spends most

of his time with Mrs. Farraday, who is a saint. James, poor man, adores

children, and is glad to have him.”

“Why hasn't Mr. Farraday married, I wonder?” Mary murmured under the

covering purr of the car.

“Oh, what a waste,” groaned Constance. “An ideal husband thrown away!

Nobody knows, my dear. I think he was hit very hard years ago, and never

got over it. He won't say, but I tell him if I weren't ten years older,

and Theodore in evidence, I should marry him myself out of hand.”

“I like him tremendously, but I don't think I should ever have felt

attracted in that way,” said Mary, who was much too natural a woman not

to be interested in matrimonial speculations.

“That's because you are two of a kind, simple and serious,” nodded

Constance. “I could have adored him.”

They had been speeding along a country lane between tall oaks, and,

breasting a hill, suddenly came upon the sea, half landlocked by curving

bays and little promontories. Beyond these, on the horizon, the coast

of Connecticut was softly visible. Mary breathed in great draughts of

salt-tanged air.

“Oh, how good!” she exclaimed.

“Here we are,” cried Constance, as the machine swung past white posts

into a wooded drive, which curved and curved again, losing and finding

glimpses of the sea. No buds were out, but each twig bulged with nobbins

of new life; and the ground, brown still, had the swept and garnished

look which the March winds leave behind for the tempting of Spring.

Persephone had not risen, but the earth listened for her step, and the

air held the high purified quality that presages her coming.

“Lovely, lovely,” breathed Mary, her eyes and cheeks glowing.

The car stopped under a porte cochère, before a long brown house of

heavy clapboards, with shingled roof and green blinds. Farraday jumped

down and helped Mary out, and the front door opened to reveal the

shining grin of McEwan, poised above the gray head of a little lady who

advanced with outstretched hand to greet them.

“My mother--Mrs. Byrd,” Farraday introduced.

“I am very pleased to meet thee. My son has told me so much about thee

and thy husband. Thee must make thyself at home here,” beamed the little

lady, with one of the most engaging smiles Mary had ever beheld.

Stefan was introduced in his turn, and made his best continental bow. He

liked old ladies, who almost invariably adored him. McEwan greeted him

with a “Hello,” and shook hands warmly with the two women. They all

moved into the hall, Mary under the wing of Mrs. Farraday, who presently

took her upstairs to a bedroom.

“Thee must rest here before dinner,” said she, smoothing with a tiny

hand the crocheted bedspread. “Ring this bell if there is anything thee

wants. Shall I send Mr. Byrd up to thee?”

“Indeed, I'm not a bit tired,” said Mary, who had never felt better.

“All the same I would rest a little if I were thee,” Mrs. Farraday

nodded wisely. Mary was fascinated by her grammar, never having met a

Quaker before. The little lady, who barely reached her guest's shoulder,

had such an air of mingled sweetness and dignity as to make Mary feel

she must instinctively yield to her slightest wish. Obediently she lay

down, and Mrs. Farraday covered her feet.

Mary noticed her fine white skin, soft as a baby's, the thousand tiny

lines round her gentle eyes, her simple dress of brown silk with a cameo

at the neck, her little, blue-veined hands. No wonder the son of such a

woman impressed one with his extraordinary kindliness.

The little lady slipped away, and Mary, feeling unexpected pleasure in

the quiet room and the soft bed, closed her eyes gratefully.

At luncheon, or rather dinner, for it was obvious that Mrs. Farraday

kept to the old custom of Sunday meals, a silent, shock-headed boy of

about ten appeared, whom McEwan with touching pride introduced as his

son. He was dressed in a kilt and small deerskin sporran, with the

regulation heavy stockings, tweed jacket and Eton collar.

“For Sundays only--we have to be Yankees on school days, eh, Jamie?”

explained his father. The boy grinned in speechless assent, instantly

looking a duplicate of McEwan.

Mary's heart warmed to him at once, he was so shy and clumsy; but

Stefan, who detested the mere suspicion of loutishness, favored him with

an absent-minded stare. Mary, who sat on Farraday's right, had the boy

next her, with his father beyond, Stefan being between Mrs. Farraday

and Constance. The meal was served by a gray-haired negro, of manners

so perfect as to suggest the ideal southern servant, already familiar

to Mary in American fiction. As if in answer to a cue, Mrs. Farraday

explained across the table that Moses and his wife had come from

Philadelphia with her on her marriage, and had been born in the

South before the war. Mary's literary sense of fitness was completely

satisfied by this remark, which was received by Moses with a smile of

gentle pride.

“James,” said Constance, “I never get tired of your mother's house; it

is so wonderful to have not one thing out of key.”

Farraday smiled. “Bless you, she wouldn't change a footstool. It is

all just as when she married, and much of it, at that, belonged to her

mother.”

This explained what, with Mary's keen eye for interiors, had puzzled

her when they first arrived. She had expected to see more of the perfect

taste and knowledge displayed in Farraday's office, instead of which

the house, though dignified and hospitable, lacked all traces of the

connoisseur. She noticed in particular the complete absence of any color

sense. All the woodwork was varnished brown, the hangings were of dull

brown velvet or dark tapestry, the carpets toneless. Her bedroom had

been hung with white dimity, edged with crochet-work, but the furniture

was of somber cherry, and the chintz of the couch-cover brown with

yellow flowers. The library, into which she looked from where she sat,

was furnished with high glass-doored bookcases, turned walnut tables,

and stuffed chairs and couches with carved walnut rims. Down each window

the shade was lowered half way, and the light was further obscured by

lace curtains and heavy draperies of plain velvet. The pictures were

mostly family portraits, with a few landscapes of doubtful merit. There

were no flowers anywhere, except one small vase of daffodils upon the

dinner table. According to all modern canons the house should have been

hideous; but it was not. It held garnered with loving faith the memories

of another day, as a bowl of potpourri still holds the sun of long dead

summers. It fitted absolutely the quiet kindliness, the faded face and

soft brown dress of its mistress. It was keyed to her, as Constance had

understood, to the last detail.

“Yes,” said Farraday, smiling down the table at his mother, “she could

hardly bring herself to let me build my picture gallery on the end of

the house--nothing but Christian charity enabled her to yield.”

The old lady smiled back at her tall son almost like a sweetheart. “He

humors me,” she said; “he knows I'm a foolish old woman who love, my

nest as it was first prepared for me.”

“Oh, I can so well understand that,” said Mary.

“Do you mean to say, Mrs. Farraday,” interposed Stefan, “that you have

lived in this one house, without changing it, all your married life?”

She turned to him in simple surprise. “Why, of course; my husband chose

it for me.”

“Marvelous!” said Stefan, who felt that one week of those brown hangings

would drive him to suicide.

“Nix on the home-sweet-home business for yours, eh, Byrd?” threw in

McEwan with his glint of a twinkle.

“Boy,” interposed their little hostess, “why will thee always use such

shocking slang? How can I teach Jamie English with his father's example

before him?” She shook a tiny finger at the offender.

“Ma'am, if I didn't sling the lingo, begging your pardon, in my office,

they would think I was a highbrow, and then--good night Mac!”

“Don't believe him, Mother,” said Farraday. “It isn't policy, but

affection. He loves the magazine crowd, and likes to do as it does.

Besides,” he smiled, “he's a linguistic specialist.”

“You think slang is an indication of local patriotism?” asked Mary.

“Certainly,” said Farraday. “If we love a place we adopt its customs.”

“That's quite true,” Stefan agreed. “In Paris I used the worst argot of

the quarter, but I've always spoken straightforward English because the

only slang I knew in my own tongue reminded me of a place I loathed.”

“Stefan used to be dreadfully unpatriotic, Mrs. Farraday,” explained

Mary, “but he is outgrowing it.”

“Am I?” Stefan asked rather pointedly.

“Art,” said McEwan grandly, “is international; Byrd belongs to the

world.” He raised his glass of lemonade, and ostentatiously drank

Stefan's health. The others laughed at him, and the conversation veered.

Mary absorbed herself in trying to draw out the bashful Jamie, and

Stefan listened while his hostess talked on her favorite theme, that of

her son, James Farraday.

They had coffee in the picture gallery, a beautiful room which Farraday

had extended beyond the drawing-room, and furnished with perfect

examples of the best Colonial period. It was hung almost entirely with

the work of Americans, in particular landscapes by Inness, Homer Martin,

and George Munn, while over the fireplace was a fine mother and child by

Mary Cassatt. For the first time since their arrival Stefan showed real

interest, and leaving the others, wandered round the room critically

absorbing each painting.

“Well, Farraday,” he said at the end of his tour, “I must say you have

the best of judgment. I should have been mighty glad to paint one or two

of those myself.” His tone indicated that more could not be said.

Meanwhile, Mary could hardly wait for the real object of their

expedition, the little house. When at last the car was announced, Mrs.

