That night Stefan was at his best. Delighted with all his surroundings,

he let his faunlike spirits have full play, and his keen, brown face and

green-gold eyes flashed apparently simultaneously from every corner

of the room. Gunther did not dance; Farraday's method was correct but

quiet, and none of the men could rival Stefan in light-footed grace.

Both he and Mary were ignorant of any of the new dances, but Constance

had given Mary a lesson earlier in the day, and Stefan grasped the

general scheme with his usual lightning rapidity. Then he began to

embroider, inventing steps of his own which, in turn, Mary was quick

to catch. No couple on the floor compared with them in distinction

and grace, and they danced, to the chagrin of the other men and girls,

almost entirely together.

Whatever disappointment this caused, however, was not shared by their

hostess and McEwan. After enduring several rounds of Mac's punishing

dancing, Constance was thankful to sit out with him and watch the

others. She was glad to be silent after her strenuous efforts as a

hostess, and McEwan was apparently too filled with satisfaction to have

room left for speech. His red face beamed, his big teeth glistened,

pleasure radiated from him.

“Aye, aye,” he chuckled, nodding his ponderous head, and again “Aye,

aye,” in tones of fat content, as the two Byrds swung lightly by.

“Aye, aye, Mr. McEwan,” smiled Constance, tapping his knee with her fan.

“All this was your idea, and you are a good fellow. From this moment, I

intend to call you by your first name.”

“Aye, aye,” beamed McEwan, more broadly than before, extending a huge

hand; “that'll be grand.”

The dance was the climax of the week. The next day was their last,

leave-takings were in the air, and toward afternoon a bustle of packing.

Stefan was in a mood of slight reaction from his excitement of the night

before. While Mary packed for them both he prowled uncertainly about the

house, and, finding the men in the library, whiled away the time in an

utterly impossible attempt to quarrel with McEwan on some theory of art.

They all left for the train with lamentations, and arrived in New York

the next morning in a cheerless storm of wet snow.

But by this time Mary's regret at the ending of their holiday was lost

in joy at the prospect of seeing her baby. She urged the stiff and tired

Stefan to speed, and, by cutting short their farewells and jumping for a

street car, managed to make the next train out for Crab's Bay. She could

hardly sit still in the decrepit cab, and it had barely stopped at their

gate before she was out and tearing up the stairs.

Stefan paid the cab, carried in their suitcase, and wandered, cold

and lonely, to the sitting room. For him their home-coming offered no

alleviating thrill. Already, he felt, Mary's bright wings were folding

again above her nest.

VIII

Refreshed, in spite of his natural reaction of spirits, by the week's

holiday, Stefan turned to his work with greater content in it than he

had felt for some time. His content was, to his own surprise, rather

increased than lessened by the discovery that Felicity Berber had left

New York for the South. Arriving at his studio the day after their

return from Vermont, he found one of her characteristic notes, in

crimson ink this time, upon snowy paper.

“Stefan,” it read, “the winter has found his strength at last in storms.

But our friendship dallies with the various moods of spring. It leaves

me restless. The snow chills without calming me. My designing is beauty

wasted on the blindness of the city's overfed. A need of warmth and

stillness is upon me--the south claims me. The time of my return is

unrevealed as yet. Felicity.”

Stefan read this epistle twice, the first time with irritation, the

second with relief. “Affected creature,” he said to himself, “it's a

good job she's gone. I've frittered away too much time with her as it

is.”

At home that evening he told Mary. His devotion during their holiday

had already obscured her memory of the autumn's unhappiness, and his

carefree manner of imparting his tidings laid any ghost of doubt that

still remained with her. Secure once more in his love, she was as

uncloudedly happy as she had ever been.

In his newly acquired mood of sanity, Stefan faced the fact that he had

less work to show for the last nine months than in any similar period of

his career, and that he was still living on his last winter's success.

What had these months brought him? An expensive and inconclusive

flirtation at the cost of his wife's happiness, a few disturbing

memories, and two unfinished pictures. Out of patience with himself,

he plunged into his work. In two weeks of concentrated effort he had

finished the Nixie, and had arranged with Constantine to exhibit it

and the Demeter immediately. This last the dealer appeared to admire,

pronouncing it a fine canvas, though inferior to the Danaë. About the

Nixie he seemed in two minds.

“We shall have a newspaper story with that one, Mr. Byrd, the lady being

so well known, and the subject so dramatic, but if you ask me will it

sell--” he shrugged his fat shoulders--“that's another thing.”

Stefan stared at him. “I could sell that picture in France five times

over.”

Constantine waved his pudgy fingers.

“Ah, France! V'là c' qui est autre chose, 's pas? But if we fail in New

York for this one I think we try Chicago.”

The reception of the pictures proved Constantine a shrewd prophet.

The academic Demeter was applauded by the average critic as a piece of

decorative work in the grand manner, and a fit rebuke to all Cubists,

Futurists, and other anarchists. It was bought by a committee from a

western agricultural college, which had come east with a check from the

state's leading politician to purchase suitable mural enrichments for

the college's new building. Constantine persuaded these worthies that

one suitable painting by a distinguished artist would enrich their

institution more than the half dozen canvases “to fit the auditorium”

which they had been inclined to order. Moreover, he mulcted them of two

thousand dollars for Demeter, which, in his private estimation, was more

than she was worth. He achieved the sale more readily because of the

newspaper controversy aroused by the Nixie. Was this picture a satire

on life, or on the celebrated Miss Berber? Was it great art, or merely

melodrama? Were Byrd's effects of river-light obtained in the old

impressionist manner, or by a subtler method of his own? Was he a master

or a poseur?

These and other questions brought his name into fresh prominence,

but failed to sell their object. Just, however, as Constantine was

considering a journey for the Nixie to Chicago, a purchaser appeared

in the shape of a certain Mr. Einsbacher. Stefan happened to be in the

gallery when this gentleman, piloted by Constantine himself, came in,

and recognized him as the elderly satyr of the pouched eyes who had been

so attentive to Felicity on the night of Constance's reception. When,

later, the dealer informed him that this individual had bought the Nixie

for three thousand, Stefan made no attempt to conceal his disgust.

“Thousand devils, Constantine, I don't paint for swine of that type,”

said he, scowling.

The dealer's hands wagged. “His check is good,” he replied, “and who

knows, he may die soon and leave the picture to the Metropolitan.”

But Stefan was not to be mollified, and went home that afternoon in a

state of high rebellion against all commercialism. Mary tried to console

him by pointing out that even with the dealer's commission deducted,

he had made more than a year's income from the two sales, and could now

work again free from all anxiety.

“What's the good,” he exclaimed, “of producing beauty for sheep to bleat

and monkeys to leer at! What's the good of producing it in America at

all? Who wants, or understands it!”

“Oh, Stefan, heaps of people. Doesn't Mr. Farraday understand art, for

instance?”

“Farraday,” he snorted, “yes!--landscapes and women with children. What

does he know of the radiance of beauty, its mystery, the hot soul of

it? Oh, Mary,” he flung himself down beside her, and clutched her hand

eagerly, “don't be wise; don't be sensible, darling. It's March, spring

is beginning in Europe. It's a year and a half since I became an exile.

Let's go, beloved. You say yourself we have plenty of money; let's take

ship for the land where beauty is understood, where it is put first,

above all things. Let's go back to France, Mary!”

His face was fired with eagerness; he almost trembled with the passion

to be gone. Mary flushed, and then grew pale with apprehension. “Do you

mean break up our home, Stefan, for good?”

“Yes, darling. You know I've counted the days of bondage. We couldn't

travel last spring, and since then we've been too poor. What have these

last months brought us? Only disharmony. We are free now, there is

nothing to hold us back. We can leave Elliston in Paris, and follow the

spring south to the vineyards. A progress a-foot through France, each

day finding colors richer, the sun nearer--think of it, Beautiful!” He

kissed her joyously.

Her hands were quite cold now, “But, Stefan,” she temporized, “our

little house, our friends, my work, the--the _place_ we've been making?”

“Dearest, all these we can find far better there.”

She shook her head. “I can't. I don't speak French properly, I don't

understand French people. I couldn't sell my stories there or--or

anything,” she finished weakly.

He jumped up, his eyes blank, hands thrust in his pockets.

“I don't get you, Mary. You don't mean--you surely can't mean, that you

don't want to go to France _at all_? That you want to _live_ here?”

She floundered. “I don't know, Stefan. Of course you've always talked

about France, and I should love to go there and see it, and so on, but

somehow I've come to think of the Byrdsnest as home--we've been so happy

here--”

“Happy?” he interrupted her. “You say we've been happy?” His tone was

utterly confounded.

“Yes, dear, except--except when you were so--so busy last autumn--”

He dropped down by the table, squaring himself as if to get to the

bottom of a riddle.

