Chapter III: Part II: Mated (1)

I

Mary found Stefan an ideal lover. Their marriage, entered into with such, headlong adventurousness, seemed to unfold daily into more perfect bloom. The difficulties of his temperament, which had been thrown into sharp relief by the crowded life of shipboard, smoothed themselves away at the touch of happiness and peace. No woman, Mary realized, could wish for a fuller cup of joy than Stefan offered her in these first days of their mating. She was amazed at herself, at the suddenness with which love had transmuted her, at the ease with which she adjusted herself to this new world. She found it difficult to remember what kind of life she had led before her marriage--hardly could she believe that she had ever lived at all.

As for Stefan, he wasted no moments in backward glances. He neither remembered the past nor questioned the future, but immersed himself utterly in his present joy with an abandonment he had never experienced save in painting. Questioned, he would have scoffed at the idea that life for him could ever hold more than his work, and Mary.

Thus absorbed, Stefan would have allowed the days to slip into weeks uncounted. But on the ninth day Mary, incapable of a wholly carefree attitude, reminded him that they had planned only a week of holiday.

“Let's stay a month,” he replied promptly.

But Mary had been questioning her landlord about New York.

“It appears,” she explained, “that every one moves on the first of October, and that if one hasn't found a studio by then, it is almost impossible to get one. He says he has heard all the artists live round about Washington Square, but that even there rents are fearfully high. It's at the foot of Fifth Avenue, he says, which sounds very fashionable to me, but he explains it is too far 'down town.'”

“Yes, Fifth Avenue is the great street, I understand,” said Stefan, “and my dealer's address is on Fourth, so he's in a very good neighborhood. I don't know that I should like Washington Square--it sounds so patriotic.”

“Fanatic!” laughed Mary. “Well, whether we go there or not, it's evident we must get back before October the first, and it's now September the twenty-fourth.”

“Angel, don't let's be mathematical,” he replied, pinching the lobe of her ear, which he had proclaimed to be entrancingly pretty. “I can't add; tell me the day we have to leave, and on that day we will go.”

“Three days from now, then,” and she sighed.

“Oh, no! Not only three more days of heaven, Mary?”

“It will hurt dreadfully to leave,” she agreed, “but,” and she nestled to him, “it won't be any less heaven there, will it, dearest?”

This spurred him to reassurance. “Of course not,” he responded, quickly summoning new possibilities of delight. “Imagine it, you haven't even seen my pictures yet.” They had left them, rolled, at Miss Mason's. “And I want to paint you--really paint you--not just silly little sketches and heads, but a big thing that I can only do in a studio. Oh, darling, think of a studio with you to sit to me! How I shall work!” His imagination was fired; instantly he was ready to pack and leave.

But they had their three days more, in the golden light of the Indian summer. Three more swims, in which Stefan could barely join for joy of watching her long lines cutting the water in her close English bathing dress. Three more evening walks along the shimmering sands. Three more nights in their moon-haunted room within sound of the slow splash of the waves. And, poignant with the sadness of a nearing change, these days were to Mary the most exquisite of all.

Their journey to the city, on the little, gritty, perpetually stopping train was made jocund by the lively anticipations of Stefan, who was in a mood of high confidence.

They had decided from the first to try their fortunes in New York that winter; not to return to Paris till they had established a sure market for Stefan's work. He had halcyon plans. Masterpieces were to be painted under the inspiration of Mary's presence. His success in the Beaux Arts would be an Open Sesame to the dealers, and they would at once become prosperous,--for he had the exaggerated continental idea of American prices. In the spring they would return to Paris, so that Mary should see it first at its most beautiful. There they would have a studio, making it their center, but they would also travel.

“Spain, Italy, Greece, Mary--we will see all the world's masterpieces together,” he jubilated. “You shall be my wander-bride.” And he sang her little snatches of gay song, in French and Italian, thrumming an imaginary guitar or making castanets of his fingers.

“I will paint you on the Acropolis, Mary, a new Pallas to guard the Parthenon.” His imagination leapt from vista to vista of the future, each opening to new delights. Mary's followed, lured, dazzled, a little hesitant. Her own visions, unformulated though they were, seemed of somewhat different stuff, but she saw he could not conceive them other than his, and yielded her doubts happily.