Farraday's bonnet and cloak brought by a maid, and everybody, Jamie

included, fitted into the machine, Mary felt her heart beating with

excitement. Were they going to have a real little house for their

baby? Was it to be born out here by the sea, instead of in the dusty,

overcrowded city? She strained her eyes down the road. “It's only half

a mile,” called Farraday from the wheel, “and a mile and a half from the

station.” They swung down a hill, up again, round a bend, and there was

a grassy plateau overlooking the water, backed by a tree-clad slope.

Nestling under the trees, but facing the bay, was just such a little

house as Mary had admired along the road, low and snug, shingled on

walls and roof, painted white, with green shutters and a little columned

porch at the front door. A small barn stood near; a little hedge divided

house from lane; evidences of a flower garden showed under the windows.

“Oh, what a duck!” Mary exclaimed. “Oh, Stefan!” She could almost have

wept.

Farraday helped her down.

“Mrs. Byrd,” said he with his most kindly smile, “here is the key. Would

you like to unlock the door yourself?”

She blushed with pleasure. “Oh, yes!” she cried, and turned

instinctively to look for Stefan. He was standing at the plateau's edge,

scrutinizing the view. She called, but he did not hear. Then she took

the key and, hurrying up the little walk, entered the house alone.

A moment later Stefan, hailed stentoriously by McEwan, followed her.

She was standing in a long sitting-room, low-ceilinged and white-walled,

with window-seats, geraniums on the sills, brass andirons on the

hearth, an eight-day clock, a small old fashioned piano, an oak desk, a

chintz-covered grandmother's chair, a gate-legged table, and a braided

rag hearth-rug. Her hands were clasped, her eyes shining.

“Oh, Stefan!” she exclaimed as she heard his step. “Isn't it a darling?

Wouldn't it be simply ideal for us?”

“It seems just right, and the view is splendid. There's a good deal

that's paintable here.”

“Is there? I'm so glad. That makes it perfect. Look at the furniture,

Stefan, every bit right.”

“And the moldings,” he added. “All handcut, do you see? The whole place

is actually old. What a lark!” He appeared almost as pleased as she.

“Here come the others. Let's go upstairs, dearest,” she whispered.

There were four bedrooms, and a bathroom. The main room had a four-post

bed, and opening out of it was a smaller room, almost empty. In this

Mary stood for some minutes, measuring with her eye the height of the

window from the floor, mentally placing certain small furnishings.

“It would be ideal, simply ideal,” she repeated to herself. Stefan was

looking out of the window, again absorbed in the view. She would have

liked so well to share with him her tenderness over the little room,

but he was all unmindful of its meaning to her, and, as always, his

heedlessness made expression hard for her. She was still communing with

the future when he turned from the window.

“Come along, Mary, let's go downstairs again.”

They found the others waiting in the sitting-room, and Farraday detached

Stefan to show him a couple of old prints, while Mrs. Farraday led

Constance and Mary to an exploration of the kitchen. Chancing to look

back from the hall, Mary saw that McEwan had seated himself in the

grandmother's chair, and was holding the heavy shy Jamie at his knee,

one arm thrown round him. The boy's eyes were fixed in dumb devotion on

his father's face.

“The two poor lonely things,” she thought.

The little kitchen was spotless, tiled shoulder-high, and painted blue

above. Against one wall a row of copper saucepans grinned their fat

content, echoed by the pale shine of an opposing row of aluminum. Snowy

larder shelves showed through one little door; through another, laundry

tubs were visible. There was a modern coal stove, with a boiler. The

quarters were small, but perfect to the last detail. Mrs. Farraday's

little face fairly beamed with pride as they looked about them.

“He did it all, bought every pot and pan, arranged each detail. There

were no modern conveniences until old Cotter died--_he_ would not

let James put them in. My boy loves this cottage; he sometimes spends

several days here all alone, when he is very tired. He doesn't even like

me to send Moses down, but of course I won't hear of that.” She shook

her head with smiling finality. There were some things, her manner

suggested, that little boys could not be allowed.

“But, Mrs. Farraday,” Mary exclaimed, “how can we possibly take the

house from him if he uses it?”

“My dear,” the little lady's hand lighted on Mary's arm, “when thee

knows my James better, thee will know that his happiness lies in helping

his friends find theirs. He would be deeply disappointed if thee did not

take it,” and her hand squeezed Mary's reassuringly.

“We are too wonderfully lucky--I don't know how to express my

gratitude,” Mary answered.

“I think the good Lord sends us what we deserve, my dear, whether of

good or ill,” the little lady replied, smiling wisely.

Constance sighed contentedly. “Oh, Mrs. Farraday, you are so good for

us all. I'm a modern backslider, and hardly ever go to church, but you

always make me feel as if I had just been.”

“Backslider, Constance? 'Thy own works praise thee, and thy children

rise up and call thee blessed--thy husband also,'” quoted their hostess.

“Well, I don't know if my boys and Theodore call me blessed, but I hope

the Suffragists will one day. Goodness knows I work hard enough for

them.”

“I've believed in suffrage all my life, like all Friends,” Mrs. Farraday

answered, “but where thee has worked I have only prayed for it.”

“If prayers are heard, I am sure yours should count more than my work,

dear lady,” said Constance, affectionately pressing the other's hand.

The little Quaker's eyes were bright as she looked at her friend.

“Ah, my dear, thee is too generous to an old woman.”

Mary loved this little dialogue, “What dears all my new friends are,”

she thought; “how truly good.” All the world seemed full of love to her

in these days; her heart blossomed out to these kind people; she folded

them in the arms of her spirit. All about, in nature and in human kind,

she felt the spring burgeoning, and within herself she felt it most of

all. But of this Mary could express nothing, save through her face--she

had never looked more beautiful.

Coming into the dining room she found Farraday watching her. He seemed

tired. She put out her hand.

“May we really have it? You are sure?”

“You like it?” he smiled, holding the hand.

She flushed with the effort to express herself. “I adore it. I can't

thank you.”

“Please don't,” he answered. “You don't know what pleasure this gives

me. Come as soon as you can; everything is ready for you.”

“And about the rent?” she asked, hating to speak of money, but knowing

Stefan would forget.

“Dear Mrs. Byrd, I had so much rather lend it, but I know you wouldn't

like that. Pay me what you paid for your first home in New York.”

“Oh, but that would be absurd,” she demurred.

“Make that concession to my pride in our friendship,” he smiled back.

She saw that she could not refuse without ungraciousness. Stefan had

disappeared, but now came quickly in from the kitchen door.

“Farraday,” he called, “I've been looking at the barn; you don't use it,

I see. If we come, should you mind my having a north light cut in it?

With that it would make an ideal workshop.”

“I should be delighted,” the other answered; “it's a good idea and will

make the place more valuable. I had the barn cleaned out thinking some

one might like it for a garage.”

“We shan't run to such an extravagance yet awhile,” laughed Mary.

“A bicycle for me and the station hack for Mary,” Stefan summed up. “I

suppose there is such a thing at Crab's Bay?”

“She won't have to walk,” Farraday answered.

Started on practical issues, Mary's mind had flown to the need of a

telephone to link them to her doctor. “May we install a 'phone?” she

asked. “I never lived with one till two months ago, but already it is a

confirmed vice with me.”

“Mayn't I have it put in for you--there should be one here,” said he.

“Oh, no, please!”

“At least let me arrange for it,” he urged.

“Now, son, thee must not keep Mrs. Byrd out too late. Get her home

before sundown,” Mrs. Farraday's voice admonished. Obediently, every one

moved toward the hall. At a word from McEwan, the mute Jamie ran to

open the tonneau door. Farraday stopped to lock the kitchen entrance and

found McEwan on the little porch as he emerged, while the others were

busy settling themselves in the car. As Farraday turned the heavy front

door lock, his friend's hand fell on his shoulder.

“Ought ye to do it, James?” McEwan asked quietly.

Farraday raised his eyes, and looked steadily at the other, with his

slow smile.

“Yes, Mac, it's a good thing to do. In any case, I shouldn't have been

likely to marry, you know.” The two friends took their places in the

car.

IV

After much consideration from Mary, the Byrds decided to give up their

recently acquired flat, but to keep the old studio. She felt they should

not attempt to carry three rents through the summer, but, on the other

hand, Stefan was still working at his Demeter, using an Italian model

for the boy's figure, and could not finish it conveniently elsewhere.

Then, too, he expressed a wish for a pied-à-terre in the city, and as

Mary had very tender associations with the little studio she was glad to

think of keeping it.

Stefan was working fitfully at this time. He would have spurts of energy

followed by fits of depression and disgust with his work, during which

he would leave the house and take long rides uptown on the tops of

omnibuses. Mary could not see that these excursions in search of air

calmed his nervousness, and she concluded that the spring fever was in

his blood and that he needed a change of scene at least as much as she

did.