“What is your idea of happiness, Mary, of _life_ in fact?” he asked,

in an unusually quiet voice. She felt glad that he seemed so willing to

talk things over, and to concede her a point of view of her own.

“Well,” she began, feeling for her words, “my idea of life is to have a

person and work that you love, and then to build--both of you--a place,

a position; to have friends--be part of the community--so that your

children--the immortal part of you--may grow up in a more and more

enriching atmosphere.” She paused, while he watched her, motionless. “I

can't imagine,” she went on, “greater happiness for two people than to

see their children growing up strong and useful--tall sons and daughters

to be proud of, such as all the generations before us have had.

Something to hand our life on to--as it was in the beginning--you know,

Stefan--” She flushed with the effort to express.

“Then,”--his voice was quieter still; she did not see that his hands

were clenched under the flap of the table--“in this scheme of life of

yours, how many children--how many servants, rooms, all that sort of

thing--should you consider necessary?”

She smiled. “As for houses, servants and things, that just depends on

one's income. I hate ostentation, but I do like a beautifully run house,

and I adore horses and dogs and things. But the children--” she flushed

again--“why, dearest, I think any couple ought to be simply too thankful

for all the children they can have. Unless, perhaps,” she added naïvely,

“they're frightfully poor.”

“Where should people live to be happy in this way?” he asked, still in

those carefully quiet tones.

She was looking out of the window, trying to formulate her thoughts.

“I don't think it matters very much _where_ one lives,” she said in her

soft, clear tones, “as long as one has friends, and is not too much in

the city. But to own one's house, and the ground under one, to be able

to leave it to one's son, to think of _his_ son being born in it--that

I think would add enormously to one's happiness. To belong to the place

one lives in, whether it's an old country, or one of the colonies, or

anywhere.”

“I see,” said Stefan slowly, in a voice low and almost harsh. Startled,

she looked at him. His face was knotted in a white mask; it was like the

face of some creature upon which an iron door has been shut. “Stefan,”

she exclaimed, “what--?”

“Wait a minute,” he said, still slowly. “I suppose it's time we talked

this thing out. I've been a fool, and judged, like a fool, by myself.

It's time we knew each other, Mary. All that you have said is horrible

to me--it's like a trap.” She gave an exclamation. “Wait, let me do

something I've never done, let me _think_ about it.” He was silent, his

face still a hard, knotted mask. Mary waited, her heart trembling.

“You, Mary, told me something about families in England who live as you

describe--you said your mother belonged to one of them. I remember that

now.” He nodded shortly, as if conceding her a point. “My father was a

New Englander. He was narrow and self-righteous, and I hated him, but

he came of people who had faced a hundred forms of death to live

primitively, in a strange land.”

“I'm willing to live in a strange country, Stefan,” she almost cried to

him.

“Don't, Mary--I'm still trying to understand. I'm not my father's son,

I'm my mother's. I don't know what she was, but she was beautiful and

passionate--she came of a mixed race, she may have had gipsy blood--I

don't know--but I do know she had genius. She loved only color and

movement. Mary--” he looked straight at her for the first time, his eyes

were tortured--“I loved you because you were beautiful and free. When

your child bound you, and you began to collect so many things and people

about you, I loved you less. I met some one else who had the beauty of

color and movement, and I almost loved her. She told me the name Berber

wasn't her own, that she had taken it because it belonged to a tribe

of wanderers--Arabs. I almost loved her for that alone. But, Mary, you

still held me. I was faithful to you because of your beauty and the

love that had been between us. Then you rose from your petty little

surroundings”--he cast a look of contempt at the pretty furnishings of

the room--“I saw you like a storm-spirit, I saw you moving among other

women like a goddess, adored of men. I felt your beautiful body yield to

me in the joy of wild movement, in the rhythm of the dance. You were my

bride, alive, gloriously free--once more, you were the Desired. I loved

you, Mary.” He rose and put his hands on her shoulders. Her face was as

white as his now. His hands dropped, he almost leapt away from her, the

muscles of his face writhed. “My God, Mary, I've never wanted to _think_

about you, only to feel and see you! Now I must think. This--this

existence that you have described! Is that all you ask of life? Are you

sure?”

“What more could one ask!” she uttered, dazed.

“What _more?_” he cried out, throwing up his arms. “What _more,_ Mary!

Why, it isn't life at all, this deadly, petty intricate day by day,

surrounded by things, and more things. The hopeless, unalterable

tameness of it!” He began to pace the room.

“But, my dear, I don't understand you. We have love, and work, and if

some part of our life is petty, why, every one's always has been, hasn't

it?”

She was deeply moved by his distress, afraid again for their happiness,

longing to comfort him. Yet, under and apart from all these emotions,

some cool little faculty of criticism wondered if he was not making

rather a theatrical scene. “Daily life must be a little monotonous,

mustn't it?” she urged again, trying to help him.

“No!” he almost shouted, with a gesture of fierce repudiation. “Was

Angelo's life petty? Was da Vinci's? Did Columbus live monotonously,

did Scott or Peary? Does any explorer or traveler? Did Thoreau surround

himself with _things_--to hamper--did George Borrow, or Whitman, or

Stevenson? Do you suppose Rodin, or de Musset, or Rousseau, or Millet,

or any one else who has ever _lived_, cared whether they had a position,

a house, horses, old furniture? All the world's wanderers, from Ulysses

down to the last tramp who knocked at this door, have known more of life

than all your generations of staid conventional county families!

Oh, Mary”--he leant across the table toward her, and his voice

pleaded--“think of what life _should_ be. Think of the peasants in

France treading out the wine. Think of ships, and rivers, and all the

beauty of the forests. Think of dancing, of music, of that old viking

who first found America. Think of those tribes who wander with their

tents over the desert and pitch them under stars as big as lamps--all

the things we've never seen, Mary, the songs we've never heard. The

colors, the scents, and the cruel tang of life! All these I want to

see and feel, and translate into pictures. I want you with me,

Mary--beautiful and free--I want us to drink life eagerly together, as

if it were heady wine.” He took her hand across the table. “You'll come,

Beloved, you'll give all the little things up, and come?”

She rose, her face pitifully white. They stood with hands clasped, the

table between them.

“The boy, Stefan?”

He laughed, thinking he had won her. “Bring him, too, as the Arab women

carry theirs, in a shawl. We'll leave him here and there, and have him

with us whenever we stay long in one place.”

She pulled her hand away, her eyes filled with tears. “I love you,

Stefan, but I can't bring my child up like a gipsy. I'll live in France,

or anywhere you say, but I must have a home--I can't be a wanderer.”

“You shall have a home, sweetheart, to keep coming back to.” His face

was brightening to eagerness.

“Oh, you don't understand. I can't leave my child; I can't be with him

only sometimes. I want him always. And it isn't only him. Oh, Stefan,

dear”--her voice in its turn was pleading--“I don't believe I can

come to France just now. I think, I'm almost sure, we're going to have

another baby.”

He straightened, they faced each other in silence. After a moment

she spoke again, looking down, her hands tremblingly picking at her

handkerchief.

“I was so happy about it. It was the sign of your renewed love. I

thought we could build a little wing on the cottage, and have a nurse.”

Her voice fell to a whisper. “I thought it might be a little girl, and

that you would love her better than the boy. I'll come later, dear, if

you say so, but I can't come now.” She sank into her chair, her head

drooping. He, too, sat down, too dazed by this new development to find

his way for a minute through its implications.

“I'm sorry, Mary,” he said at last, dully. “I don't want a little girl.

If she could be put away somewhere till she were grown, I should not

mind. But to live like this all through one's youth, with a house, and

servants, and people calling, and the place cluttered up with babies--I

don't think I can do that, possibly.”

She was frankly crying now. “But, dear one, can't we compromise? After

this baby is born, I'll give up the house. We'll live in France--I'll

travel with you a little. That will help, won't it?”

He sighed. “I suppose so. We shall have to think out some scheme. But

the ghastly part is that we shall both have to be content with half

measures. You want one thing of life, Mary, I another. No amount of

self-sacrifice on either side alters that fact. We married, strangers,

and it's taken us a year and a half to find it out. My fault, of course.

I wanted love and beauty, and I got it--I didn't think of the cost,

and I didn't think of _you_. I was just a damned egotistical male, I

suppose.” He laughed bitterly. “My father wanted a wife, and he got the

burning heart of a rose. I--I never wanted a wife, I see that now, I

wanted to snare the very spirit of life and make it my own--you looked

a vessel fit to carry it. But you were just a woman like the rest. We've

failed each other, that's all.”

“Oh, Stefan,” she cried through her tears, “I've tried so hard. But

I was always the same--just a woman. Only--” her tears broke out

afresh--“when you married me, I thought you loved me as I was.”