At the Pennsylvania Station they took a taxicab, telling the driver they wanted a hotel near Washington Square. The amount registered on the meter gave Mary an apprehensive chill, but Stefan paid it carelessly. A moment later he was in raptures, for, quite unexpectedly, they found themselves in a French hotel.

“What wonderful luck--what a good omen!” he cried. “Mary, it's almost like Paris!” and he broke into rapid gesticulating talk with the desk clerk. Soon they were installed in a bright little room with French prints on the walls, a gay old-fashioned wall paper and patterned curtains. Stefan assured her it was extraordinarily cheap for New York. While she freshened her face and hair he dashed downstairs, ignoring the elevator--which seemed to exist there only as an American afterthought--in search of a packet of French cigarettes. Finding them, he was completely in his element, and leant over the desk puffing luxuriously, to engage the clerk in further talk. From him he obtained advice as to the possibilities of the neighborhood in respect of studios, and armed with this, bounded up the stairs again to Mary. Presently, fortified by a pot of tea and delicious French rolls, they sallied out on their quest.

That afternoon they discovered two vacant studios. One was on a top floor on Washington Square South, a big room with bathroom and kitchenette attached and a small bedroom opening into it. The other was an attic just off the Square. It had water, but no bathroom, was heated only by an open fire, and consisted of one large room with sufficient light, and a large closet in which was a single pane of glass high up. The studio contained an abandoned model throne, the closet a gas ring and a sink. The rent of the first apartment was sixty dollars a month; of the second, twenty-five. Both were approached by a dark staircase, but in one case there was a carpet, in the other the stairs were bare, dirty, and creaking, while from depths below was wafted an unmistakable odor of onions and cats.

Mary, whose father's rambling sunny house in Lindum with its Elizabethan paneling and carvings had been considered dear at ninety pounds a year, was staggered at the price of these mean garrets, the better of which she felt to be quite beyond their reach. Even Stefan was a little dashed, but was confident that after his interview with Adolph's brother sixty dollars would appear less formidable.

“You should have seen my attic in Paris, Mary--absolutely falling to pieces--but then I didn't mind, not having a goddess to house,” and he pressed her arm. “For you there should be something spacious and bright enough to be a fitting background.” He glanced up a little ruefully at the squalid house they had just left.

But she was quick to reassure him, her courage mounting to sustain his. “We could manage perfectly well in the smaller place for a time, dearest, and how lucky we don't have to take a lease, as we should in England.” Her mind jumped to perceive any practical advantage. Already, mentally, she was arranging furniture in the cheaper place, planning for a screen, a tin tub, painting the dingy woodwork. They asked for the refusal of both studios till the next day, and for that evening left matters suspended.

In the morning, Stefan, retrieving his canvases from Miss Mason's flat, sought out the dealer, Jensen. Walking from Fifth Avenue, he was surprised at the cheap appearance of the houses on Fourth, only one block away. He had expected to find Adolph's brother in such a great stone building as those he had just passed, with their show windows empty save for one piece of tapestry or sculpture, or a fine painting brilliant against its background of dull velvet. Instead, the number on Fourth Avenue proved a tumbledown house of two stories, with tattered awnings flapping above its shop-window, which was almost too grimy to disclose the wares within. These were a jumble of bric-a-brac, old furniture of doubtful value, stained prints, and one or two blackened oil paintings in tarnished frames. With ominous misgivings, Stefan entered the half-opened door. The place was a confused medley of the flotsam and jetsam of dwelling houses, and appeared to him much more like a pawnbroker's than the business place of an art dealer. From its dusty shadows a stooped figure emerged, gray-haired and spectacled, which waited for Stefan to speak with an air of patient humbleness.

“This isn't Mr. Jensen's, is it?” Stefan asked, feeling he had mistaken the number.

“My name is Jensen. What can I do for you?” replied the man in a toneless voice.

“You are Adolph's brother?” incredulously.

At the name the gray face flushed pathetically. Jensen came forward, pressing his hands together, and peered into Stefan's face.

“Yes, I am,” he answered, “and you are Mr. Byrd that he wrote to me about. I'd hoped you weren't coming, after all. Well,” and he waved his hand, “you see how it is.”

