Chapter XI: Part IV: Wings (2)

Mary sincerely enjoyed her sittings, which came as a welcome change in her even days. Gunther usually stayed to lunch, Constance joining them on one occasion, and Mrs. Farraday on another. Both these came to watch the work, Gunther, unlike Stefan, being oblivious of an audience; and once McEwan came, his sturdy form appearing insignificant beside the giant Norseman. Wallace hung about smoking a pipe for half an hour or more. He was at his most Scotch, appeared well pleased, and ejaculated “Aye, aye,” several times, nodding a ponderous head.

“Wallace, what are you so solemnly aye-ayeing about? Why so mysterious?” enquired Mary.

“I'm haeing a few thochts,” responded the Scot, his expression divided between an irritating smile and a kindly twinkle.

“Well, don't be annoying, and stay to lunch,” said Mary, dispensing even justice to both expressions.

Stefan, returning home one afternoon half way through the sittings, expressed a mild interest in the news of them, and, going out to the barn, unwrapped the wet cloths from the head.

“He's an artist,” said he; “this has power and beauty. Never sit to a second-rater, Mary, you've had the best now.” And he covered the head again with a craftsman's thoroughness.

Mary was sorry when the sittings came to an end. On the last day the sculptor brought two men with him, who made the return journey in the tonneau, each guarding a carefully swathed bust against the inequalities of the road. Gunther bowed low over her hand with a word of thanks at parting, and she watched his car out of sight regretfully.

V

The week's interlude over, Mary's days reverted to their monotonous tenor. As November drew to a close, she began to think of Christmas, remembering how happy her last had been, and wondering if she could summon enough courage for an attempt to engage Stefan's interest in some kind of celebration. She now admitted to herself that she was actively worried about her relations with him. He was quite agreeable to her when in the house, but she felt this was only because she made no demands on him. Let her reach out ever so little for his love, and he instantly became vague or restless. Their intercourse was friendly, but he appeared absolutely indifferent to her as a woman; she might have been a well-liked sister. Under the grueling strain of self-repression Mary was growing nervous, and the baby began to feel the effects. His weekly gains were smaller, and he had his first symptoms of indigestion.

She redoubled the care of her diet, and lengthened her daily walks, but he became fretful, and at last, early in December, she found on weighing him that he had made no gain for a week. Terrified, she telephoned for Dr. Hillyard, and received her at the door with a white face. It was a Sunday morning, and McEwan had just dropped in with some chrysanthemums from the Farradays' greenhouse. Finding Mary disturbed he had not remained, and was leaving the house as the doctor drove up.

Dr. Hillyard's first words were reassuring. There was absolutely nothing to fear in a week's failure to gain, she explained. “It always happens at some stage or other, and many babies don't gain for weeks.”

Still, the outcome of her visit was that Mary, with an aching heart, added a daily bottle to Elliston's régime. In a week the doctor came again, gave Mary a food tonic, and advised the introduction of a second bottle. Elliston immediately responded, palpably preferring his bottle feedings to the others. His fretfulness after these continued, he turned with increased eagerness to his bottle, and with tears of disappointment Mary yielded to his loudly voiced demands. By Christmas time he was weaned. His mother felt she could never forgive herself for failing him so soon, and a tinge of real resentment colored for the first time her attitude toward Stefan, whom she knew to be the indirect cause of her failure.

The somewhat abrupt deterioration of Mary's magnificent nervous system would have been unaccountable to Dr. Hillyard had it not been for a chance encounter with McEwan after her first visit. The Scotchman had hailed her in the lane, asking for a lift to a house beyond the village, where he had some small errand. During a flow of discursive remarks he elicited from the doctor, without her knowledge, her opinion that Mary was nervously run down, after which he rambled at some length about the value of art, allowing the doctor to pass his destination by a mile or more.

With profuse thanks for her kindness in turning back, he continued his ramblings, and she gathered the impression that he was a dull, inconsequential talker, that he considered young couples “kittle cattle,” that artists were always absorbed in their work, that females had a habit of needless worrying, and that commuting in winter was distracting to a man's labors. She only half listened to him, and dropped him with relief, wondering if he was an anti-suffragist. Some memory of his remarks must, however, have remained with her, for after her next visit to Mary she found herself thinking that Mr. McEwan was probably neither an anti-suffragist, nor dull.