He looked at her, transfixed. “My God,” he whispered, “that's what I

heard my mother say more than twenty years ago. What a mockery--each

generation a scorn and plaything for the high Gods! Well, we'll do the

best we can, Mary. I'm utterly a pagan, so I'm not quite the inhuman

granite my Christian father was. Don't cry, dear.” He stooped and kissed

her, and she heard his light, wild steps pass through the room and out

into the night. She sat silent, amid the ruins of her nest.

IX

For a month Stefan brooded. He hung about the house, dabbled at a little

work, and returned, all without signs of life or interest. He was kind

to Mary, more considerate than he used to be, but she would have given

all his inanimate, painstaking politeness for an hour of his old, gay

thoughtlessness. They had reached the stage of marriage in which, all

being explained and understood, there seems nothing to hope for. Alone

together they were silent, for there was nothing to say. Each condoned

but could not comfort the other. Stefan felt that his marriage had been

a mistake, that he, a living thing, had tied about his neck a dead mass

of institutions, customs and obligations which would slowly crush his

life out. “I am twenty-seven,” he said to himself, “and my life is

over.” He did not blame Mary, but himself.

She, on the other hand, felt she had married a man outside the pale of

ordinary humanity, and that though she still loved him, she could no

longer expect happiness through him. “I am twenty-five,” she thought,

“and my personal life is over. I can be happy now only in my children.”

As those were assured her, she never thought of regretting her marriage,

but only deplored the loss of her dream. Nor did she judge Stefan. She

understood the wild risk she had run in marrying a man of whom she knew

nothing. “He is as he is,” she thought; “neither of us is to blame.”

Lonely and grieved, she turned for companionship to her writing, and

began a series of fairy tales which she had long planned for very

young children. The first instalment of her serial was out, charmingly

illustrated; she had felt rather proud on seeing her name, for the first

time, on the cover of a magazine. She engaged a young girl from the

village to take Elliston for his daily outings, and settled down to a

routine of work, small social relaxations, and morning and evening care

of the baby. The daily facts of life were pleasant to Mary; if some hurt

or disappointed, her balanced nature swung readily to assuage itself

with others. She honestly believed she felt more deeply than her

husband, and perhaps she did, but she was not of the kind whom life

can break. Stefan might dash himself to exhaustion against a rock round

which Mary would find a smooth channel.

While her work progressed, Stefan's remained at a standstill.

Disillusioned with his marriage and with his whole way of life he

fretted himself from his old sure confidence to a mood of despair. Their

friends bored him, his studio like his house became a cage. New York

appeared in her old guise of mammoth materialist, but now he had no

heart to satirize her dishonor. He wanted only to be gone, but told

himself that in common decency he must remain with Mary till her child

was born. He longed for even the superficial thrill of Felicity's

presence, but she still lingered in the South. So fretting, he tossed

himself against the bars through the long snows of an unusually severe

March, until April broke the frost, and the road to the Byrdsnest became

a morass of running mud.

In the last two weeks Stefan had begun a portrait of Constance, but

without enthusiasm. She was a fidgety sitter, and was moreover so busy

with her suffrage work that she could never be relied on for more than

an hour at a time. After a few of these fragmentary sittings his ragged

nerves gave out completely.

“It's utterly useless, Constance!” he exclaimed, throwing down his

pallette and brushes, as the telephone interrupted them for the third

time in less than an hour. “I can't paint in a suffrage office. This is

a studio, not the Club's headquarters. If you can't shut these people

off and sit rationally, please don't trouble to come again.”

“I know, my dear boy, it's abominable, but what can I do? Our bill has

passed the Legislature; until it is submitted next year I can't be my

own or Theodore's, much less yours. As for you, you look a rag. This

winter has about made me hate my country. I don't wonder you long for

France.”

Her eyes narrowed at him, she dangled her beads reflectively, and

perched on the throne again without attempting to resume her pose. “My

dear boy,” she said suddenly, “why stay here and be eaten by devils--why

not fly from them?”

“I wish to God I could,” he groaned.

“You can. Mary was in to see our shop yesterday; she looked dragged. You

are both nervous. Do what I have always done--take a holiday from each

other. There's nothing like it as a tonic for love.”

“Do you really think she wouldn't mind?” he exclaimed eagerly. “You know

she--she isn't very well.”

“Chtt,” shrugged Constance, “_that's_ only being more than usually well.

You don't think Mary needs coddling, do you? She's worried because

you are bored. If you aren't there, she won't worry. I shall take

your advice--I shan't come here again--” and she settled her hat

briskly--“and you take mine. Go away--” Constance threw on her coat--“go

anywhere you like, my dear Stefan--” she was at the door--“except

south,” she added with a mischievous twinkle, closing it.

Stefan, grinning appreciatively at this parting shot, unscrewed his

sketch of Constance from the easel, set it face to the wall in a corner,

cleaned his brushes, with the meticulous care he always gave to his

tools, and ran for the elevated, just in time to catch the next train

for Crab's Bay. At the station he jumped into a hack, and, splashing

home as quickly as the liquid road bed would allow, burst into the house

to find Mary still lingering over her lunch.

“What has happened, Stefan?” she exclaimed, startled at his excited

face.

“Nothing. I've got an idea, that's all. Let me have something to eat and

I'll tell you about it.”

She rang for Lily, and he made a hasty meal, asking her unwonted

questions meantime about her work, her amusements, whether many of the

neighbors were down yet, and if she felt lonely.

“No, I'm not lonely, dear. There are only a few people here, but they

are awfully decent to me, and I'm very busy at home.”

“You are sure you are not lonely?” he asked anxiously, drinking his

coffee, and lighting a cigarette.

“Yes, quite sure. I'm not exactly gay--” and she smiled a little

sadly--“but I'm really never lonely.”

“Then,” he asked nervously, “what would you say if I suggested going off

by myself for two or three months, to Paris.” He watched her intently,

fearful of the effect of his words. To his unbounded relief, she

appeared neither surprised nor hurt, but, after twisting her coffee cup

thoughtfully for a minute, looked up with a frank smile.

“I think it would be an awfully good thing, Stefan dear. I've been

thinking so for a month, but I didn't like to say anything in case you

might feel--after our talk--” her voice faltered for a moment--“that

I was trying to--that I didn't care for you so much. It isn't that,

dear--” she looked honestly at him--“but I know you're not happy, and it

doesn't help me to feel I am holding you back from something you want. I

think we shall be happier afterwards if you go now.”

“I do, too,” said he, “but I was so afraid it would seem cruel in me to

suggest it. I don't want to grow callous like my father.” He shuddered.

“I want to do the decent thing, Mary.” His eyes were pleading.

“I know, dearest, you've been very kind. But for both our sakes, it will

be far better if you go for a time.” She rose, and, coming round

the table, kissed his rough hair. He caught her hand, and pressed it

gratefully. “You are good to me, Mary.”

The matter settled, Stefan's spirit soared. He rang up the French Line

and secured one of the few remaining berths for their next sailing,

which was in three days. He telephoned an ecstatic cable to Adolph.

Then, hurrying to the attic, he brought down his friend's old Gladstone,

and his own suitcase, and began to sort out his clothes. Mary, anxious

to quell her heartache by action, came up to help him, and vetoed his

idea of taking only the barest necessities.

“I know,” she said, “you want to get back to your old Bohemia. But

remember you are a well-known artist now--the celebrated Stefan Byrd,”

and she courtesied to him. “Suppose you were to meet some charming

people whom you wanted to see something of? Do take a dinner-jacket at

least.”

He grinned at her. “I shall live in a blouse and sleep in my old attic

with Adolph. That's the only thing I could possibly want to do. But I

won't be fractious, Mary. If it will please you to have me take dress

clothes I'll do it--only you must pack them yourself!”

She nodded smilingly. “All right, I shall love to.” She had failed to

make her husband happy in their home, she thought; at least she would

succeed in her manner of speeding him from it. It was her tragedy that

he should want to go. That once faced, she would not make a second

tragedy of his going.

She spent the next morning, while he went to town to buy his ticket, in

a thorough overhauling of his clothes. She found linen bags to hold

his shoes and a linen folder for his shirts. She pressed his ties and

brushed his coats, packed lavender bags in his underwear, and slipped

a framed snapshot of herself and Elliston into the bottom of the

Gladstone. With it, in a box, she put the ring she had given him, with

the winged head, which he had ceased to wear of late. She found some new

poems and a novel he had not read, and packed those. She gave him her

own soapbox and toothbrush case. She cleaned his two bags with shoe

polish. Everything she could think of was done to show that she sent him

away willingly, and she worked so hard that she forgot to notice how her

heart ached. In the afternoon she met him in town and they had dinner

together. He suggested their old hotel, but she shook her head. “No

dear, not there,” she said, smiling a little tremulously. They went to a

theatre, and got home so late that she was too tired to be wakeful.