Stefan was completely dismayed. “Why,” he stammered, “I thought you were so successful--”

“I'm sorry.” Jensen dropped his eyes, picking nervously at his coat. “You see, I am the eldest brother; a man does not like to admit failure. I may be sold up any time now. I wanted Adolph not to guess, so I--wrote--him--differently.” He flushed painfully again. Stefan was silent, too taken aback for speech.

“I tell you, Mr. Byrd,” Jensen stammered on, striking his hands together impotently, “for all its wealth, this is a city of dead hopes. It's been a long fight, but it's over now.... Yes, you are Adolph's friend, and I can't so much as buy a sketch from you. It's quite, quite over.” And suddenly he sank his head in his hands, while Stefan stood, infinitely embarrassed, clutching his roll of canvases. After a moment Jensen, mastering himself, lifted his head. His lined, prematurely old face showed an expression at once pleading and dignified.

“I didn't dream what I wrote would do any harm, Mr. Byrd, but now of course you will have to explain to Adolph--?”

Stefan, moved to sympathy, held out his hand.

“Look here, Jensen, you've put me in an awful hole, worse than you know. But why should I say anything? Let Adolph think we're both millionaires,” and he grinned ruefully.

Jensen straightened and took the proffered hand in one that trembled. “Thank you,” he said, and his eyes glistened. “I'm grateful. If there were only something I could do--”

“Well, give me the names of some dealers,” said Stefan, to whom scenes were exquisitely embarrassing, anxious to be gone.

Jensen wrote several names on a smudged half sheet of paper. “These are the best. Try them. My introduction wouldn't help, I'm afraid,” bitterly.

On that Stefan left him, hurrying with relief from the musty atmosphere of failure into the busy street. Though half dazed by the sudden subsidence of his plans, unable to face as yet the possible consequences, he had his pictures, and the names of the real dealers; confidence still buoyed him.

II

Three hours later Mary, anxiously waiting, heard Stefan's step approach their bedroom door. Instantly her heart dropped like lead. She did not need his voice to tell her what those dragging feet announced. She sprang to the door and had her arms round his neck before he could speak. She took the heavy roll of canvases from him and half pushed him into the room's one comfortable arm-chair. Kneeling beside him, she pressed her cheek to his, stroking back his heat-damped hair. “Darling,” she said, “you are tired to death. Don't tell me about your day till you've rested a little.”

He closed his eyes, leaning back. He looked exhausted; every line of his face drooped. In spite of his tan, it was pale, with hollows under the eyes. It was extraordinary that a few hours should make such a change, she thought, and held him close, comfortingly.

He did not speak for a long time, but at last, “Mary,” he said, in a flat voice, “I've had a complete failure. Nobody wants my things. This is what I've let you in for.” His tone had the indifferent quality of extreme fatigue, but Mary was not deceived. She knew that his whole being craved reassurance, rehabilitation in its own eyes.

“Why, you old foolish darling, you're too tired to know what you're talking about,” she cried, kissing him. “Wait till you've had something to eat.” She rang the bell--four times for the waiter, as the card over it instructed her. “Failure indeed!” she went on, clearing a small table, “there's no such word! One doesn't grow rich in a day, you know.” She moved silently and quickly about, hung up his hat, stood the canvases in a corner, ordered coffee, rolls and eggs, and finally unlaced Stefan's shoes in spite of his rather horrified if feeble protest.

Not until she had watched him drink two cups of coffee and devour the food--she guessed he had had no lunch--did she allow him to talk, first lighting his cigarette and finding a place for herself on the arm of his chair. By this time Stefan's extreme lassitude, and with it his despair, had vanished. He brightened perceptibly. “You wonder,” he exclaimed, catching her hand and kissing it, “now I can tell you about it.” With his arm about her he described all his experiences, the fiasco of the Jensen affair and his subsequent interviews with Fifth Avenue dealers. “They are all Jews, Mary. Some are decent enough fellows, I suppose, though I hate the Israelites!” (“Silly boy!” she interposed.) “Others are horrors. None of them want the work of an American. Old masters, or well known foreigners, they say. I explained my success at the Beaux Arts. Two of them had seen my name in the Paris papers, but said it would mean nothing to their clients. Hopeless Philistines, all of them! I do believe I should have had a better chance if I'd called myself Austrian, instead of American, and I only revived my American citizenship because I thought it would be an asset!” He laughed, ironically. “They advised me to have a one-man show, late in the winter, so as to get publicity.”