About this time he sold his five remaining drawings of New York to the

Pan-American Magazine, a progressive monthly. They gained considerable

attention from the art world, and were seized upon by certain groups

of radicals as a sermon on the capitalistic system. On the strength

of them, Stefan was hailed as that rarest of all beings, a politically

minded artist, and became popular in quarters from which his intolerance

had hitherto barred him.

It entertained him hugely to be proclaimed as a champion of democracy,

for he had made the drawings in impish hatred not of a class but of

American civilization as a whole.

Their bank account, in spite of much heightened living expenses,

remained substantial by reason of this new sale, but Stefan was as

indifferent as ever to its control, and Mary's sense of caution was

little diminished. Her growing comprehension of him warned her that

their position was still insecure; he remained, for all his success, an

unknown quantity as a producer. She wanted him to assume some interest

in their affairs, and suggested separate bank accounts, but he begged

off.

“Let me have a signature at the bank, so that I can cash checks for

personal expenses, but don't ask me to keep accounts, or know how much

we have,” he said. “If you find I am spending too much at any time, just

tell me, and I will stop.”

Further than this she could not get him to discuss the matter, and saw

that she must think out alone some method of bookkeeping which would

be fair to them both, and would establish a record for future use.

Ultimately she transferred her own money, less her private expenditures

during the winter, to a separate account, to be used for all her

personal expenses. The old account she put in both their names, and made

out a monthly schedule for the household, beyond which she determined

never to draw. Anything she could save from this amount she destined

for a savings bank, but over and above it she felt that her husband's

earnings were his, and that she could not in honor interfere with them.

Mary was almost painfully conscientious, and this plan cost her many

heart-searchings before it was complete.

After her baby was born she intended to continue her writing; she did

not wish ever to draw on Stefan for her private purse. So far at least,

she would live up to feminist principles.

There was much to be done before they could leave the city, and Mary had

practically no assistance from Stefan in her arrangements. She would ask

his advice about the packing or disposal of a piece of furniture, and

he would make some suggestion, often impracticable; but on any further

questioning he would run his hands through his hair, or thrust them

into his pockets, looking either vague or nervous. “Why fuss about

such things, dear?” or “Do just as you like,” or “I'm sure I haven't a

notion,” were his most frequent answers. He developed a habit of leaving

his work and following Mary restlessly from room to room as she packed

or sorted, which she found rather wearing.

On one such occasion--it was the day before they were to leave--she was

carrying a large pile of baby's clothes from her bedroom to a trunk

in the sitting-room, while Stefan stood humped before the fireplace,

smoking. As she passed him he frowned nervously.

“How heavily you tread, Mary,” he jerked out. She stood stock-still and

flushed painfully.

“I think, Stefan,” she said, with the tears of feeling which came

over-readily in these days welling to her eyes, “instead of saying that

you might come and help me to carry these things.”

He looked completely contrite. “I'm sorry, dearest, it was a silly thing

to say. Forgive me,” and he kissed her apologetically, taking the bundle

from her. He offered to help several times that afternoon, but as he

never knew where anything was to go, and fidgeted from foot to foot

while he hung about her, she was obliged at last to plead release from

his efforts.

“Stefan dear,” she said, giving him rather a harassed smile, “you

evidently find this kind of thing a bore. Why don't you run out and

leave me to get on quietly with it?”

“I know I've been rotten to you, and I thought you wanted me to help,”

he explained, in a self-exculpatory tone.

She stroked his cheek maternally. “Run along, dearest. I can get on

perfectly well alone.”

“You're a brick, Mary. I think I'll go. This kind of thing--” he flung

his arm toward the disordered room--“is too utterly unharmonious.” And

kissing her mechanically he hastened out.

That night for the first time in their marriage he did not return for

dinner, but telephoned that he was spending the evening with friends.

Mary, tired out with her packing, ate her meal alone and went to bed

immediately afterwards. His absence produced in her a dull heartache,

but she was too weary to ponder over his whereabouts.

Early next morning Mary telephoned Miss Mason. Stefan, who had come home

late, was still asleep when the Sparrow arrived, and by the time he had

had his breakfast the whole flat was in its final stage of disruption.

A few pieces of furniture were to be sent to the cottage, a few more

stored, and the studio was to be returned to its original omnibus

status. Mrs. Corriani, priestess of family emergencies, had been

summoned from the depths; the Sparrow had donned an apron, Mary a smock;

Lily, the colored maid, was packing china into a barrel, surrounded by

writhing seas of excelsior. For Stefan, the flat might as well have been

given over to the Furies. He fetched his hat.

“Mary,” he said, “I'm not painting again until we have moved. Djinns,

Afrits and Goddesses should be allowed to perform their spiritings

unseen of mortals. I shall go and sit in the Metropolitan and

contemplate Rodin's Penseur--he is so spacious.”

“Very well, dearest,” said Mary brightly. She had slept away her low

spirits. “Don't forget Mr. Farraday is sending his car in for us at

three o'clock.”

He looked nonplused. “You don't mean to say we are moving to-day?”

“Yes, you goose,” she laughed, “don't you remember?”

“I'm frightfully sorry, Mary, but I made an engagement for this evening,

to go to the theatre. I knew you would not want to come,” he added.

Mary looked blank. “But, Stefan,” she exclaimed, “everything is

arranged! We are dining with the Farradays. I told you several times we

were moving on the fourth. You make it so difficult, dear, by not taking

any interest.” Her voice trembled. She had worked and planned for their

flitting for a week past, was all eagerness to be gone, and now he, who

had been equally keen, seemed utterly indifferent.

He fidgeted uncomfortably, looking contrite yet rebellious. Mary was at

a loss. The Sparrow, however, promptly raised her crest and exhibited a

claw.

“Land sakes, Mr. Byrd,” she piped, “you are a mighty fine artist, but

that don't prevent your being a husband first these days! Men are all

alike--” she turned to Mary--“always ready to skedaddle off when there's

work to be done. Now, young man--” she pointed a mandatory finger--“you

run and telephone your friends to call the party off.” Her voice

shrilled, her beady eyes snapped; she looked exactly like one of her

namesakes, ruffled and quarreling at the edge of its nest.

Stefan burst out laughing. “All right, Miss Sparrow, smooth your

feathers. Mary, I'm a mud-headed idiot--I forgot the whole thing. Pay

no attention to my vagaries, dearest, I'll be at the door at three.” He

kissed her warmly, and went out humming, banging the door behind him.

“My father was the same, and my brothers,” the Sparrow philosophized.

“Spring-cleaning and moving took every ounce of sense out of them.” Mary

sighed. Her zest for the preparations had departed.

Presently, seeing her languor, Miss Mason insisted Mary should lie down

and leave the remaining work to her. The only resting place left was the

old studio, where their divan had been replaced. Thither Mary mounted,

and lying amidst its dusty disarray, traced in memory the months she had

spent there. It had been their first home. Here they had had their

first quarrel and their first success, and here had come to her her

annunciation. Though they were keeping the room, it would never hold the

same meaning for her again, and though she already loved their new home,

it hurt her at the last to bid their first good-bye. Perhaps it was a

trick of fatigue, but as she lay there the conviction came to her that

with to-day's change some part of the early glamour of marriage was

to go, that not even the coming of her child could bring to life the

memories this room contained. She longed for her husband, for his voice

calling her the old, dear, foolish names. She felt alone, and fearful of

the future.

“My grief,” exclaimed Miss Mason from the door an hour later. “I told

you to go to sleep 'n here you are wide awake and crying!”

Mary smiled shamefacedly.

“I'm just tired, Sparrow, that's all, and have been indulging in the

'vapors.'” She squeezed her friend's hand. “Let's have some lunch.”

“It's all ready, and Lily with her hat 'n coat on. Come right

downstairs--it's most two o'clock.”

Mary jumped up, amazed at the time she had wasted. Her spell of

depression was over, and she was her usual cheerful self when, at three

o'clock, she heard Stefan's feet bounding up the stairs for the last

time.

“Tra-la, Mary, the car is here!” he called. “Thank God we are getting

out of this city! Good-by, Miss Sparrow, don't peck me, and come and

see us at Crab's Bay. March, Lily. A riverderci, Signora Corriani. Come,

dearest.” He bustled them all out, seized two suitcases in one hand and

Mary's elbow in the other, chattered his few words of Italian to the

janitress, chaffed Miss Mason, and had them all laughing by the time

they reached the street. He seemed in the highest spirits, his moods of

the last weeks forgotten.

As the car started he kissed his fingers repeatedly to Miss Mason and

waved his hat to the inevitable assemblage of small boys.

“The country, darling!” he cried, pressing Mary's hand under the rug.

“Farewell to ugliness and squalor! How happy we are going to be!”

Mary's hand pressed his in reply.