A little before Christmas McEwan called on Constance, and found her immersed in preparations for a Suffrage bazaar and fête.

“I can't talk to any one,” she announced, receiving him in a chaos of boxes, banners, paper flowers, and stenographers, in the midst of which she appeared to be working with two voices and six hands. “Didn't the maid warn you off the premises?”

“She did, but I sang 'Take back the lime that thou gavest' in such honey tones that she complied,” said Mac.

“Just for that, you can give the fête a two-inch free ad in The Household Magazine,” Constance implacably replied.

He grinned. “I raise the ante. Three inches, at the risk of losing my job, for five minutes alone with you.”

“You lose your job!” scoffed Constance, leading the way into an empty room, and seating herself at attention, one eye on her watch. “Proceed--I am yours.”

Mac sat opposite her, and shot out an emphatic forefinger.

“The Berber girl's middle name is Mischief,” he began, plunging in medias res; “Byrd's is Variability; for the last five months the Mary lady's has been Mother. Am I right?”

Constance's bright eyes looked squarely at him.

“Wallace McEwan, you are,” she said.

His finger continued poised. “Very well, we are 'on,' and _our_ middle name is Efficiency, eh?”

“Yes,” Constance nodded doubtfully, “but--”

McEwan's hand slapped his knee. “Here's the scheme,” he went on rapidly. “Variable folk must have variety, either in place or people. If we don't want it to be people, we make it place, see? Is your country house closed yet?”

“No, I fancied I might go there to relax for a week after the fête.”

“A1 luck. You won't relax, you'll have a week's house-party, sleighing, skating, coasting, all that truck. The Byrds, Farraday (I'll persuade him he can leave the office), a couple of pretty skirts with no brains--me if you like. Get me?”

Constance gasped, her mind racing. “But Mary's baby?” she exclaimed, clutching at the central difficulty.

“You're the goods,” replied McEwan admiringly. “She couldn't shine as Queen of the Slide if she was tied to the offspring--granted. Now then.” He leant forward. “She's had to wean him--you didn't know that. Your dope is to talk up the house-party, tell her she owes it to herself to get a change, and make her leave the boy with a trained nurse. The Mary lady's no fool, she'll be on.”

Constance's eyes narrowed to slits, she fingered her beads, and nodded once, twice.

“More trouble,” she said, “but it's a go. Second week in January.”

He grasped her hand. “Votes for Women,” he beamed.

She looked at her watch. “Five minutes exactly. Three inches, Mr. McEwan!”

“Three inches!” he called from the door.

VI

Christmas was a blank period for Mary that year. Stefan came home on Christmas eve in a mood of somewhat forced conviviality, but Mary had had no heart for festive preparations. Stefan had failed her and she had failed her baby--these two ever present facts shadowed her world. She had bought presents for Lily and the baby, a pair of links for Stefan, books for Mrs. Farraday and Jamie, and trifles for Constance and Miss Mason, but the holly and mistletoe, the tree, the new frock and the Christmas fare which normally she would have planned with so much joy, were missing. Stefan's gift to her--a fur-lined coat--was so extravagant that she could derive no pleasure from it, and she had the impression that he had chosen it hurriedly, without much thought of what would best please her. From Constance she received a white sweater of very beautiful heavy silk, with a cap and scarf to match, but she thought bitterly that pretty things to wear were of little use to her now.

It was obvious that Stefan's conscience pricked him. He spent the morning hanging about her, and even played a little with his son, who now sat up, bounced, crowed with laughter, clutched every article within reach, and had two teeth. Mary's heart reached out achingly to Stefan, but he seemed to her a strange man. The contrast between this and their last Christmas smote her intolerably.

In the afternoon they walked over to the Farradays', where there was a tree for Jamie and a few friends, including the chauffeur's and gardener's children. Here Stefan prowled into the picture gallery, while Mary, surrounded by children, was in her element. Returning to the drawing room, Stefan watched her playing with them as he had watched her on the Lusitania fifteen months before. She was less radiant now, and her figure was fuller, but as she smiled and laughed with the children, her cheeks pink and her hair all a-glitter under the lights, she looked very lovely, he thought. Why did the sight of her no longer thrill him? Why did he enjoy more the society of Felicity Berber, whom he knew to be affected and egotistic, and suspected of being insincere, than that of this beautiful, golden woman of whose truth he could never conceive a doubt?