“So we will then,” interposed Mary confidently.

“Good Lord, child,” he exclaimed, half irritably, “you don't suppose I could have a gallery for nothing, do you? God knows what it would cost. Besides, I haven't enough pictures--and think of the frames!” He sat up, fretfully.

She saw his nerves were on edge, and quickly offered a diversion. “Stefan,” she cried, jumping to her feet and throwing her arms back with a gesture the grace of which did not escape him even in his impatient mood, “I haven't even seen the pictures yet, you know, and can't wait any longer. Let me look at them now, and then I'll tell you just how idiotic those dealers were!” and she gave her bell-like laugh. “I'll undo them.” Her fingers were busy at the knots.

“I hate the sight of that roll,” said Stefan, frowning. “Still--” and he jumped up, “I do immensely want you to see them. I know _you'll_ understand them.” Suddenly he was all eagerness again. He took the canvases from her, undid them and, casting aside the smaller ones, spread the two largest against the wall, propping their corners adroitly with chairs, an umbrella, and a walking stick. “Don't look yet,” he called meanwhile. “Close your eyes.” He moved with agile speed, instinctively finding the best light and thrusting back the furniture to secure a clearer view. “There!” he cried. “Wait a minute--stand here. _Now_ look!” triumphantly.

Mary opened her eyes. “Why, Stefan, they're wonderful!” she exclaimed. But even as she spoke, and amidst her sincere admiration, her heart, very slightly, sank. She knew enough of painting to see that here was genius. The two fantasies, one representing the spirits of a wind-storm, the other a mermaid fleeing a merman's grasp, were brilliant in color, line and conception. They were things of beauty, but it was a beauty strange, menacing, subhuman. The figures that tore through the clouds urged on the storm with a wicked and abandoned glee. The face of the merman almost frightened her; it was repellent in its likeness at once to a fish and a man. The mermaid's face was less inhuman, but it was stricken with a horrid terror. She was swimming straight out of the picture as if to fling herself, shrieking, into the safety of the spectator's arms. The pictures were imaginative, powerful, arresting, but they were not pleasing. Few people, she felt, would care to live with them. After a long scrutiny she turned to her husband, at once glorying in the strength of his talent and troubled by its quality.

“You are a genius, Stefan,” she said.

“You really like them?” he asked eagerly.

“I think they are wonderful!” He was satisfied, for it was her heart, not her voice, that held a reservation.

Stefan showed her the smaller canvases, some unfinished. Most were of nymphs and winged elves, but there were three landscapes. One of these, a stream reflecting a high spring sky between banks of young meadow grass, showed a little faun skipping merrily in the distance. The atmosphere was indescribably light-hearted. Mary smiled as she looked at it. The other two were empty of figures; they were delicately graceful and alluring, but there was something lacking in them---what, she could not tell. She liked best a sketch of a baby boy, lost amid trees, behind which wood-nymphs and fauns peeped at him, roguish and inquisitive. The boy was seated on the ground, fat and solemn, with round, tear-wet eyes. He was so lonely that Mary wanted to hug him; instead, she kissed Stefan.

“What a duck of a baby, dearest!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, he was a nice kid--belonged to my concierge,” he answered carelessly. “The picture is sentimental, though. This is better,” and he pointed to another mermaid study.

“Yes, it's splendid,” she answered, instinctively suppressing a sigh. She began to realize a little what a strange being she had married. With an impulsive need of protection she held him close, hiding her face in his neck. The reality of his arms reassured her.

That day they decided, at Mary's urging, to take the smaller studio at once, abandoning the extravagance of hotel life. In practical manners she was already assuming a leadership which he was glad to follow. She suggested that in the morning he should take his smaller canvases, and try some of the less important dealers, while she made an expedition in search of necessary furniture. To this he eagerly agreed.

“It seems horrible to let you do it alone, but it would be sacrilegious to discuss the price of saucepans with a goddess,” he explained. “Are you sure you can face the tedium?”

“Why, I shall love it!” she cried, astonished at such an expression.