V

It was late April. The wooded slopes behind “The Byrdsnest,” as Mary

had christened the cottage, were peppered with a pale film of green.

The lawn before the house shone with new grass. Upon it, in the early

morning, Mary watched beautiful birds of types unknown to her, searching

for nest-making material. She admired the large, handsome robins, so

serious and stately after the merry pertness of the English sort, but

her favorites were the bluebirds, and another kind that looked like

greenish canaries, of which she did not know the name. None of them,

she thought, had such melodious song as at home in England, but their

brilliant plumage was a constant delight to her.

Daffodils were springing up in the garden, crocuses were out, and the

blue scylla. On the downward slope toward the bay the brown furry heads

of ferns had begun to push stoutly from the earth. The spring was awake.

Stefan seemed thoroughly contented again. He had his north light in the

barn, but seldom worked there, being absorbed in outdoor sketching. He

was making many small studies of the trees still bare against the gleam

of water, with a dust of green upon them. He could get a number of

valuable notes here, he told Mary.

During their first two weeks in the country his restlessness had

often recurred. He had gone back and forth to the city for work on his

Demeter, and had even slept there on several occasions. But one morning

he wakened Mary by coming in from an early ramble full of joy in the

spring, and announcing that the big picture was now as good as he could

make it, and that he was done with the town. He threw back the blinds

and called to her to look at the day.

“It's vibrant, Mary; life is waking all about us.” He turned to the bed.

“You look like a beautiful white rose, cool with the dew.”

She blushed--he had forgotten lately his old habit of pretty

speech-making. He came and sat on the bed's edge, holding her hand.

“I've had my restless devil with me of late, sweetheart,” he said. “But

now I feel renewed, and happy. I shan't want to leave you any more.” He

kissed her with a gravity at which she might have wondered had she been

more thoroughly awake. His tone was that of a man who makes a promise to

himself.

Since that morning he had been consistently cheerful and carefree, more

attentive to Mary than for some time past, and pleased with all his

surroundings. She was overjoyed at the change, and for her own part

never tired of working in the house and garden, striving to make more

perfect the atmosphere of simple homeliness which Farraday had first

imparted to them. Lily was fascinated by her kitchen and little white

bedroom.

“This surely is a cute little house, yes, _ma'am_,” she would exclaim

emphatically, with a grin.

Lily was a small, chocolate-colored negress, with a neat figure, and the

ever ready smile which is God's own gift to the race. Mary, who hardly

remembered having seen a negro till she came to America, had none of the

color-prejudice which grows up in biracial communities. She found Lily

civil, cheerful, and intelligent, and felt a sincere liking for her

which the other reciprocated with a growing devotion.

Often in these days a passerby--had there been any--could have heard a

threefold chorus rising about the cottage, a spring-song as unconscious

as the birds'. From the kitchen Lily's voice rose in the endless refrain

of a hymn; Mary's clear tones traveled down from the little room beside

her own, where she was preparing a place for the expected one; and

Stefan's whistle, or his snatches of French song, resounded from woods

or barn. Youth and hope were in the house, youth was in the air and

earth.

Farraday's gardens were the pride of the neighborhood, these and the

library expressing him as the house did his mother. Several times

he sent down an armful of flowers to the Byrdsnest, and, one Sunday

morning, Mary had just finished arranging such a bunch in her vases when

she heard the chug of an automobile in the lane. She looked out to see

Constance, a veiled figure beside her, stopping a runabout at the gate.

Delighted, she hastened to the door. Constance hailed her.

“Mary, behold the charioteer! Theodore has given me this machine for

suffrage propaganda during the summer, and I achieved my driver's

license yesterday. I'm so vain I'm going to make Felicity design me a

gown with a peacock's tail that I can spread. I've brought her with me

to show off too, and because she needed air. How are you, bless you? May

we come in?”

Not waiting for an answer, she jumped down and hugged Mary, Miss

Berber following in more leisurely fashion. Mary could not help wishing

Constance had come alone, as she now felt a little self-conscious before

strangers. However, she shook hands with Miss Berber, and led them both

into the sitting-room.

“Simply delicious!” exclaimed Constance, glancing eagerly about her,

“and how divinely healthy you look--like a transcendental dairy-maid!

This place was made for you, and how you've improved it. Look, Felicity,

at her chintz, and her flowers, and her _cunning_ pair of china

shepherdesses!” She ran from one thing to another, ecstatically

appreciative.

Mary had had no chance to speak yet, and, as Felicity was absorbed in

the languid removal of a satin coat and incredible yards of apple green

veiling, Constance held the floor.

“Look at her pair of love-birds sidling along the curtain pole, as tame

as humans! Where did you find that wooden cage? And that white cotton

dress? You smell of lavender and an ironing-board! Oh, dear,” she began

again, “driving is very wearing, and I should like a cocktail, but I

must have milk. Milk, my dear Mary, is the only conceivable beverage

in this house. Have you a cow? You ought to have a cow--a brindled

cow--also a lamb; 'Mary had,' et cetera. My dear, stop me. Enthusiasm

converts me into an 'agreeable rattle,' as they used to call our

great-grandmothers.”

“Subdue yourself with this,” laughed Mary, holding out the desired glass

of milk. “Miss Berber, can I get anything for you?”

Felicity by this time was unwrapped, and had disposed herself upon a

window-seat, her back to the light.

“Wine or water, Mrs. Byrd; I do not drink milk,” she breathed, lighting

a cigarette.

“We have some Chianti; nothing else, I'm afraid,” said Mary, and a glass

of this the designer deigned to accept, together with a little yellow

cake set with currants, and served upon a pewter plate.

“I see, Mrs. Byrd,” Felicity murmured, as Constance in momentary silence

sipped her milk, “that you comprehend the first law of decoration for

woman--that her accessories must be a frame for her type. I--how should

I appear in a room like this?” She gave a faint shrug. “At best, a false

tone in a chromatic harmony. You are entirely in key.”

Her eyelids drooped; she exhaled a long breath of smoke. “Very well

thought out--unusually clever--for a layman,” she uttered, and was

still, with the suggestion of a sibyl whose oracle has ceased to speak.

Mary tried not to find her manner irritating, but could not wholly

dispel the impression that Miss Berber habitually patronized her.

She laughed pleasantly.

“I'm afraid I can't claim to have been guided by any subtle theories--I

have merely collected together the kind of things I am fond of.”

“Mary decorates with her heart, Felicity, you with your head,” said

Constance, setting down her empty tumbler.

“I'm afraid I should find the heart too erratic a guide to art.

Knowledge, Mrs. Byrd, knowledge must supplement feeling,” said Felicity,

with a gesture of finality.

“Really!” answered Mary, falling back upon her most correct English

manner. There was nothing else to say. “She is either cheeky, or a

bromide,” she thought.

“Felicity,” exclaimed Constance, “don't adopt your professional manner;

you can't take us in. You know you are an outrageous humbug.”

“Dear Connie,” replied the other with the ghost of a smile, “you are

always so amusing, and so much more wide awake in the morning than I

am.”

Conversation languished for a minute, Constance having embarked on a

cake. For some reason which she could not analyze, Mary felt in no great

hurry to call Stefan from the barn, should he be there.

Felicity rose. “May we not see your garden, Mrs. Byrd?”

“Certainly,” said Mary, and led the way to the door. Felicity slipped

out first, and wandered with her delicate step a little down the path.

“Isn't it darling!” exclaimed Constance from the porch, surveying the

flower-strewn grass, the feathery trees, and the pale gleam of the

water. Mary began to show her some recent plantings, in particular a

rose-bed which was her last addition to the garden.

“I see you have a barn,” said Felicity, flitting back to them with a

hint of animation. “Is it picturesque inside? Would it lend itself to

treatment?” She wandered toward it, and there was nothing for the others

to do but follow.

“Oh, yes,” explained Mary, “my husband has converted it into a studio.

He may be working there now--I had been meaning to call him.”

She felt a trifle uncomfortable, almost as if she had put herself in the

wrong.

“Coo-oo, Stefan,” she called as they neared the barn, Felicity still

flitting ahead. The door swung open, and there stood Stefan, pallette in

hand, screwing up his eyes in the sun.

As they lit on his approaching visitor an expression first of

astonishment, and then of something very like displeasure, crossed

his face. At sight of it, Mary's spirits subconsciously responded by a

distinct upward lift. Stefan waved his brush without shaking hands, and

then, seeing Constance, broke into a smile.

“How delightful, Mrs. Elliot! How did you come? By auto? And you drove

Miss Berber? We are honored. You are our first visitors except the

Farradays. Come and see my studio.”

They trooped into the quaint little barn, which appeared to wear its big

north light rather primly, as a girl her first low-necked gown. It was

unfurnished, save for a table and easel, several canvases, and an old

arm-chair. Felicity glanced at the sketches.

