Chapter XII: Part IV: Wings (3)

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.”