“By the by,” she said next morning at breakfast, “don't worry about

my being alone after you've gone. I thought it might be triste for the

first few days, so I've rung up the Sparrow, and she's coming to occupy

your room for a couple of weeks. She's off for her yearly trip abroad at

the end of the month. Says she can't abide the Dutch, but means to see

what there is to their old Rhine, and come back by way of Tuscany and

France.” Mary gurgled. “Can't you see her in Paris, poor dear, 'doing'

the Louvre, with her nose in a guidebook. Why! Perhaps you may!”

“The gods forbid,” said Stefan devoutly.

He had brought his paints and brushes home the night before, and after

breakfast Mary helped him stow them away in the Gladstone, showing

him smilingly how well she had done his packing. While he admired, she

remembered to ask him if he had obtained a letter of credit. He burst

out laughing.

“Mary, you wonder! I have about fifty dollars in my pocket, and should

have entirely forgotten to take more if you hadn't spoken of it. What a

bore! Can't I get it to-morrow?”

“You might not have time before sailing. I think you'd better go up

to-day, and then you could call on Constance to say good-bye.”

“I don't like to leave you on our last day,” he said uneasily,

“Oh, that will be all right, dear,” she smiled, patting his hand. “I

have oceans to do, and I think you ought to see Constance. Get your

letter of credit for a thousand dollars, then you'll be sure to have

enough.”

“A thousand! Great Scott, Adolph would think I'd robbed a bank if I had

all that.”

“You don't need to spend it, silly, but you ought to have it behind you.

You never know what might happen.”

“Would there be plenty left for you?”

“Bless me, yes,” she laughed; “we're quite rich.”

While he was gone Mary arranged an impromptu farewell party for him, so

that instead of spending a rather depressing evening alone with her,

as he had expected, he found himself surrounded by cheerful

friends--McEwan, the Farradays, their next neighbors, the Havens, and

one or two others. McEwan was the last to leave, at nearly midnight, and

pleading fatigue, Mary kissed Stefan good night at the door of her room.

She dared not linger with him lest the stifled pain at her heart should

clamor for expression too urgently to be denied. But by this time

he himself began to feel the impending separation. Ready for bed, he

slipped into her room and found her lying wide-eyed in a swathe of

moonlight. Without a word he lay down beside her and drew her close.

Like children lost in the dark, they slept all night in each other's

arms.

Next day Mary saw him off. New York ended at the gangway. Across it,

they were in France. French decorations, French faces, French gaiety,

the beloved French tongue, were everywhere.

“Listen to it, Mary,” he cried exultingly, and she smiled a cheerful

response.

When the warning bell sounded he suddenly became grave.

“Say good-bye again to Elliston for me, dear,” he said, holding her hand

close. “I hope he grows up like you.”

Her eyes were swimming now, in spite of herself. “Mary,” he went on,

“this separation makes or mars us. I hope, dear, I believe, it will make

us. God bless you.” He kissed her, pressed her to him. Suddenly they

were both trembling.

“Why are we parting?” he cried, in a revulsion of feeling.

She smiled at him, wiping away her tears. “It's better, dearest,” she

whispered; “let me go now.” They kissed again; she turned hurriedly

away. He watched her cross the gangway--she waved to him from the

dock--then the crowd swallowed her.

For a moment he felt bitterly bereaved. “How ironic life is,” he

thought. Then a snatch of French chatter and a gay laugh reached him.

The gangway lifted, water widened between the bulwarks and the dock.

As the ship swung out he caught the sea breeze--a flight of gulls swept

by--he was outbound!

With a deep breath Stefan turned a brilliant smile upon the deck ...

Freedom!

Mary, hurrying home with aching heart and throat, let the slow tears

run unheeded down her cheeks. From the train she watched the city's

outskirts stream by, formless and ugly. She was very desolate. But when,

tired out, she entered her house, peace enfolded her. Here were her

child, the things she loved, her birds, her pleasant, smiling servant.

Here were white walls and gracious calm. Her mate had flown, but the

nest remained. Her heart ached still, but it was no longer torn.

X

The day after Stefan sailed Felicity Berber returned from Louisiana. The

South had bored her, without curing her weariness of New York. She drove

from the Pennsylvania Station to her studio, looked through the books,

overhauled the stock, and realized with indifference that her business

had suffered heavily through her absence. She listened lazily while her

lieutenants, emphasizing this fact, implored her to take up the work

again.

“What does it matter,” she murmured through her smoke. “The place still

pays. Your salaries are all secure, and I have plenty of money. I may

come back, I may not. In any event, I am bored.” She rippled out to

her landaulette, and drove home. At her apartment, her Chinese maid was

already unpacking her trunks.

“Don't unpack any more, Yo San. I may decide to go away again--abroad

perhaps. I am still very bored--give me a white kirtle and telephone Mr.

Marchmont to call in an hour.”

With her maid's help she undressed, pinned her hair high, and slipped

on a knee-high tunic of heavy chiffon. Barefooted, she entered a large

room, walled in white and dull silver--the end opposite the windows

filled by a single mirror. Between the windows stood a great tank of

gold and silver fish swimming among water lilies.

Two enormous vases of dull glass, stacked with lilies against her

homecoming, stood on marble pedestals. The floor was covered with a

carpeting of dead black. A divan draped in yellow silk, a single ebony

chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a low table in teakwood were the

sole furniture. Here, quite alone, Felicity danced away the stiffness

of her journey, danced away the drumming of the train from her ears, and

its dust from her lungs. Then she bathed, and Yo San dressed her in

a loose robe of silver mesh, and fastened her hair with an ivory comb

carved and tinted to the model of a water lily. These rites complete,

Felicity slowly partook of fruit, coffee and toast. Only then did

she re-enter the dance room, where, on his ebony chair, the dangling

Marchmont had been uncomfortably waiting for half an hour.

She gave him her hand dreamily, and sank full length on the divan.

“You are more marvelous than ever, Felicity,” said he, with an adoring

sigh.

She waved her hand. “For all that I am not in the mood. Tell me the

news, my dear Marchmont--plays, pictures, scandals, which of my clients

are richer, which are bankrupt, who has gone abroad, and all about my

friends.”

Marchmont leant forward, and prepared to light a cigarette, his thin

mouth twisted to an eager smile, his loose hair wagging.

“Wait,” she breathed, “I weary of smoke. Give me a lily, Marchmont.” He

fetched one of the great Easter lilies from its vase. Placing this on

her bosom, she folded her supple hands over it, closed her eyes, and lay

still, looking like a Bakst version of the Maid of Astolat. Felicity's

hints were usually sufficient for her slaves. Marchmont put away his

cigarette, and proceeded with relish to recount the gossip with which,

to his long finger-tips, he was charged.

“Well,” said he, after an hour's general survey of New York as they both

knew it, “I think that about covers the ground. There is, as I said,

no question that Einsbacher is still devoted. My own opinion is he will

present you with the Nixie. I suppose you received the clippings I sent

about the picture? Constance Elliot has only ordered two gowns from the

studio since you left--but you will have seen that by the books. She

says she is saving her money for the Cause.” He snickered. “The fact is,

she grows dowdy as she grows older. Gunther has gone to Frisco with

his group. Polly Thayer tells me his adoration of the beautiful Byrd

is pathetic. So much in love he nearly broke her neck showing off his

driving for her benefit.” Marchmont snickered again. “As for your friend

Mr. Byrd--” he smiled with a touch of sly pleasure--“you won't see him,

he sailed for France yesterday, alone. His name is in this morning's

list of departures.” And he drew a folded and marked newspaper from his

pocket.

A shade of displeasure had crept over the immobile features of Miss

Berber. She opened her eyes and regarded the lank Marchmont with

distaste. Her finger pressed a button on the divan. Slowly she raised

herself to her elbow, while he watched, his pale eyes fixed on her with

the expression of a ratting dog waiting its master's thanks after a

catch.

“All that you have told me,” said Felicity at last, a slight edge to her

zephyr-like voice, “is interesting, but I wish you would remember that

while you are free to ridicule my clients, you are not free as regards

my friends. Your comment on Connie was in poor taste. I am not in

the mood for more conversation this morning. I am fatigued. Good-day,

Marchmont.” She sank to her pillows again--her eyes closed.

“Oh, I say, Felicity, is that all the thanks I get?” whined her visitor.

“Good-day, Marchmont,” she breathed again. The door opened, disclosing

Yo San. Marchmont's aesthetic veneer cracked.

“Oh, shucks,” he said, “how mean of you!” and trailed out, his cutaway

seeming to hang limp like the dejected tail of a dog.

The door closed, Felicity bounded up and, running across the room,

invoked her own loveliness in the mirror.

“Alone,” she whispered to herself, “alone.” She danced a few steps,

swayingly. “You've never lived, lovely creature, you've never lived

yet,” she apostrophized the dancing vision in the glass.