“In pastoral mood again,” she commented, with what might have been the

faintest note of sarcasm. Stefan's eyebrows twitched nervously.

“There's nothing to see in here-these are the merest sketches,” he

said abruptly. “Come along, Mrs. Elliot, I've been working since before

breakfast; let's say good-morning to the flowers.” And with his arm

linked through hers he piloted Constance back toward the lawn.

“Mr. Byrd ought never to wear tweed, do you think? It makes him look

heavy,” remarked Felicity.

Again Mary had to suppress a feeling of irritation. “I rather like it,”

she said. “It's so comfy and English.”

“Yes?” breathed Felicity vaguely, walking on.

Suddenly she appeared to have a return of animation.

She floated forward quickly for a few steps, turned with a swaying

movement, and waited for Mary with hands and feet poised.

“The grass under one's feet, Mrs. Byrd, it makes them glad. One could

almost dance!”

Again she fluttered ahead, this time overtaking Constance and Stefan,

who had halted in the middle of the lawn. She swayed before them on

tiptoe.

“Connie,” she was saying as Mary came up, “why does one not more often

dance in the open?”

Though her lids still drooped she was half smiling as she swayed.

“It may be the spring; or perhaps I have caught the pastoral mood of Mr.

Byrd's work; but I should like to dance a little. Music,” her palms were

lifted in repudiation, “is unnecessary. One has the birds.”

“Good for you, Felicity! That _will_ be fun,” Constance exclaimed

delightedly. “You don't dance half often enough, bad girl. Come along,

people, let's sit on the porch steps.”

They arranged themselves to watch, Constance and Mary on the upper

step, Stefan on the lower, his shoulders against his wife's knees, while

Felicity dexterously slipped off her sandals and stockings.

Her dress, modeled probably on that of the central figure in

Botticelli's Spring, was of white chiffon, embroidered with occasional

formal sprigs of green leaves and hyacinth-blue flowers, and kilted up

at bust and thigh. Her loosely draped sleeves hung barely to the elbow.

A line of green crossed from the shoulders under each breast, and her

hair, tightly bound, was decorated with another narrow band of green.

She looked younger than in the city--almost virginal. Stooping low, she

gathered a handful of blue scylla from the grass, Mary barely checking

an exclamation at this ravishing of her beloved bulbs. Then Felicity

lay down upon the grass; her eyes closed; she seemed asleep. They waited

silently for some minutes. Stefan began to fidget.

Suddenly a robin called. Felicity's eyes opened. They looked calm and

dewy, like a child's. She raised her head--the robin called again.

Felicity looked about her, at the flowers in her hand, the trees, the

sky. Her face broke into smiles, she rose tall, taller, feet on tiptoe,

hands reaching skyward. It was the waking of spring. Then she began to

dance.

Gone was the old languor, the dreamy, hushed steps of her former method.

Now she appeared to dart about the lawn like a swallow, following the

calls of the birds. She would stand poised to listen, her ear would

catch a twitter, and she was gone; flitting, skimming, seeming not to

touch the earth. She danced to the flowers in her hand, to the trees,

the sky, her face aglint with changing smiles, her skirts rippling like

water.

At last the blue flowers seemed to claim her solely. She held them

sunward, held them close, always swaying to the silent melody of the

spring. She kissed them, pressed them to her heart; she sank downward,

like a bird with folding wings, above a clump of scylla; her arms

encircled them, her head bent to her knees--she was still.

Constance broke the spell with prolonged applause; Mary was breathless

with admiration; Stefan rose, and after prowling restlessly for a

moment, hurried to the dancer and stooped to lift her.

As if only then conscious of her audience, Felicity looked up, and both

the other women noticed the expression that flashed across her face

before she took the proffered hand. It seemed compounded of triumph,

challenge, and something else. Mary again felt uncomfortable, and

Constance's quick brain signaled a warning.

“Surely not getting into mischief, are you, Felicity?” she mentally

questioned, and instantly began to east about for two and two to put

together.

“Wonderful!” Stefan was saying. “You surely must have wings--great,

butterfly ones--only we are too dull to see them. You were exactly like

one of my pictures come to life.” He was visibly excited.

“Husband disposed of, available lovers unattractive, asks me to drive

her out here; that's one half,” Constance's mind raced. “Wife on the

shelf, variable temperament, studio in town; and that's the other. I've

found two and two; I hope to goodness they won't make four,” she sighed

to herself anxiously.

Mary meanwhile was thanking Miss Berber. She noticed that the dancer was

perfectly cool--not a hair ruffled by her efforts. She looked as smooth

as a bird that draws in its feathers after flight. Stefan was probably

observing this, too, she thought; at any rate he was hovering about,

staring at Felicity, and running his hands through his hair. Mary

could not be sure of his expression; he seemed uneasy, as if discomfort

mingled with his pleasure.

They had had a rare and lovely entertainment, and yet no one appeared

wholly pleased except the dancer herself. It was very odd.

Constance looked at her watch. “Now, Felicity, this has all been

ideal, but we must be getting on. I 'phoned James, you know, and we are

lunching there. I was sure Mrs. Byrd wouldn't want to be bothered with

us.”

Mary demurred, with a word as to Lily's capacities, but Constance was

firm.

“No, my dear, it's all arranged. Besides, you need peace and

quiet. Felicity, where are your things? Thank you, Mr. Byrd, in the

sitting-room. Mary, you dear, I adore you and your house--I shall come

again soon. Where are my gloves?” She was all energy, helping Felicity

with her veil, settling her own hat, kissing Mary, and cranking the

runabout--an operation she would not allow Stefan to attempt for

her--with her usual effervescent efficiency. “I'd no idea it was so

late!” she exclaimed.

As Felicity was handed by Stefan into the car, she murmured something

in French, Constance noticed, to which he shook his head with a nervous

frown. As the machine started, he was left staring moodily after it down

the lane.

“Thee is earlier than I expected,” little Mrs. Farraday said to

Constance, when they arrived at the house. “I am afraid we shall have to

keep thee waiting for thy lunch for half an hour or more.”

“How glad I shall be--” Stefan turned to Mary, half irritably--“when

this baby is born, and you can be active again.”

He ate his lunch in silence, and left the table abruptly at the end. Nor

did she see him again until dinner time, when he came in tired out, his

boots whitened with road dust.

“Where have you been, dearest?” she asked. “I've been quite anxious

about you.”

“Just walking,” he answered shortly, and went up to his room. The tears

came to her eyes, but she blinked them away resolutely. She must not

mind, must not show him that she even dreamed of any connection between

his moodiness and the events of the morning.

“My love must be stronger than that, now of all times,” thought Mary.

“Afterwards--afterwards it will be all right.” She smiled confidently to

herself.

VI

It was the end of June. Mary's rosebushes were in full bloom and the

little garden was languid with the scent of them. The nesting birds

had all hatched their broods--every morning now Mary watched from her

bedroom window the careful parents carrying worms and insects into the

trees. She always looked for them the moment she got up. She would have

loved to hang far out of the window as she used to do in her old home in

England, and call good-morning to her little friends--but she was hemmed

in by the bronze wire of the windowscreens. These affected her almost

like prison bars; but Long Island's summer scourge had come, and after

a few experiences of nights sung sleepless by the persistent horn of

the enemy and made agonizing by his sting, she welcomed the screens

as deliverers. The mosquitoes apart, Mary had adored the long, warm

days--not too hot as yet on the Byrdsnest's shady eminence--and the

perpetually smiling skies, so different from the sulky heavens of

England. But she began to feel very heavy, and found it increasingly

difficult to keep cool, so that she counted the days till her

deliverance. She felt no fear of what was coming. Dr. Hillyard had

assured her that she was normal in every respect--“as completely

normal a woman as I have ever seen,” she put it--and should have no

complications. Moreover, Mary had obtained from her doctor a detailed

description of what lay before her, and had read one or two hand-books

on the subject, so that she was spared the fearful imaginings and

reliance on old wives' tales which are the results of the ancient policy

of surrounding normal functions with mystery.

Now the nurse was here, a tall, grave-eyed Canadian girl, quiet of

speech, silent in every movement. Mary had wondered if she ought to go

into Dr. Hillyard's hospital, and was infinitely relieved to have her

assurance that it was unnecessary. She wanted her baby to be born here

in the country, in the sweet place she had prepared for it, surrounded

by those she loved. Everything here was perfect for the advent--she

could ask for nothing more. True, she was seeking comparatively little

of Stefan, but she knew he was busily painting, and he was uniformly

kind and affectionate when they were together. He had not been to town

for over two months.

Mrs. Farraday was a frequent caller, and Mary had grown sincerely to

love the sweet-faced old lady, who would drive up in a low pony chaise,

bringing offerings of fruit and vegetables, or quaint preserves from

recipes unknown to Mary, which had been put up under her own direction.