He regarded her whimsically. “Genius of efficiency, then I shall leave it to you. Such things appal me. In Paris, my garret was furnished only with pictures. I inherited the bed from the last occupant, and I think Adolph insisted on finding a pillow and a frying-pan. He used to come up and cook for us both sometimes, when he thought I had been eating too often at restaurants. He approved of economy, did Adolph.” Stefan was lounging on the bed, with his perpetual cigarette.

“He must be a dear,” said Mary. She had begun to make a shopping list. “Tell me, absurd creature, what you really need in the studio. There is a model throne, you will remember.”

“Oh, I'll get my own easel and stool,” he replied quickly. “There's nothing else, except of course a table for my paints. A good solid one,” he added with emphasis. “I'll tell you what,” and he sat up. “I go out early to-morrow on my dealer hunt. I force myself to stay out until late afternoon. When I return, behold! The goddess has waved her hand, and invisible minions--” he circled the air with his cigarette--“have transported her temple across the square. There she sits enthroned, waiting for her acolyte. How will that do?” He turned his radiant smile on her.

“Splendid,” she answered, amused. “I only hope the goddess won't get chipped in the passage.”

She thought of the dusty studio, of brooms and scrubbing brushes, but she was already wise enough in wife-lore not to mention them. Mary came of a race whose women had always served their men. It did not seem strange to her, as it might have to an American, that the whole labor of their installation should devolve on her.

With her back turned to him, she counted over their resources, calculating what would be available when their hotel bill was paid. Except for a dollar or two, Stefan had turned his small hoard over to her. “It's all yours anyway, dearest,” he had said, “and I don't want to spend a cent till I have made something.” They had spent very little so far; she was relieved to realize that the five hundred dollars remained almost intact. While Stefan continued to smoke luxuriously on the bed, she jotted down figures, apportioning one hundred and fifty dollars for six months' rent, and trying to calculate a weekly basis for their living expenses. She knew that they were both equally ignorant of prices in New York, and determined to call in the assistance of Miss Mason.

“Stefan,” she said, taking up the telephone, “I'm going to summon a minion.” She explained to Miss Mason over the wire. “We are starting housekeeping to-morrow, and I know absolutely nothing about where to shop, or what things ought to cost. Would it be making too great demands on your kindness if I asked you to meet me here to-morrow morning and join me in a shopping expedition?”

The request, delivered in her civil English voice, enchanted Miss Mason, who had to obtain all her romance vicariously. “I should just love to!” she exclaimed, and it was arranged.

Mary then telephoned that they would take the studio--a technicality which she knew Stefan had entirely forgotten--and notified the hotel office that their room would be given up next morning.

“O thou above rubies and precious pearls!” chanted Stefan from the bed.

After dinner they sat in Washington Square. Their marriage moon was waning, but still shone high and bright. Under her the trees appeared etherealized, and her light mingled in magic contest with the white beams of the arc lamps near the arch. Above each of these, a myriad tiny moths fluttered their desirous wings. Under the trees Italian couples wandered, the men with dark amorous glances, the girls laughing, their necks gay with colored shawls. Brightly ribboned children, black-haired, played about the benches where their mothers gossiped. There was enchantment in the tired but cooling air.

Stefan was enthusiastic. “Look at the types, Mary! The whole place is utterly foreign, full of ardor and color. I have cursed America without cause--here I can feel at home.” To her it was all alien, but her heart responded to his happiness.

On the bench next them sat a group of Italian women. From this a tiny boy detached himself, plump and serious, and, urged by curiosity, gradually approached Mary, his velvet eyes fixed on her face. She lifted him, resistless, to her knee, and he sat there contentedly, sucking a colored stick of candy.

“Look, Stefan!” she cried; “isn't he a lamb?”

Stefan cast a critical glance at the baby. “He's paintable, but horribly sticky,” he said. “Let's move on before he begins to yell. I want to see the effect from the roadway of these shifting groups under the trees. It might be worth doing, don't you think?” and he stood up.

His manner slightly rebuffed Mary, who would gladly have nursed the little boy longer. However, she gently lowered him and, rising, moved off in silence with Stefan, who was ignorant of any offense. The rest of their outing passed sweetly enough, as they wandered, arm in arm, about the square.