A feeling of deep sadness, of unutterable regret, swept through him. Better never to have married than to have outlived so soon the magic of romance. Which of them had lost the key? When Mary had furled her wings to brood over her nest he had thought it was she; now he was not so sure.

Walking home through the dark woods he stopped suddenly, and drew her to him.

“Mary, my Beautiful, I'm drifting, hold me close,” he whispered. Her breath caught, she clung to him, he felt her face wet with tears. No more words were spoken, but they walked on comforted, groping their way under the damp fingers of the trees. Stefan felt no passion, but his tenderness for his wife had reawakened. For her part, tears had thawed her bitterness, without washing it away.

The next morning Constance drove over.

“Children,” she said, hurrying in from the cold air, “what a delicious scene! I invite myself to lunch.”

Mary was playing with Elliston on a blanket by the fire, Stefan sketching them, the room full of sun and firelight. The two greeted her delightedly.

“Now,” she said, settling herself on the couch, “let me tell you why I came,” and she proceeded to unfold her plans for a house-party at Burlington. “You've never seen our winter sports, Mary, they're glorious, and you need a change from so much domesticity. As for you, Mr. Byrd, it will give you a chance to learn that America can be attractive even outside New York.”

Both the Byrds were looking interested, Stefan unreservedly, Mary with a pucker of doubt.

“Now, don't begin about Elliston,” exclaimed Constance, forestalling objections. “We've heaps of room, but it would spoil your fun to bring him. I want you to get a trained nurse for the week--finest thing in the world to take a holiday from maternity once in a while.” She turned to Stefan as a sure ally. “Don't you agree, Mr. Byrd?”

“Emphatically,” beamed he, seizing her hand and kissing it. “A glorious idea! Away with domesticity! A real breath of freedom, eh, Mary?”

Constance again forestalled difficulties.

“We are all going to travel up by night, ten of us, and Theodore is engaging a compartment car with rooms for every one, so there won't be any expense about that part of it, Mary, my dear. Does it seem too extravagant to ask you to get a trained nurse? I've set my heart on having you free to be the life of the party. All your admirers are coming, that gorgeous Gunther, my beloved James, and Wallace McEwan. I baited my hooks with you, so you simply _can't_ disappoint me!” she concluded triumphantly.

Stefan pricked up his ears. Here was Mary in a new guise; he had not thought of her for some time as having “admirers.” Yet he had always known Farraday for one; and certainly Gunther, who modeled her, and McEwan, who dogged her footsteps, could admire her no less than the editor. The thought that his wife was sought after, that he was probably envied by other men, warmed Stefan's heart pleasantly, just as Constance intended it should.

“It sounds fascinating, and I certainly think we must come,” Mary was saying, “though I don't know how I shall bring myself to part with Elliston,” and she hugged the baby close.

“You born Mother!” said Constance. “I adored my boys, but I was always enchanted to escape from them.” She laughed like a girl. “Now you grasp the inwardness of my Christmas present--it is a coasting outfit. Won't she look lovely in it, Mr. Byrd?”

“Glorious!” said Stefan, boyishly aglow; and “I don't believe two and two do make four, after all,” thought Constance.

All through luncheon they discussed the plan with animation, Constance enlisting Mary's help at the Suffrage Fête the first week in January in advance payment, as she said, for the house-party. “Why not get your nurse a few days earlier to break her in, and be free to give me as much time as possible?” she urged.

“Good idea, Mary,” Stefan chimed in. “I'll stay in town that week and lunch with you at the bazaar, and you could sleep a night or two at the studio.”

“We'll see,” said Mary, a little non-committal. She knew she should enjoy the Fête immensely, but somehow, she did not feel she could bring herself to sleep in the little studio, with Felicity the Nixie sneering down at her from one wall, and Felicity the Dancer challenging from the other.

But it was a much cheered couple that Constance left behind, and Stefan came home every afternoon during the week that remained till the opening of the bazaar.