Then, too, McEwan would appear at week-ends or in the evening, tramping

down the lane to hail the house in absurd varieties of the latest New

York slang, which, never failed to amuse Mary. The shy Jamie was often

with her; they were now the most intimate of friends. He would show her

primitive tools and mechanical contrivances of his own making, and she

would tell him stories of Scotland, of Prince Charlie and Flora, of

Bruce and Wallace, of Bannockburn, or of James, the poet king. Of these

she had a store, having been brought up, as many English girls happily

are, on the history and legends of the island, rather than on less

robust feminine fare.

Farraday, too, sometimes dropped in in the evening, to sit on the

porch with Stefan and Mary and talk quietly of books and the like.

Occasionally he came with McEwan or Jamie; he never came alone--though

this she had not noticed--at hours when Stefan was unlikely to be with

her.

At the suggestion of Mrs. Farraday, whose word was the social law of

the district, the most charming women in the neighborhood had called on

Mary, so that her circle of acquaintances was now quite wide. She had

had in addition several visits from Constance, and the Sparrow had spent

a week-end with them, chirping admiration of the place and encomiums of

her friend's housekeeping. But Mary liked best to be with Stefan, or

to dream alone through the hushed, sunlit hours amid her small tasks

of house and garden. Now that the nurse was here, occupying the little

bedroom opening from Mary's room, the final preparations had been made;

there was nothing left to do but wait.

Miss McCullock had been with them three days, and Stefan had become used

to her quiet presence, when late one evening certain small symptoms told

her that Mary's time had come. Stefan, entering the hall, found her

at the telephone. “Dr. Hillyard will be here in about an hour and a

quarter,” she said quietly, hanging up the receiver. “Do you know if she

has driven out before? If not, it might be well for you, Mr. Byrd, to

walk to the foot of the lane soon, and be ready to signal the turning to

her.” Miss McCullock always distrusted the nerves of husbands on these

occasions, and planned adroitly to get them out of the way.

Stefan stared at her as flabbergasted as if this emergency had not been

hourly expected. “Do you mean,” he gasped, “that Mary is ill?”

“She is not ill, Mr. Byrd, but the baby will probably be born before

morning.”

“My God!” said Stefan, suddenly blanching. He had not faced this

moment, had not thought about it, had indeed hardly thought about Mary's

motherhood at all except to deplore its toll upon her bodily beauty. He

had tried for her sake, harder than she knew, to appear sympathetic,

but in his heart the whole thing presented itself as nature's grotesque

price for the early rapture of their love. That the price might be

tragic as well as grotesque had only now come home to him. He dropped on

a chair, his memory flying back to the one other such event in which he

had had part. He saw himself thrust from his mother's door--he heard

her shrieks--felt himself fly again into the rain. His forehead was wet;

cold tingles ran to his fingertips.

The nurse's voice sounded, calm and pleasant, above him. A whiff of

brandy met his nostrils. “You'd better drink this, Mr. Byrd, and then

in a minute you might go and see Mrs. Byrd. You will feel better after

that, I think.”

He drank, then looked up, haggard.

“They'll give her plenty of chloroform, won't they?” he whispered,

catching the nurse's hand. She smiled reassuringly. “Don't worry, Mr.

Byrd, your wife is in splendid condition, and ether will certainly be

given when it becomes advisable.”

The brandy was working now and his nerves had steadied, but he found the

nurse's manner maddeningly calm. “I'll go to Mary,” he muttered, and,

brushing past her, sprang up the stairs.

What he expected to see he did not know, but his heart pounded as he

opened the bedroom door. The room was bright with lamplight, and in

spotless order. At her small writing-table sat Mary, in a loose white

dressing gown, her hair in smooth braids around her head, writing. What

was she doing? Was she leaving some last message for him, in case--? He

felt himself grow cold again. “Mary!” he exclaimed hoarsely.

She looked round, and called joyfully to him.

“Oh, darling, there you are. I'm getting everything ready. It's coming,

Stefan dearest. I'm so happy!” Her face was excited, radiant.

He ran to her with a groan of relief, and, kneeling, caught her face to

his. “Oh, Beautiful, you're all right then? She told me--I was afraid--”

he stumbled, inarticulate.

She stroked his cheek comfortingly. “Dearest, isn't it wonderful--just

think--by to-morrow our baby will be here.” She kissed him, between

happy tears and laughter.

“You are not in pain, darling? You're all right? What were you writing

when I came in?” he stammered, anxiously.

“I'm putting all the accounts straight, and paying all the bills to

date, so that Lily won't have any trouble while I'm laid up,” she

beamed.

Stefan stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, then burst into

half-hysterical laughter.

“Oh, you marvel,” he gasped, “goddess of efficiency, unshakable

Olympian! Bills! And I thought you were writing me a farewell message.”

“Silly boy,” she replied. “The bills have got to be paid; a nice muddle

you would be in if you had them to do yourself. But, dearest--” her face

grew suddenly grave and she took his hand--“listen. I _have_ written you

something--it's there--” her fingers touched an elastic bound pile of

papers. “I'm perfectly well, but if anything _should_ happen, I want my

sister to have the baby. Because I think, dear--” she stroked his hand

with a look of compassionate understanding--“that without me you would

not want it very much. Miss Mason would take it to England for you, and

you could make my sister an allowance. I've left you her address, and

all that I can think of to suggest.”

He gazed at her dumbly. Her face glowed with life and beauty, her voice

was sweet and steady. There she sat, utterly mistress of herself, in the

shadow of life and death. Was it that her imagination was transcendent,

or that she had none? He did not know, he did not understand her, but in

that moment he could have said his prayers at her feet.

The nurse entered. “Now, Mr. Byrd, I think if you could go to the end of

the lane and be looking out for the doctor? Mrs. Byrd ought to have her

bath.”

Stefan departed. In a dream he walked to the lane's end and waited

there. He was thinking of Mary, perhaps for the first time, not as a

beautiful object of love and inspiration, nor as his companion, but as a

woman. What was this calm strength, this certitude of hers? Why did her

every word and act seem to move straight forward, while his wheeled

and circled? What was it that Mary had that he had not? Of what was her

inmost fiber made? It came to him that for all their loving passages his

wife was a stranger to him, and a stranger whom he had never sought to

know. He felt ashamed.

It was about eleven o'clock when the distance was pricked by two points

of light, which, gradually expanding, proved to be the head-lamps of the

doctor's car. She stopped at his hail and he climbed beside her.

“I'm glad you came, though I think I know the turning,” said Dr.

Hillyard cheerfully.

“How long will it be, doctor?” he asked nervously.

“Feeling jumpy?” she replied. “Better let me give you a bromide, and

try for a little sleep. Don't you worry--unless we have complications it

will be over before morning.”

“Before _morning_!” he groaned. “Doctor, you won't let her suffer--you

will give her something?”

He was again reassured. “Certainly. But she has a magnificent physique,

with muscles which have never been allowed to soften through tight

clothing or lack of exercise. I expect an easy case. Here we are, I

think.” The swift little car stopped accurately at the gate, and the

doctor, shutting off her power, was out in a moment, bag in hand. The

nurse met them in the hall.

“Getting on nicely--an easy first stage,” she reported. The two women

disappeared upstairs, and Stefan was left alone to live through as best

he could the most difficult hours that fall to the lot of civilized man.

Presently Miss McCullock came down to him with a powder, and advice from

the doctor anent bed, but he would take neither the one nor the other.

“What a sot I should be,” he thought, picturing himself lying drugged to

slumber while Mary suffered.

By and by he ventured upstairs. Clouds of steam rose from the bathroom,

brilliant light was everywhere, two white-swathed figures, scarcely

recognizable, seemed to move with incredible speed amid a perfectly

ordered chaos. All Mary's pretty paraphernalia were gone; white oil

cloth covered every table, and was in its turn covered by innumerable

objects sealed in stiff paper. Amid these alien surroundings Mary sat in

her nightgown on the edge of the bed, her knees drawn up.

“Hello, dearest,” she called rather excitedly, “we're getting awfully

busy.” Then her face contracted. “Here comes another,” she said

cheerily, and gasped a little. On that Stefan fled, with a muttered

“Call me if she wants me,” to the nurse.

He wandered to the kitchen. There was a roaring fire, but the room

was empty--even Lily had found work upstairs. For an hour more Stefan

prowled--then he rang up the Farraday's house. After an interval James'

voice answered him.

“It's Byrd, Farraday,” said Stefan. “No--” quickly--“everything's

perfectly all right, perfectly, but it's going on. Could you come over?”

In fifteen minutes Farraday had dressed and was at the door, his great

car gliding up silently beside the doctor's. As he walked in Stefan saw

that his face was quite white.

“It was awfully good of you to come,” he said.