Still swaying and posturing to some inward melody, she fluttered down

the passage to her bedroom. “Yo San,” she called, her voice almost full,

“we shall go to Europe.” The stolid little maid nodded acquiescence.

For the next three days Felicity Berber, creator of raiment, shut in

her pastoral fitting room and surrounded by her chief acolytes, sat at

a table opposite Stefan's dancing faun, and designed spring gowns.

Felicity the idle, the somnolent, the alluring, gave place to Felicity

the inventor, and again to Felicity the woman of business. Scissors

clipped, typewriters clicked, colored chalks covered dozens of sheets

with drawings.

The staff became first relieved, then enthusiastic. What a spring

display they were to have! On the third day hundreds of primrose-yellow

envelopes, inscribed in green ink to the studio's clients, poured into

the letter-chute. Within them an announcement printed in flowing green

script read, under Felicity's letterhead, “I offer twenty-one original

designs for spring raiment, created by me under the inspiration of a

sojourn in the South. Each will be modified to the wearer's personality,

and none will be duplicated. I am about to travel in Europe, there

to gain atmosphere for my fall creations.” After her signature, was

stamped, by way of seal, a tiny woodcut of Stefan's faun.

The last design was complete by Friday, and on Saturday Felicity sailed

on the Mauretania, her suite of three rooms a wilderness of flowers.

Marchmont, calling at the apartment to escort her to the boat, found the

dance-room swathed in sheeting, its heavy carpet rolled into a corner.

Evidently, this was to be no brief “sojourn.” The heavy Einsbacher was

at the dock to see her off, together with a small pack of nondescript

young men. Constance was not there, and Marchmont guessed that she had

not been told of her friend's departure.

Einsbacher had the last word with Felicity. “I hope you will like the

vlowers,” he whispered gutturally. “Let me know if I may make you a

present of the Nixie,” and he gave a thick smile.

“You know my rule,” she murmured, her lids heavy, a bored droop at the

corners of her mouth. “Nothing worth more than five dollars, except

flowers. Why should I break it--” her voice hovered--“for you?”--it

sank. She turned away, melting into the crowd. Marchmont, with malicious

pleasure, watched Einsbacher's discomfited retreat.

In her cabin Felicity collected all the donors' cards from her flowers

and, stepping outside, with a faint smile dropped them into the sea.

XI

It was the end of April, and Paris rustled gaily in her spring dress.

Stefan and Adolph, clad in disreputable baggy trousers topped in one

case by a painter's blouse and in the other by an infinitely aged alpaca

jacket, strolled homeward in the early evening from their favorite café.

Adolph was in the highest spirits, as he had been ever since Stefan's

arrival three weeks before, but the other's face wore a rather moody

frown. He had begun to weary a little of his good friend's ecstatic

pleasure in their reunion.

He was in Paris again, in his old attic; it was spring, and his beloved

city as beautiful as ever. He had expected a return of his old-time

gaiety, but somehow the charm lacked potency. He wanted to paint, but

his ideas were turgid and fragmentary. He wanted excitement, but the

city only seemed to offer memories. The lapse of a short eighteen months

had scattered his friends surprisingly. Adolph remained, but Nanette was

married. Louise had left Paris, and Giddens, the English painter, had

gone back to London. Perhaps it was the spring, perhaps it was merely

the law which decrees that the past can never be recaptured--whatever

the cause, Stefan's flight had not wholly assuaged his restlessness.

Of adventures in the hackneyed sense he had not thought. He was too

fastidious for the vulgar sort, and had hitherto met no women who

stirred his imagination. Moreover, he harbored the delusion that the

failure of his great romance had killed his capacity for love. “I am

done with women,” he said to himself.

Mary seemed very distant. He thought of her with gratitude for her

generosity, with regret, but without longing.

“Never marry,” he said to Adolph for the twentieth time, as they turned

into the rue des Trois Ermites; “the wings of an artist must remain

unbound.”

“Ah, Stefan,” Adolph replied, sighing over his friend's disillusionment,

“I am not like you. I should be grateful for a home, and children. I am

only a cricket scraping out my little music, not an eagle.”

Stefan snorted. “You are a great violinist, but you won't realize it.

Look here, Adolph, chuck your job, and go on a walking tour with me.

Let's travel through France and along the Riviera to Italy. I'm sick

of cities. There's lots of money for us both, and if we run short, why,

bring your fiddle along and play it--why not?”

At their door the concierge handed Adolph some letters.

“My friend,” said he, holding up a couple of bills, “one cannot slip

away from life so easily. How should I pay my way when we returned?”

“Hang it,” said Stefan impatiently, “don't you begin to talk

obligations. I came to France to get away from all that. Have a little

imagination, Adolph. It would be the best thing that could happen to you

to get shaken out of that groove at the Opera--be the making of you.”

They had reached the attic, and Adolph lit a lamp.

“We'll talk of it to-morrow, my infant, now I must dress--see, here is a

letter for you.”

He handed Stefan a tinted envelope, and began leisurely to don his

conventional black. Holding the note under the lamp, Stefan saw with a

start that it was from Felicity, and had been left by hand. Excited,

he tore it open. It was written in ordinary ink, upon pale pink paper,

agreeably scented.

“My dear friend,” he read in French, “I am in Paris, and

chancing to remember your old address--(“I swear I never told

her the number,” he thought)--send this in search of you.

How pleasant it would be to see you, and to have a little converse

in the sweet French tongue. You did not know that it

was my own, did you? But yes, I have French-Creole blood.

One is happy here among one's own kind. This evening I shall

be alone. Felicity.”

So, she was a Creole--of the race of Josephine! His pulses beat.

Cramming the note into his pocket he whirled excitedly upon his friend.

“Adolph,” he cried, “I'm going out--where are my clothes?” and began

hastily to rummage for his Gladstone amidst a pile of their joint

belongings. Throwing it open, he dragged out his dress suit--folded

still as Mary had packed it--and strewed a table with collars, ties,

shirts, and other accessories.

“Hot water, Adolph! Throw some sticks into the stove--I must shave,”

he called, and Adolph, amazed at this sudden transformation, hastily

obeyed.

“Where do you go?” he asked, as he filled the kettle.

“I'm going to see a very attractive young woman,” Stefan grinned.

“Wow, what a mercy I brought some decent clothes, eh?” He was already

stripped, and shaking out a handful of silk socks. Something clicked to

the floor, but he did not notice it. The dressing proceeded in a whirl,

Adolph much impressed by the splendors of his friend's toilet. A fine

shirt of tucked linen, immaculate pumps, links of dull gold--his comrade

in Bohemia had completely vanished.

“O là, là!” cried he, beaming, “now I see it is true about all your

riches!”

“I'm going to take a taxi,” Stefan announced as he slipped into his

coat; “can I drop you?”

He stood ready, having overtaken Adolph's sketchy but leisured dressing.

“What speed, my child! One moment!” Adolph shook on his coat, found his

glasses, and was crossing to put out the lamp when his foot struck a

small object.

“What is this, something of yours?” He stooped and picked up a framed

snapshot of a girl playing with a baby. “How beautiful!” he exclaimed,

holding it under the lamp.

“Oh, yes,” said Stefan with a slight frown, “that's Mary. I didn't know

I had it with me. Come on, Adolph,” and he tossed the picture back into

the open Gladstone.

While Adolph found a taxi, Stefan paused a moment to question the

concierge. Yes, monsieur's note had been left that afternoon, Madame

remembered, by une petite Chinoise, bien chic, who had asked if Monsieur

lived here. Madame's aged eyes snapped with Gallic appreciation of a

possible intrigue.

Stefan was glad when he had dropped Adolph. He stretched at ease along

the cushions of his open taxi, breathing in the warm, audacious air of

spring, and watched the faces of the crowds as they emerged under the

lights to be lost again mysteriously in the dusk.

Paris, her day's work done, was turning lightly, with her entrancing

smile, to the pursuit of friendship, adventure, and love. All through

the scented streets eyes sought eyes, voices rose in happy laughter or

drooped to soft allurement. Stefan thrilled to the magic in the air. He,

too, was seeking his adventure.

The taxi drew up in the courtyard of an apartment house. Giving his

name, Stefan entered a lift and was carried up one floor. A white door

opened, and the small Yo San, with a salutation, took his hat, and

lifted a curtain. He was in a long, low room, yellow with candlelight.

Facing him, open French windows giving upon a balcony showed the

purpling dusk above the river and the black shapes of trees. Lights

trickled their reflection in the water, the first stars shone, the scent

of flowers was heavy in the air.

All this he saw; then a curtain moved, and a slim form appeared from the

balcony as silently as a moth fluttering to the light.

“Ah, Stefan, welcome,” a voice murmured.

The setting was perfect. As Felicity moved toward him--her gown

fluttering and swaying in folds of golden pink as delicately tinted as

the petals of a rose--Stefan realized he had never seen her so alluring.