Being in the city for this event, Mary, in addition to engaging a nurse, indulged in some rather extravagant shopping. She had made up her mind to look her best at Burlington, and though Mary was slow to move, when she did take action her methods were thorough. She realized with gratitude that Constance, whom she suspected of knowing more than she indicated, had given her a wonderful opportunity of renewing her appeal to her husband, and she was determined to use it to the full. Incapable--as are all women of her type--of coquetry, Mary yet knew the value of her beauty, and was too intelligent not to see that both it and she had been at a grave disadvantage of late. She understood dimly that she was confronted by one of the fundamental problems of marriage, the difficulty of making an equal success of love and motherhood. She could not put her husband permanently before her child, as Constance had done, and as she knew most Englishwomen did, but she meant to do it completely for this one week of holiday, at least.

Meanwhile, amidst the color and music of the great drill-hall where the suffragists held their yearly Fête, Mary, dispensing tea and cakes in a flower-garlanded tent, enjoyed herself with simple whole-heartedness. All Constance's waitresses were dressed as daffodils, and the high cap, representing the inverted cup of the flower, with the tight-sheathed yellow and green of the gown, was particularly becoming to Mary. She knew again the pleasure, which no one is too modest to enjoy, of being a center of admiration. Stefan dropped in once or twice, and waxed enthusiastic over Constance's arrangements and Mary's looks.

On one of these occasions Miss Berber suddenly appeared in the tent, dressed wonderfully in white panne, with a barbaric mottle of black and white civet-skins flung over one shoulder, and a tight-drawn cap of the fur, apparently held in place by the great claws of some feline mounted in heavy gold. She wore circles of fretted gold in her ears, and carried a tall ebony stick with a gold handle, Louis Quatorze fashion. From her huge civet muff a gold purse dangled. She looked at once more conventional and more dynamic than Mary had seen her, and her rich dress made the simple effects of the tent seem amateurish.

Neither Mary nor she attempted more than a formal salutation, but she discoursed languidly with Constance for some minutes. Stefan, who had been eating ice cream like a schoolboy with two pretty girls at the other side of the tent, came forward on seeing the new arrival, and after a good deal of undecided fidgeting, and a “See you later” to Mary, wandered off with Miss Berber and disappeared for the rest of the afternoon. In spite of her best efforts, Mary's spirits were completely dashed by this episode, but they rose again when Stefan met her at the Pennsylvania Station and traveled home with her. As they emerged from the speech-deadening roar of the tunnel he said casually, “Felicity Berber is an amusing creature, but she's a good deal of a bore at times.” Mary took his hand under the folds of their newspaper.

VII

On the evening of their departure Mary parted from her baby with a pang, but she knew him to be in the best of hands, and felt no anxiety as to his welfare. The nurse she had obtained was a friend of Miss McCullock's, and a most efficient and kindly young woman.

Their journey up to town reminded Mary of their first journey from Shadeham, so full of spirits and enthusiasm was Stefan. The whole party met at the Grand Central, and boarded the train amid laughter, introductions, and much gay talk. Constance scintillated. The solid Mr. Elliot was quite shaken out of his sobriety, McEwan's grin was at its broadest, Farraday's smile its pleasantest, and the three young women whom Constance had collected bubbled and shrilled merrily.

Only Gunther appeared untouched by the holiday atmosphere. He towered over the rest of the party calm and direct, disposing of porters and hand-baggage with an unruffled perfection of address. Mary, watching him, pulled Stefan's sleeve.

“Look,” she said, pointing to two long ribbons of narrow wood lashed to some other impedimenta of Gunther's. “Skis, Stefan, how thrilling! I've never seen them used.”

Stefan nodded. “I'd like to get a drawing of that chap in action. His lines are magnificent,” Mary had never been in a sleeping car before, and was fascinated to see the sloping ceilings of the state-rooms change like pantomime trick into beds under the deft handling of the porter. She liked the white coat of this autocrat of the road, and the smart, muslin trimmings of the colored maid. She and Stefan had the compartment next their host's; Farraday and McEwan shared one beyond; Gunther and his skis and Walter, the Elliot's younger son, completely filled the next; Mrs. Thayer, a cheerful young widow, and Miss Baxter and Miss Van Sittart, the two girls of the party, occupied the remaining three. The drawing room had been left empty to serve as a general overflow. To this high-balls, coffee, milk and sandwiches were borne by white-draped waiters from the buffet, and set upon a magically installed table. Mrs. Thayer, Constance, and the men fell upon the stronger beverages, while Mary and the girls divided the milk.