“I'm so glad you asked me. My car is a sixty horsepower, if anything

were needed.” Farraday sat down, and lighted a pipe. Stefan delivered

knowledge of the waiting machine upstairs, and then recommenced his

prowl. Back and forth through the two living rooms he walked, lighting,

smoking, or throwing away endless cigarettes. Farraday sat drawing at

his pipe. Neither spoke. One o'clock struck, and two.

Presently they heard a loud growling sound, quite un-human, but with no

quality of agony. It was merely as if some animal were making a supreme

physical effort. In about two minutes this was repeated. Farraday's pipe

dropped on the hearth, Stefan tore upstairs. “What is it?” he asked at

the open door. Something large and white moved powerfully on the bed. At

the foot bent the little doctor, her hands hidden, and at the head stood

the nurse holding a small can. A heavy, sweet odor filled the room.

“It's all right,” the doctor said rapidly. “Expulsive stage. She isn't

suffering.”

“Hello, Stefan dear,” said a small, rather high voice, which made him

jump violently. Then he saw a face on the pillow, its eyes closed, and

its nose and mouth covered with a wire cone. In a moment there came a

gasp, the sheathed form drew tense, the nurse spilled a few drops from

her can upon the cone, the growling recommenced and heightened to a

crescendo. Stefan had an impression of tremendous physical life, but the

human tone of the “Hello, Stefan,” was quite gone again.

He was backing shakily out when the doctor called to him.

“It will be born quite soon, now, Mr. Byrd,” her cheery voice promised.

Trembling with relief, he stumbled downstairs. Farraday was standing

rigid before the fireplace, his face quite expressionless.

“She's having ether--I don't think she's suffering. The doctor says

quite soon, now,” Stefan jerked out.

“I'm thankful,” said Farraday, quietly.

He stooped and picked up his fallen pipe, but it took him a long time

to refill it--particles of tobacco kept showering to the rug from his

fingers. Stefan, with a new cigarette, resumed his prowl.

Midsummer dawn was breaking. The lamplight began to pale before

the glimmer of the windows. A sleepy bird chirped, the room became

mysterious.

There had been rapid steps overhead for some moments, and now the two

men became aware that the tiger-like sounds had quite ceased. The steps

overhead quieted. Farraday put out the lamp, and the blue light flooded

the room.

A bird called loudly, and another answered it, high, repeatedly. The

notes were right over their heads; they rose higher, insistent. They

were not the notes of a bird. The nurse appeared at the door and looked

at Stefan.

“Your son is born,” she said.

Instantly to both men it was as if eerie bonds, drawn over-taut, had

snapped, releasing them again to the physical world about them. The high

mystery was over; life was human and kindly once again. Farraday dropped

into his chair and held a hand across his eyes. Stefan threw both arms

round Miss McCullock's shoulders and hugged her like a child.

“Oh, hurrah!” he cried, almost sobbing with relief. “Bless you, nurse.

Is she all right?”

“She's perfect--I've never seen finer condition. You can come up in a

few minutes, the doctor says, and see her before she goes to sleep.”

“There's nothing needed, nurse?” asked Farraday, rising.

“Nothing at all, thank you.”

“Then I'll be getting home, Byrd,” he said, offering his hand to Stefan.

“My warmest congratulations. Let me know if there's anything I can do.”

Stefan shook the proffered hand with a deeper liking than he had yet

felt for this silent man.

“I'm everlastingly grateful to you, Farraday, for helping me out, and

Mary will be, too. I don't know how I could have stood it alone.”

Stefan mounted the stairs tremblingly, to pause in amazement at the

door of Mary's room. A second transformation had, as if by magic, taken

place. The lights were out. The dawn smiled at the windows, through

which a gentle breeze ruffled the curtains. Gone were all evidences of

the night's tense drama; tables and chairs were empty; the room looked

calm and spacious.

On the bed Mary lay quiet, her form hardly outlined under the smooth

coverlet. Half fearfully he let his eyes travel to the pillow, dreading

he knew not what change. Instantly, relief overwhelmed him. Her face

was radiant, her cheeks pink--she seemed to glow with a sublimated

happiness. Only in her eyes lay any traces of the night--they were still

heavy from the anaesthetic, but they shone lovingly on him, as though

deep lights were behind them.

“Darling,” she whispered, “we've got a little boy. Did you worry? It

wasn't anything--only the most thrilling adventure that's ever happened

to me.”

He looked at her almost with awe--then, stooping, pressed his face to

the pillow beside hers.

“Were they merciful to you, Beautiful?” he whispered back. Weakly, her

hand found his head.

“Yes, darling, they were wonderful. I was never quite unconscious, yet

it wasn't a bit bad--only as if I were in the hands of some prodigious

force. They showed me the baby, too--just for a minute. I want to see

him again now--with you.”

Stefan looked up. Dr. Hillyard was in the doorway of the little room.

She nodded, and in a moment reappeared, carrying a small white bundle.

“Here he is,” she said; “he weighs eight and a half pounds. You can both

look at him for a moment, and then Mrs. Byrd must go to sleep.” She put

the bundle gently down beside Mary, whose head turned toward it.

Almost hidden in folds of flannel Stefan saw a tiny red face, its

eyes closed, two microscopic fists doubled under its chin. It conveyed

nothing to him except a sense of amazement.

“He's asleep,” whispered Mary, “but I saw his eyes--they are blue. Isn't

he pretty?” Her own eyes, soft with adoration, turned from her son to

Stefan. Then they drooped, drowsily.

“She's falling off,” said the doctor under her breath, recovering the

baby. “They'll both sleep for several hours now. Lily is getting us some

breakfast--wouldn't you like some, too, Mr. Byrd?”

Stefan felt grateful for her normal, cheery manner, and for Mary's

sudden drowsiness; they seemed to cover what he felt to be a failure in

himself. He had been unable to find one word to say about the baby.

At breakfast, served by the sleepy but beaming Lily, Stefan was dazed by

the bearing of doctor and nurse. These two women, after a night spent

in work of an intensity and scope beyond his powers to gage, appeared

as fresh and normal as if they had just risen from sleep, while he,

unshaved and rumpled, could barely control his racked nerves and heavy

head, across which doctor and nurse discussed their case with animation.

“We are all going to bed, Mr. Byrd,” said the doctor at last, noting

his exhausted aspect. “I shall get two or, three hours' nap on the sofa

before going back to town, and I hope you will take a thorough rest.”

Stefan rose rather dizzily from his unfinished meal.

“Please take my room,” he said, “I couldn't stay in the house--I'm going

out.” He found the atmosphere of alert efficiency created by these women

utterly insupportable. The house stifled him with its teeming feminine

life. In it he felt superfluous, futile. Hurrying out, he stumbled down

the slope and, stripping, dived into the water. Its cold touch robbed

him of thought; he became at once merely one of Nature's straying

children returned again to her arms.

Swimming back, he drew on his clothes, and mounting to the garden, threw

himself face down upon the grass, and fell asleep under the morning sun.

He dreamed that a drum was calling him. Its beat, muffled and irregular,

yet urged him forward. A flag waved dazzlingly before his eyes; its

folds stifled him. He tried to move, yet could not--the drum called ever

more urgently. He started awake, to find himself on his back, the sun

beating into his face, and the doctor's machine chugging down the lane.

VII

The little June baby at the Byrdsnest was very popular with the

neighborhood. During the summer it seemed to Stefan that the house was

never free of visitors who came to admire the child, guess his weight,

and exclaim at his mother's health.

As a convalescent, Mary was, according to Constance Elliot, a complete

fraud. Except for her hair, which had temporarily lost some of its

elasticity, she had never looked so radiant. She was out of bed on the

ninth day, and walking in the garden on the twelfth. The behavior of

the baby--who was a stranger to artificial food--was exemplary; he never

fretted, and cried only when he was hungry. But as his appetite troubled

him every three hours during the day, and every four at night, he

appeared to Stefan to cry incessantly, and his strenuous wail would

drive his father from house to barn, and from barn to woods. Lured from

one of these retreats by an interval of silence, Stefan was as likely as

not to find an auto at the gate and hear exclamatory voices proceeding

from the nursery, when he would fade into the woods again like a wild

thing fearful of the trap.

His old dislike of his kind reasserted itself. It is one thing to be

surrounded by pretty women proclaiming you the greatest artist of your

day, and quite another to listen while they exclaim on the perfections

of your offspring and the health of your wife. For the first type

of conversation Stefan had still an appetite; with the second he was

quickly surfeited.

Nor were women his only tormentors. The baby spent much of its time in

the garden, and every Sunday Stefan would find McEwan planted on the

lawn, prodding the infant with a huge forefinger, and exploding into

fatuous mirth whenever he deluded himself into believing he had made it

smile. Of late Stefan had begun to tolerate this man, but after three

such exhibitions decided to blacklist him permanently as an insufferable

idiot. Even Farraday lost ground in his esteem, for, though guilty of

no banalities, he had a way of silently hovering over the baby-carriage

which Stefan found mysteriously irritating. Jamie alone of their

masculine friends seemed to adopt a comprehensible attitude, for he

backed away in hasty alarm whenever the infant, in arms or carriage,

bore down upon him. On several occasions when the Farraday household

invaded the Byrdsnest Stefan and Jamie together sneaked away in search

of an environment more seemly for their sex.