Her strange eyes shone, her lips curved soft and inviting, her cheeks

and throat were like warm, white velvet.

He took her outstretched hand--of the texture of a camelia--and it

pulsed as if a heart beat in it.

“Felicity,” he half whispered, holding her hand, “how wonderful you

are!”

“Am I?” she breathed, sighingly. “I have been asleep so long, Stefan.

perhaps I am awake a little now.”

Her eyes, wide and gleaming as he had never seen them, held him. A

mysterious perfume, subtle and poignant, hung about her. Her gauzy dress

fluttered as she breathed; she seemed barely poised on her slim feet.

He put out his arm as if to stay her from mothlike flight, and it fell

about her waist. He pressed her to him. Her lips met his--they were

incredibly soft and warm--they seemed to blossom under his kisses.

* * * * *

Adolph, returning from the opera at midnight, donned his old jacket and

a pair of slippers and, lighting his pipe, settled himself with a paper

to await Stefan's coming. Presently first the paper, then the burnt-out

pipe, fell from his hands--he dozed, started awake, and dozed again.

At last he roused himself and stretched stiffly. The lamp was burning

low--he looked at his watch--it was four o'clock. Stefan's Gladstone bag

still yawned on a chair beside the table. In it, the dull glow of the

lamp was reflected from a small silver object lying among a litter of

ties and socks. Adolph picked it up, and looked for some moments at the

face of Mary, smiling above her little son. He shook his head.

“Tch, tch! Quel dommage-what a pity!” he sighed, and putting down the

picture undressed slowly, blew out the lamp, and went to bed.

XII

On a Saturday morning at the end of June, Mary stood by the gate of the

Byrdsnest, looking down the lane. McEwan, who was taking a whole holiday

from the office, had offered to fetch her mail from the village. Any

moment he might be back. It was quite likely, she told herself, that

there would be a letter from France this morning--a steamer had

docked on Thursday, another yesterday. Surely this time there would be

something for her. Mary's eyes, as they strained down the lane, had lost

some of their radiant youth. A stranger might have guessed her older

than the twenty-six years she had just completed--she seemed grave and

matronly--her face had a bleak look. Mary's last letter from France had

come more than a month ago, and a face can change much in a month of

waiting. She knew that last letter--a mere scrap--by heart.

“Thank you for your sweet letters, dear,” it read. “I am

well, and having a wonderful time. Not much painting yet;

that is to come. Adolph admires your picture prodigiously.

I have found some old friends in Paris, very agreeably. I may

move about a bit, so don't expect many letters. Take care of

yourself. Stefan.”

No word of love, nothing about Elliston, or the child to come; just a

hasty word or two dashed off in answer to the long letters which she

had tried so hard to make amusing. Even this note had come after a two

weeks' silence. “Don't expect many letters--” she had not, but a month

was a long time.

There came Wallace! He had turned the corner--he had waved to her--but

it was a quiet wave. Somehow, if there had been a letter from France,

Mary thought he would have waved his hat round his head. She had never

spoken of her month-long wait, but Wallace always knew things without

being told. No, she was sure there was no letter. “It's too hot here in

the sun,” she thought, and walked slowly into the house.

“Here we are,” called McEwan cheerily as he entered the sitting room.

“It's a light mail to-day. Nothing but 'Kindly remit' for me, and one

letter for you--looks like the fist of a Yankee schoolma'am.”

He handed her the letter, holding it with a big thumb over the

right-hand corner, so that she recognized Miss Mason's hand before she

saw the French stamp.

“Mind if I hang round on the stoop and smoke a pipe?” queried McEwan,

pulling a newspaper from his pocket.

“Do,” said Mary, opening her letter. It was a long, newsy sheet written

from Paris and filled with the Sparrow's opinions on continental hotels,

manners, and morals. She read it listlessly, but at the fourth page

suddenly sat upright.

“I thought as long as I was here I'd better see what there is

to see,” Miss Mason's pen chatted; “so I've been doing a play

or the opera every night, and I can say that not understanding

the language don't make the plays seem any less immoral.

However, that's what people go abroad to get, so I guess we

can't complain. The night before last who was sitting in the

orchestra but your husband with that queer Miss Berber? I

saw them as plain as daylight, but they couldn't see me away up

in the circle. When I was looking for a bus at the end I

saw them getting into an elegant electric. I must say she

looked cute, all in old rose color with a pearl comb in her hair.

I think your husband looked real well too--I suppose they

were going to some party together. It's about time that young

man was home again with you, it seems to me, and so I should

have told him if I could have got anywhere near him in the

crowd. All I can say is, _I've_ had enough of Europe. I'm thinking

of going through to London for a week, and then sailing.”

At the end of the letter Mary turned the last page back, and slowly

read this paragraph again. There was a dull drumming in her ears--a hand

seemed to be remorselessly pressing the blood from her heart. She sat

staring straight before her, afraid to think lest she should think too

much. At last she went to the window.

“Wallace,” she called. He jumped in, paper in hand, and saw her standing

dead white by her chair.

“Ye've no had ill news, Mary?” he asked with a burr.

She shook her head. “No, Wallace; no, of course not. But I feel rather

rotten this morning. Talk to me a little, will you?”

Obediently he sat down, and shook out the paper. “Hae ye been watching

the European news much lately, Mary?” he began.

“I always try to, but it's difficult to find much in the American

papers.”

“It's there, if ye know where to look. What would ye think o' this

assassination o' the Grand Duke now?” He cocked his head on one side, as

if eagerly waiting for her opinion. She began to rally.

“Why, it's awful, of course, but somehow I can't feel much sympathy for

the Austrians since they took Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

“What would ye think might come of it?”

“I don't know, Wallace--what would you!”

“Weel,” he said gravely, “I think something's brewing down

yonder--there'll be trouble yet.”

“Those poor Balkans, always fighting,” she sighed.

“I'm feered it'll be more than the Balkans this time. Watch the papers,

Mary--I dinna' like the looks o' it mesel'.”

They talked on, he expounding his views on the menace of Austria's

near-east aspirations as opposed to Russia's friendship for the Slavic

races. Mary tried to listen intelligently--the effort brought a little

color to her face.

“Wallace,” she said presently, “do you happen to know where Miss Berber

is this summer?”

“I do not,” he said, his blue eyes steadily watching her. “But Mrs.

Elliot would ken maybe--ye might ask her.”

“Oh, it doesn't matter,” said Mary. “I just wondered.”

When McEwan had gone Mary read Miss Mason's letter for the third time,

and again the cold touch of fear assailed her. She took a camp stool and

sat by the edge of the bluff for a long time, watching the water. Then

she went indoors again to her desk.

“Dear Stefan,” she wrote, “I have only had one note from

you in six weeks, and am naturally anxious to know how you

are getting on. I am very well, and expect our baby about

the tenth of October. Elliston is beautiful; imagine, he is a

year old now! I think he will have your eyes. I am sorry

you are not getting on well with your work, but perhaps that

has changed by now. Dear, I had a letter from Miss Mason

this morning, and she writes of having seen you and Miss

Berber together at the opera. You didn't tell me she was in

Paris, and I can't help feeling it strange that you should not

have done so, and should leave me without news for so long.

I trust you, dear Stefan, and believe in our love in spite of the

difficulties we have had. And I think you did rightly to take

a holiday abroad. But you have been gone three months, and

I have heard so little. Am I wrong still to believe in our love?

Only six months ago we were so happy together. Do you wish

our marriage to come to an end? Please write me, dear, and

tell me what you really think, for, Stefan, I don't know how

I shall bear the suspense much longer. I'm trying to be brave,

dear--and I _do_ believe still.

“Your

“Mary.”

Her hand was trembling as she finished writing. She longed to cry out,

“For God's sake, come back to me, Stefan”--she longed to write of the

wild ache at her heart--but she could not. She could not plead with him.

If he did not feel the pain in her halting sentences it would be true

that he no longer loved her. She sealed and stamped the letter. “I must

still believe,” she kept repeating to herself. There was nothing to do

but wait.

In the weeks that followed it seemed to Mary that her friends were more

than ever kind to her. Not only did James Farraday continually send his

car to take her driving, and Mrs. Farraday appear in the pony carriage,

but not a day passed without McEwan, Jamie, the Havens, or other

neighbors dropping in for a chat, or planning a walk, a luncheon, or a

sail. Constance, too, immersed in work though she was, ran out several

times in her car and spent the night. Mary was grateful--it made her

waiting so much less hard--while her friends were with her the constant

ache at her heart was drugged asleep. Knowing Wallace, she suspected his

hand in this widespread activity, nor was she mistaken.

The day after the arrival of Miss Mason's letter McEwan had dropped in

upon Constance in the evening, when he knew she would be resting after

her strenuous day's work at headquarters. By way of a compliment on her

gown he led the conversation round to Felicity Berber, and elicited the

information that she was abroad.