Under cover of the general chatter McEwan raised his glass to Constance.

“I take off my hat to you, Mrs. Elliot, for a stage manager,” he whispered, glancing at the other women. “A black-haired soubrette, a brown pony, and a redheaded slip; no rivals to the leading lady in this show!”

Their train reached Burlington in a flurry of snow, and they were bundled into big, two-seated sleighs for the drive out of the city.

Mary, wrapped in her fur-lined coat and covered with a huge bearskin, watched with interest the tidy, dignified little town speed by. Even Stefan was willing to admit it had some claims to the picturesque, but a little way beyond, when they came to the open country, he gave almost a whoop of satisfaction. Before them stretched tumbled hills, converging on an icebound lake. Their snowy sides glittered pink in the sun and purple in the shadows; they reared their frosted crests as if in welcome of the morning; behind them the sky gleamed opalescent. Stefan leant forward in the speeding sleigh as if to urge it with the sway of his body, the frosty air stung his nostrils, the breath of the horses trailed like smoke, the road seemed leading up to the threshold of the world. The speed of their cold flight was in tune with the frozen dance of the hills--Stefan whooped again, intoxicated, the others laughed back at him and cheered, Mary's face glowed with delight, they were like children in their joy.

The Elliot house lay in a high fold of the hills, overlooking the lake, and almost out of sight of other buildings. Within, all was spacious warmth and the crackle of great wood fires; on every side the icy view, seen through wide windows, contrasted with the glowing colors of the rooms. A steaming breakfast waited to fortify the hastily drunk coffee of the train. After it, when the Byrds found themselves in their cozy bedroom with its old New England furniture and blue-tiled bathroom, Stefan, waltzing round the room, fairly hugged Mary in excited glee.

“What fun, Beautiful, what a lovely place, what air, what snow!” She laughed with him, her own heart bounding with unwonted excitement.

The six-day party was a marked success throughout. Even the two young girls were satisfied, for Constance contrived the appearance of several stalwart youths of the neighborhood to help her son leaven the group of older men. Mrs. Thayer flirted pleasantly and wittily with whoever chanced to be at hand, Mr. Elliot hobnobbed with Farraday and made touchingly laborious efforts to be frivolous, and McEwan kept the household laughing at his gambols, heavy as those of a St. Bernard pup.

Constance darted from group to group like a purposeful humming-bird, but did not lack the supreme gift of a hostess--that of leaving her guests reasonably alone. All the women were inclined to hover about Byrd, who, with Gunther, represented the most attractive male element. As the women were sufficiently pretty and intelligent, Stefan enjoyed their notice, but Gunther stalked away from them like a great hound surrounded by lap-dogs. He was invariably courteous to his hostess, but had eyes only for Mary. Never seeming to follow her, and rarely talking to her alone, he was yet always to be found within a few yards of the spot she happened to occupy. Farraday would watch her from another room, or talk with her in his slow, kind way, and Wallace always drew her into his absurd games or his sessions at the piano. But Gunther neither watched nor chattered, he simply _was_, seeming to draw a silent and complete satisfaction from her nearness. Of the men he took only cursory notice, talking sometimes with Stefan on art, or with Farraday on life, but never seeking their society.

Indoors Gunther seemed negative, outdoors he became godlike. The Elliots possessed a little Norwegian sleigh they had brought from Europe. It was swan-shaped, stood on low wooden runners, and was brightly painted in the Norse manner. This Gunther found in the stable, and, promptly harnessing to it the fastest horse, drove round to the house. Striding into the hall, where the party was discussing plans for the day, he planted himself before Mary, and invited her to drive. The others, looking out of the window, exclaimed with pleasure at the pretty little sleigh, and Mary gladly threw on her cap and coat. Gunther tucked her in and started without a word. They were a mile from the house before he broke silence.

“This sleigh comes from my country, Mrs. Byrd; I wish I could drive you there in it.”