“You are the only creature I know just now, Jamie,” Stefan said, “with

any sense of proportion;” and these two outcasts from notice would tramp

moodily through the woods, the boy faithfully imitating Stefan's slouch

and his despondent way of carrying his hands thrust in his pockets.

There were no more tales of Scotland for Jamie in these days, and as for

Stefan he hardly saw his wife. True, she always brightened when he came

in and mutely evinced her desire that he should remain, but she was

never his. While he talked her eye would wander to the cradle, or if

they were in another room her ear would be constantly strained to catch

a cry. In the midst of a pleasant interlude she would jump to her feet

with a murmured “Dinner time,” or “He must have some water now,” and be

gone.

Stefan did not sleep with her--as he could not endure being disturbed

at night--and she took a long nap every afternoon, so that at best the

hours available for him were few. Any visitor, he thought morosely, won

more attention from her than he did, and this was in a sense true, for

the visitors openly admired the baby--the heart of Mary's life--and he

did not.

He did not know how intensely she longed for this, how she ached to see

Stefan jab his finger at the baby as McEwan did, or watch it with the

tender smile of Farraday. She tried a thousand simple wiles to bring to

life the father in him. About to nurse the baby, she would call Stefan

to see his eager search for the comfort of her breast, looking up in

proud joy as the tiny mouth was satisfied.

At the very first, when the baby was newborn, Stefan had watched this

rite with some interest, but now he only fidgeted, exclaiming, “You are

looking wonderfully fit, Mary,” or “Greedy little beggar, isn't he?” He

never spoke of his old idea of painting her as a Madonna. If she

drew his attention to the baby's tiny hands or feet, he would glance

carelessly at them, with a “They're all right,” or “I'll like them

better when they're bigger.”

Once, as they were going to bed, she showed Stefan the baby lying on his

chest, one fist balled on either side of the pillow, the downy back of

his head shining in the candle-light. She stooped and kissed it.

“His head is too deliciously soft and warm, Stefan; do kiss it

good-night.”

His face contracted into an expression of distaste. “No,” he said, “I

can't kiss babies,” and left the room.

She felt terribly, unnecessarily hurt. It was so difficult for her to

make advances, so fatally easy for him to rebuff them.

After that, she did not draw the baby to his attention again.

Perhaps, had the child been a girl, Stefan would have felt more

sentiment about it. A girl baby, lying like a pink bud among the roses

of the garden, might have appealed to that elfin imagination which

largely took the place in him of romance--but a boy! A boy was merely in

his eyes another male, and Stefan considered the world far too full of

men already.

He sealed his attitude when the question of the child's name came up.

Mary had fallen into a habit of calling it “Little Stefan,” or “Steve”

for short, and one morning, as the older Stefan crossed the lawn to his

studio her voice floated down from the nursery in an improvised song to

her “Stefan Baby.” He bounded upstairs to her.

“Mary,” he called, “you are surely not going to call that infant by my

name?”

Mary, her lap enveloped in aprons and towels, looked up from the bath in

which her son was practising tentative kicks.

“Why, yes, dear, I thought we'd christen him after you, as he's the

eldest. Don't you think that would be nice?” She looked puzzled.

“No, I do not!” Stefan snorted emphatically. “For heaven's sake give the

child a name of his own, and let me keep mine. My God, one Stefan Byrd

is enough in the world, I should think!”

“Well, dear, what shall we call him, then?” she asked, lowering her head

over the baby to hide her hurt.

“Give him your own name if you want to. After all, he's your child.

Elliston Byrd wouldn't sound at all bad.”

“Very well,” said Mary slowly. “I think the Dad would have been pleased

by that.” In spite of herself, her voice trembled.

“Good Lord, Mary, I haven't hurt you, have I?” He looked exasperated.

She shook her head, still bending over the baby.

“It's all right, dear,” she whispered.

“You're so soft nowadays, one hardly dare speak,” he muttered. “Sorry,

dear,” and with a penitent kiss for the back of her neck he hastened

downstairs again.

The christening was held two weeks later, in the small Episcopalian

church of Crab's Bay. Stefan could see no reason for it, as neither he

nor Mary was orthodox, but when he suggested omitting the ceremony she

looked at him wide-eyed.

“Not christen him, Stefan? Oh, I don't think that would be fair,” she

said. Her manner was simple, but there was finality in her tone--it made

him feel that wherever her child was concerned she would be adamant.

The baby's godmother was, of course, Constance, and his godfathers,

equally obviously, Farraday and McEwan. Mary made the ceremony the

occasion of a small at-home, inviting the numerous friends from whom she

had received congratulations or gifts for the baby.

Miss Mason had insisted on herself baking the christening cake; Farraday

as usual supplied a sheaf of flowers. In the drawing room the little

Elliston's presents were displayed, a beautiful old cup from Farraday,

a christening robe, and a spoon, “pusher,” and fork from Constance, a

silver bowl “For Elliston's porridge from his friend Wallace McEwan,”

and a Bible in stout leather binding from Mrs. Farraday, inscribed

in her delicate, slanting hand. There was even a napkin ring from the

baby's aunt in England, who was much relieved that her too-independent

sister had married a successful artist and done her duty by the family

so promptly.

Mary was naively delighted with these offerings.

“He has got everything I should have liked him to have!” she exclaimed

as she arranged them.

Stefan, led to the font, showed all the nervousness he had omitted at

the altar, but looked very handsome in a suit of linen crash, while

Mary, in white muslin, was at her glowing best.

Constance was inevitably late, for, like most American women, she did

not carry her undeniable efficiency to the point of punctuality. At the

last moment, however, she dashed up to the church with the élan of a

triumphant general, bearing her husband captive in the tonneau, and

no less a person than Gunther, the distinguished sculptor, on the seat

beside her.

“I know you did not ask him, but he's so handsome I thought he ought to

be here,” she whispered inconsequentially to Mary after the ceremony.

Of their many acquaintances few were unrepresented except Miss Berber,

to whom Mary had felt disinclined to send an invitation. She had sounded

Stefan on the subject, but had been answered by a “Certainly not!” so

emphatic as to surprise her.

At the house Gunther, with his great height and magnificent viking head,

was unquestionably the hit of the afternoon. Holding the baby, which lay

confidently in his powerful hands, he examined its head, arms and legs

with professional interest, while every woman in the room watched him

admiringly.

“This baby, Mrs. Byrd, is the finest for his age I have ever seen, and I

have modeled many of them,” he pronounced, handing it back to Mary, who

blushed to her forehead with pleasure. “Not that I am surprised,” he

went on, staring frankly at her, “when I look at his mother. I am doing

some groups for the Pan-American exhibition next year in San Francisco.

If you could give me any time, I should very much like to use your head

and the baby's. I shall try and arrange it with you,” and he nodded as

if that settled the matter.

“Oh,” gasped Constance, “you have all the luck. Mary! Mr. Gunther has

known me for years, but have _I_ had a chance to sit for him? I

feel myself turning green, and as my gown is yellow it will be most

unbecoming!” And seizing Farraday as if for consolation, she bore him to

the dining room to find a drink.

Stefan, who was interested in Gunther, tried to get him to the barn to

see his pictures; but the sculptor would not move his eyes from Mary,

and Stefan, considerably bored, was obliged to content himself with

showing the studio to some of his prettiest neighbors.

Nor did his spirits improve when the party came to an end.

“Bon Dieu!” he cried, flinging himself fretfully into a chair. “Is our

house never to be free of chattering women? The only person here to-day

who speaks my language was Gunther, and you never gave me a chance at

him.”

Mary gasped, too astonished at this accusation to refute it.

“Ever since we came down here,” he went on irritably, “the place has

seethed with people, and overflowed with domesticity. I never hear one

word spoken except on the subject of furniture, gardening and babies!

I can't work in such an environment; it stifles all imagination. As for

you, Mary--”

He looked up at her. She was standing, stricken motionless, in the

center of the room. Her hair, straighter than of old, seemed to droop

over her ears; her form under its loose muslin dress showed soft and

blurred, its clean-cut lines gone, while her face, almost as white as

the gown, was woe-begone, the eyes dark with tears. She stood there

like a hurt child, all her courageous gallantry eclipsed by this

unkind ending to her happy day. Stefan rose to his feet and faced her,

searching for some phrase that could express his sense of deprivation.

He had the instinct to stab her into a full realization of what she was

losing in his eyes.

“Mary,” he cried almost wildly, “your wings are gone!” and rushed out of

the room.