“In Paris, perhaps?” he suggested.

“Now you mention it, I think they did say Paris when I was last in the

shop.”

“Byrd is in Paris, you know,” said McEwan, meeting her eyes.

“Ah!” said Constance, and she stared at him, her lids narrowing. “I

hadn't thought of that possibility.” She fingered her jade beads.

“I wonder if you ever write her?” he asked.

“I never write any one, my dear man, and, besides, what could I say?”

“Well,” said he, “I had a hunch you might need a new rig for the summer

Votes campaign, or something. I thought maybe you'd want the very latest

Berber styles, and would ask her to send a tip over. Then I thought

you'd string her the local gossip, how Mrs. Byrd's baby will be born in

October, and you don't think her looking as fit as she might. You want a

cute rattle for it from Paris, or something. Get the idea?”

“You think she doesn't know?”

“I think the kid's about as harmless as a short-circuited wire, but I

think she's a sport at bottom. My dope is, _if_ there's anything to this

proposition, then she doesn't know.” He rose to go.

“Wallace, you are certainly a bright boy,” said Constance, holding out

her hand. “The missive shall be despatched.”

“Moreover,” said Mac, turning at the door, “Mary's worried--a little

cheering up won't hurt her any.”

“I'll come out,” said Constance'. “What a shame it is--I'm so fond of

them both.”

“Yes, it's a mean world--but we have to keep right on smiling. Good

night,” said he.

“Good night,” called Constance. “You dear, good soul,” she added to

herself.

XIII

Adolph was practising some new Futurist music of Ravel's. Its

dissonances fatigued and irritated him, but he was lured by its horrible

fascination, and grated away with an enraged persistence. Paris was hot,

the attic hotter, for it was July. Adolph wondered as he played how long

it would be before he could get away to the sea. He was out of love

with the city, and thought longingly of a possible trip to Sweden.

His reflections were interrupted by Stefan, who pushed the door open

listlessly, and instantly implored him to stop making a din.

“What awful stuff--it's like the Cubist horrors,” said he, petulantly.

“Yes, my friend, yet I play the one, and you go to see the other,” said

Adolph, laying down his fiddle and mopping his head and hands.

“Not I,” contradicted Stefan, wandering over to his easel. On it was an

unfinished sketch of Felicity dancing--several other impressions of her

stood about the room.

“Rotten work,” he said, surveying them moodily. “All I have to show

for over three months here. Adolph,” he flung himself into a chair, and

rumpled his hair angrily, “I'm sick of my way of life. My marriage was a

mistake, but it was better than this. I did better work with Mary than I

do with Felicity, and I didn't hate myself.”

“Well, my infant,” said Adolph, with a relieved sigh, “I'm glad to hear

you say it. You've told me nothing, but I am sure your marriage was a

better thing than you think. As for this little lady--” he shrugged his

shoulders--“I make nothing of this affair.”

Stefan's frown was moodier still.

“Felicity is the most alluring woman I have ever known, and I believe

she is fond of me. But she is affected, capricious, and a perfect mass

of egotism.”

“For egotism you are not the man to blame her,” smiled his friend.

“I know that,” shrugged Stefan. “I've always believed in egotism, but I

confess Felicity is a little extreme.”

“Where is she?”

“Oh, she's gone to Biarritz for a week with a party of Americans. I

wouldn't go. I loathe mobs of dressed-up spendthrifts. We had planned to

go to Brittany, but she said she needed a change of companionship--that

her soul must change the color of its raiment, or some such piffle.” He

laughed shortly. “Here I am hanging about in the heat, most of my money

gone, and not able to do a stroke of work. It's hell, Adolph.”

“My boy,” said his friend, “why don't you go home?”

“I haven't the face, and that's a fact. Besides, hang it, I still want

Felicity. Oh, what a mess!” he growled, sinking lower into his chair.

Suddenly Adolph jumped up.

“I had forgotten; there is a letter for you,” and he tossed one into his

lap. “It's from America.”

Stefan flushed, and Adolph watched him as he opened the letter. The

flush increased--he gave an exclamation, and, jumping up, began walking

feverishly about the room.

“My God, Adolph, she's heard about Felicity!” Adolph exclaimed in his

turn. “She asks me about it--what am I to do?”

“What does she say; can you tell me?” enquired the Swede, distressed.

“Tiens, I'll read it to you,” and Stefan opened the letter and hastily

translated it aloud. “She's so generous, poor dear,” he groaned as he

finished. Adolph's face had assumed a deeply shocked expression. He was

red to the roots of his blonde hair.

“Is your wife then enceinte, Stefan!”

“Yes, of course she is--she cares for nothing but having children.”

“_But_, Stefan!” Adolph's hands waved helplessly--he stammered. “It

cannot be--it is impossible, _impossible_ that you desert a beautiful

and good wife who expects your child. I cannot believe it.”

“I _haven't_ deserted her,” Stefan retorted angrily. “I only came away

for a holiday, and the rest just happened. I should have been home by

now if I hadn't met Felicity. Oh, you don't understand,” he groaned,

watching his friend's grieved, embarrassed face. “I'm fond of

Mary--devoted to her--but you don't know what the monotony of marriage

does to a man of my sort.”

“No, I don't understand,” echoed his friend. “But now, Stefan,” and he

brought his fist down on the table, “now you will go home, will you not,

and try to make her happy?”

“I don't think she will forgive this,” muttered Stefan.

“This!” Adolph almost shouted. “This you will explain away, deny, so

that it troubles her no more!”

“Oh, rot, Adolph, I can't lie to Mary,” and Stefan began to pace the

room once more.

“For her sake, it seems to me you must,” his friend urged.

“Stop talking, Adolph; I want to think!” Stefan exclaimed. He walked in

silence for a minute.

“No,” he said at last, “if my marriage is to go on, it must be on a

basis of truth. I can't go back to Mary and act and live a lie. If she

will have me back, she must know I've made some sacrifice to come,

I'll go, if she says so, because I care for her, but I _can't_ go as a

faithful, loving husband--it would be too grotesque.”

“Consider her health, my friend,” implored Adolph, still with his

bewildered, shocked air; “it might kill her!”

“Can't! She's as strong as a horse--she can face the truth like a man.”

“Then think of the other woman; you must protect her.”

“Pshaw! she doesn't need protection! You don't know Felicity; she'd be

just as likely as not to tell Mary herself.”

“I always thought you so honorable, so generous,” Adolph murmured,

dejectedly.

“Oh, cut it, Adolph. I'm being as honorable and generous as I know how.

I'll write to Mary now, and offer to come back if she says the word, and

never see Felicity again. I can't do more.”

He flung himself down at the desk, and snatched a pen.

“My dearest girl:” he wrote rapidly, “your brave letter has

come to me, and I can answer it only with the truth. All that

you feared when you heard of F.'s being with me is true. I

found her here two months ago, and we have been together

most of the time since. It was not planned, Mary; it came to

me wholly unexpectedly, when I thought myself cured of love.

I care for you, my dear, I believe you the noblest and most

beautiful of women, but from F. I have had something which

a woman of your kind could never give, and in spite of the

pain I feel for your grief, I cannot say with truth that I regret

it. There are things--in life and love of which you, my

beautiful and clear-eyed Goddess, can know nothing--there is

a wild grape, the juice of which you will never drink, but which

once tasted, must ever be desired. Because this draught is so

different from your own milk and honey, because it leaves my

tenderness for you all untouched, because drinking it has assuaged

a thirst of which you can have no knowledge, I ask you

not to judge it with high Olympian judgment. I ask you

to forgive me, Mary, for I love you still--better now than when

I left you--and I hold you above all women. The cup is still

at my lips, but if you will grant me forgiveness I will drink

no more. I agonize over your grief--if you will let me I will

return and try to assuage it. Write me, Mary, and if the word

is forgive, for your sake I will bid my friend farewell now and

forever. I am still your husband if you will have me--there

is no woman I would serve but you.

“Stefan.”

He signed his name in a dashing scrawl, blotted and folded the letter

without rereading it, addressed and stamped it, and sprang hatless down

the stairs to post it.

An enormous weight seemed lifted from him. He had shifted his dilemma to

the shoulders of his wife, and had no conception that in so doing he was

guilty of an act of moral cowardice. Returning to the studio, he pulled

out a clean canvas and began a vigorous drawing of two fauns chasing

each other round a tree. Presently, as he drew, he began to hum.

XIV

It was the fourth of August.

Stefan and Felicity sat at premier déjeuner on the balcony of her

apartment. About them flowers grew in boxes, a green awning hung over

them, their meal of purple fruit, coffee, and hot brioches was served

from fantastic green china over which blue dragons sprawled. Felicity's

negligée was of the clear green of a wave's concavity--a butterfly of

blue enamel pinned her hair. A breeze, cool from the river, fluttered

under the awning.