He did not speak again, and Mary was glad to enjoy the exhilarating air in silence. By several roads they had gradually climbed a hillside. Now from below they could see the house at some distance to their right, and another road running in one long slope almost straight to it from where they sat. Gunther suddenly stood up in the sleigh, braced his feet, and wrapped a rein round each arm.

“Now we will drive,” said he. They started, they gathered speed, they flew, the horse threw himself into a stretching gallop, the sleigh rocked, it leapt like a dashing wave. Gunther half crouched, swaying with it. The horse raced, his flanks stretched to the snow. Mary clung to her seat breathless and tense with excitement--she looked up at the driver. His blue eyes blazed, his lips smiled above a tight-set jaw, he looked down, and meeting her eyes laughed triumphantly. Expanding his great chest he uttered a wild, exultant cry--they seemed to be rushing off the world's rim. She could see nothing but the blinding fume of the upflung snow. She, too, wanted to cry aloud. Then their pace slackened, she could see the road, black trees, a wall, a house. They drove into the courtyard and stopped.

The hall door was flung open. They were met by a group of faces excited and alarmed. Gunther, his eyes still blazing, helped her down and, throwing the reins to a waiting stable-boy, strode silently past the guests and up to his room.

“Good heavens! you might have been killed,” fussed Mr. Elliot. Farraday looked pale, the women laughed excitedly.

“Mary,” cried Stefan, his face flashing with eagerness, “you weren't frightened, were you?”

She shook her head, still breathless.

“It was glorious, you were like storm gods. I've never seen anything so inspiring.” And he embraced her before them all.

After this episode Gunther resumed his impassive manner, nor did any other of their outdoor sports draw from him the strange, exultant look he had given Mary in the sleigh. But his feats on the toboggan slide and with his skis were sufficiently daring to supply the party with liberal thrills. His obvious skill gained him the captaincy of the toboggan, but after his exhibition of driving, most of the women hesitated at first to form one of his crew. Mary, however, who was quite fearless and fascinated by this new sport, dashed down with him and the other men again and again, and was, with her white wraps and brilliant pink cheeks, as McEwan had prophesied, “the queen of the slide.”

Stefan was intoxicated by the tobogganing, and though he was only less new to it than Mary he soon became expert. But on his skis the great Norwegian was alone, the whole party turning out to watch whenever he strapped them to his feet. His daring leaps were, Stefan said, the nearest thing to flying he had ever seen. “For I don't count aeroplanes--they are mere machinery.”

“Ah, if the lake were frozen enough for ice-boating,” replied Gunther, “I could show you something nearer still. But they tell me there is little chance till February for more than in-shore skating.”

Only in this last named sport had Gunther a rival, Stefan making up in grace what he lacked in practice. Beside his, the Norwegian's skating was powerful, but too unbending.

Mary, owing to the open English winters, had had less experience than any one there, but she was so much more graceful and athletic than the other women that she soon outstripped them. She skated almost entirely with Stefan, only once with Gunther, who, since his strange look in the sleigh, a little troubled her. On that one occasion he tore round the clear ice at breakneck speed, halting her dramatically, by sheer weight, a few inches from the bank, where she arrived breathless and thrilled.

Seeing her thus at her best, happy and admired, and full of vigorous life, Stefan found himself almost as much in love as in the early weeks of their marriage.

“You are more beautiful than ever, Mary,” he exclaimed; “there is an added life and strength in you; you are triumphant.”

It was a joy again to feel her in his arms, to know that they were each other's. After his troubled flights he came back to her love with a feeling of deep spiritual peace. The night, when he could be alone with her, became the happy climax of the day.

The amusements of the week ended in an impromptu dance which Constance arranged by a morning at the telephone. For this, Mary donned her main extravagance, a dress of rainbow colored silk gauze, cut short to the ankle, and worn with pale pink slippers. She had found it “marked down” at a Fifth Avenue house, and had been told it was a model dubbed “Aurora.” With it she wore her mother's pearl ornaments. Stefan was entranced by the result, and Constance almost wept with satisfaction.

“Oh, Mary Byrd,” she cried, hugging her daintily to avoid crushing the frock; “you are the best thing that has happened in my family since my mother-in-law quit living with me.”

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.