It was an attractive scene, but Felicity's face drooped listlessly, and

Stefan, hands deep in the pockets of his white trousers, lay back in his

wicker chair with an expression of nervous irritability. It was early,

for the night had been too hot for late sleeping, and Yo San had not

yet brought in the newspapers and letters. Paris was tense. Germany and

Russia had declared war. France was mobilizing. Perhaps already the axe

had fallen.

Held by the universal anxiety, Stefan and Felicity had lingered on in

Paris after her return from Biarritz, instead of traveling to Brittany

as they had planned.

Stefan had another reason for remaining, which he had not imparted to

Felicity. He was waiting for Mary's letter. It was already overdue, and

now that any hour might bring it he was wretchedly nervous as to the

result. He did not yet wish to break with Felicity, but still less did

he wish to lose Mary. Without having analyzed it to himself, he would

have liked to keep the Byrdsnest and all that it contained as a warm and

safe haven to return to after his stormy flights. He neither wished to

be anchored nor free; he desired both advantages, and the knowledge

that he would be called upon to forego one frayed his nerves. Life was

various--why sacrifice its fluid beauty to frozen forms?

“Stefan,” murmured Felicity, from behind her drooping mask, “we have had

three golden months, but I think they are now over.”

“What do you mean?” he asked crossly.

“Disharmony”--she waved a white hand--“is in the air. Beauty--the

arts--are to give place to barbarity. In a world of war, how can we

taste life delicately? We cannot. Already, my friend, the blight has

fallen upon you. Your nerves are harsh and jangled. I think”--she

folded her hands and sank back on her green cushions--“I shall make a

pilgrimage to China.”

“All of which,” said Stefan with a short laugh, “is an elaborate way of

saying you are tired of me.”

Her eyebrows raised themselves a fraction.

“You are wonderfully attractive, Stefan; you fascinate me as a panther

fascinates by its lithe grace, and your mind has the light and shade of

running brooks.”

Stefan looked pleased.

“But,” she went on, her lids still drooping, “I must have harmony. In an

atmosphere of discords I cannot live. Of your present discordant mood,

my friend, I _am_ tired, and I could not permit myself to continue to

feel bored. When I am bored, I change my milieu.”

“You are no more bored than I am, I assure you,” he snapped rudely.

“It is such remarks as those,” breathed Felicity, “which make love

impossible.” Her eyes closed.

He pushed back his chair. “Oh, my dear girl, do have some sense of

humor,” he said, fumbling for a cigarette.

Yo San entered with a folded newspaper, and a plate of letters for

Felicity. She handed one to Stefan. “Monsieur Adolph leave this,” she

said.

Disregarding the paper, Felicity glanced through her mail, and

abstracted a thick envelope addressed in Constance's sprightly hand.

Stefan's letter was from Mary; he moved to the end of the balcony and

tore it open. A banker's draft fell from it.

“Good-bye, Stefan,” he read, “I can't forgive you. What you

have done shames me to the earth. You have broken our marriage.

It was a sacred thing to me--now it is profaned. I ask

nothing from you, and enclose you the balance of your own

money. I can make my living and care for the children, whom

you never wanted.”

The last three words scrawled slantingly down the page; they were

in large and heavier writing--they looked like a cry. The letter was

unsigned, and smudged. It might have been written by a dying person.

The sight of it struck him with unbearable pain. He stood, staring at it

stupidly.

Felicity called him three times before he noticed her--the last time she

had to raise her voice quite loudly. He turned then, and saw her sitting

with unwonted straightness at the table. Her eyes were wide open, and

fixed.

“I have a letter from Connie.” She spoke almost crisply. “Why did you

not tell me that your wife was enceinte?”

“Why should I tell you?” he asked, staring at her with indifference.

“Had I known it I should not have lived with you. I thought she had let

you come here alone through phlegmatic British coldness. If she lost

you, it was her affair. This is different. You have not played fair with

us.”

“Mary was never cold,” said Stefan dully, ignoring her accusation.

“That makes it worse.” She sat like a ramrod; her face might have been

ivory; her hands lay folded across the open letter.

“What do you know--or care--about Mary?” he said heavily; “you never

even liked her.”

“Your wife bored me, but I admired her. Women nearly always bore me, but

I believe in them far more than men, and wish to uphold them.”

“You chose a funny way of doing so this time,” he said, dropping into

his chair with a hopeless sigh.

She looked at him with distaste. “True, I mistook the situation.

Conventions are nothing to me. But I have a spiritual code to which I

adhere. This affair no longer harmonizes with it. I trust--” Felicity

relaxed into her cushions--“you will return to your wife immediately.”

“Thanks,” he said ironically. “But you're too late. Mary knows, and has

thrown me over.”

There was silence for several minutes. Then Stefan rose, picked up the

draft from the floor, looked at it idly, refolded it into Mary's letter,

and put both carefully away in his inside pocket. His face was very

pale.

“Adieu, Felicity,” he said quietly. “You are quite right about it.” And

he held out his hand.

“Adieu, Stefan,” she answered, waving her hand toward his, but not

touching it. “I am sorry about your wife.”

Turning, he went in through the French window.

Felicity waited until she heard the thud of the apartment door, then

struck her hands together. Yo San appeared.

“A kirtle, Yo San. I must dance away a wound. Afterwards I will think.

Be prepared for packing. We may leave Paris. It is time again for work.”

Stefan, walking listlessly toward his studio, found the streets filled

with crowds. Newsboys shrieked; men stood in groups gesticulating; there

were cries of “Vive la France!” and “A bas l'Allemagne!” Everywhere was

seething but suppressed excitement. As he passed a great hotel he found

the street, early as it was, blocked with departing cabs piled high with

baggage.

“War is declared,” he thought, but the knowledge conveyed nothing to his

senses. He crossed the Seine, and found himself in his own quarter. At

the corner of the rue des Trois Ermites a hand-organ, surrounded by

a cosmopolitan crowd of students, was shrilly grinding out the

Marseillaise. The students sang to it, cheering wildly.

“Who fights for France?” a voice yelled hoarsely, and among cheers a

score of hands went up.

“Who fights for France?” Stefan stood stock still, then hurried past the

crowd, and up the stairs to his attic.

There, in the midst of gaping drawers and fast emptying shelves, stood

Adolph in his shirt sleeves, methodically packing his possessions into

a hair trunk. He looked up as his friend entered; his mild face was

alight; tears of excitement stood in his eyes.

“Ah, my infant,” he exclaimed, “it has arrived! The Germans are across

the frontier. I go to fight for France.”

“Adolph!” cried Stefan, seizing and wringing his friend's hand. “Thank

God there's something great to be done in the world after all! I go with

you.”

“But your wife, Stefan?”

Stefan drew out Mary's letter. For the first time his eyes were wet.

“Listen,” he said, and translated the brief words.

Hearing them, the good Adolph sat down on his trunk, and quite frankly

cried. “Ah, quel dommage! quel dommage!” he exclaimed, over and over.

“So you see, mon cher, we go together,” said Stefan, and lifted his

Gladstone bag to a chair. As he fumbled among its forgotten contents, a

tiny box met his hand. He drew out the signet ring Mary had given him,

with the winged head.

“Ah, Mary,” he whispered with a half sob, “after all, you gave me

wings!” and he put the ring on. He was only twenty-seven.

* * * * *

Later in the day Stefan went to the bank and had Mary's draft endorsed

back to New York. He enclosed it in a letter to James Farraday, in which

he asked him to give it to his wife, with his love and blessing, and to

tell her that he was enlisting with Adolph Jensen in the Foreign Legion.

That night they both went to a vaudeville theatre. It was packed to the

doors--an opera star was to sing the Marseillaise. Stefan and Adolph

stood at the back. No one regarded the performance at all till the

singer appeared, clad in white, the French liberty cap upon her head,

a great tricolor draped in her arms. Then the house rose in a storm of

applause; every one in the vast audience was on his feet.

“'_Allons, enfants de la patrie_,'” began the singer in a magnificent

contralto, her eyes flashing. The house hung breathless.

“'_Aux armes, citoyens!_'” Her hands swept the audience. “'_Marchons!

Marchons!_'” She pointed at the crowd. Each man felt her fiery glance

pierce to him--France called--she was holding out her arms to her sons

to die for her--

“'_Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!_'”

The singer gathered the great flag to her heart. The tears rolled down

her cheeks; she kissed it with the passion of a mistress. The house

broke into wild cheers. Men fell upon each other's shoulders; women

sobbed. The singer was dumb, but the drums rolled on--they were calling,

calling. The folds of the flag dazzled Stefan's eyes. He burst into

tears.

* * * * *

The next morning Stefan Byrd and Adolph Jensen were enrolled in the

Foreign Legion of France.