III

The next morning Stefan started immediately after his premier déjeuner of rolls and coffee in quest of the less important dealers, taking with him only his smaller canvases. “I'll stay away till five o'clock, not a minute longer,” he admonished. Mary, still seated in the dining-room over her English bacon and eggs--she had smilingly declined to adopt his French method of breakfasting--glowed acquiescence, and offered him a parting suggestion.

“Be sure to show them the baby in the wood.”

“Why that one?” he questioned. “You admit it isn't the best.”

“Perhaps, but neither are they the best connoisseurs. You'll see.” She nodded wisely at him.

“The oracle has spoken--I will obey,” he called from the door, kissing his fingers to her. She ventured an answering gesture, knowing the room empty save for waiters. She was almost as unselfconscious as he, but had her nation's shrinking from any public expression of emotion.

Hardly had he gone when the faithful Miss Mason arrived, her mild eyes almost youthful with enthusiasm. Prom a black satin reticule of dimensions beyond all proportion to her meager self she drew a list of names on which she discoursed volubly while Mary finished her breakfast.

“You'll get most everything at this first place,” she said. “It's pretty near the biggest department store in the city, and only two blocks from here--ain't that convenient? You can deal there right along for everything in the way of dry goods.”

Mary had no conception of what either a department store or dry goods might be, but determined not to confound her mentor by a display of such ignorance.

“Seemed to me, though, you might get some things second hand, so I got a list of likely places from my sister, who's lived in New York longer'n I have. I thought mebbe--” her tone was tactful--“you didn't want to waste your money any?”

Mary was impressed again, as she had been before her wedding, by the natural good manners of this simple and half educated woman. “Why is it,” she wondered to herself, “that one would not dream of knowing people of her class at home, but rather likes them here?” She did not realize as yet that for Miss Mason no classes existed, and that consequently she was as much at ease with Mary, whose mother had been “county,” as she would be with her own colored “help.”

“You guessed quite rightly, Miss Mason,” Mary smiled. “I want to spend as little as possible, and shall depend on you to prevent my making mistakes.”

“I reckon I know all there is t' know 'bout economy,” nodded Miss Mason, and, as if by way of illustration, drew from her bag a pair of cotton gloves, for which she exchanged her kid ones, rolling these carefully away. “They get real mussed shopping,” she explained.

Within half an hour, Mary realized that she would have been lost indeed without her guide. First they inspected the studio. Mary had had a vague idea of cleaning it herself, but Miss Mason demanded to see the janitress, and ascended, after a ten minutes' emersion in the noisome gloom of the basement, in high satisfaction. “She's a dago,” she reported, “but not so dirty as some, and looks a husky worker. It's her business to clean the flats for new tenants, but I promised her fifty cents to get the place done by noon, windows and all. She seemed real pleased. She says her husband will carry your coal up from the cellar for a quarter a week; I guess it will be worth it to you. You don't want to give the money to him though,” she admonished, “the woman runs everything. I shouldn't calc'late,” she sniffed, “he does more'n a couple of real days' work a month. They mostly don't.”

So the first problem was solved, and it was the same with all the rest. Many dollars did Miss Mason save the Byrds that day. Mary would have bought a bedstead and screened it, but her companion pointed out the extravagance and inconvenience of such a course, and initiated her forthwith into the main secret of New York's apartment life.

“You'll want your divan new,” she said, and led her in the great department store to a hideous object of gilded iron which opened into a double bed, and closed into a divan. At first Mary rejected this Janus-faced machine unequivocally, but became a convert when Miss Mason showed her how cretonne (she pronounced it “_cree_ton”) or rugs would soften its nakedness to dignity, and how bed-clothes and pillows were swallowed in its maw by day to be released when the studio became a sleeping room at night.

These trappings they purchased at first hand, and obliging salesmen promised Miss Mason with their lips, but Mary with their eyes, that they should go out on the noon delivery. For other things, however, the two searched the second-hand stores which stand in that district like logs in a stream, staying abandoned particles of the city's ever moving current. Here they bought a high, roomy chest of drawers of painted pine, a Morris chair, three single chairs, and a sturdy folding table in cherry, quite old, which Mary felt to be a “find,” and which she destined for Stefan's paints. Miss Mason recommended a “rocker,” and Mary, who had had visions of stuffed English easy chairs, acquiesced on finding in the rocker and Morris types the only available combinations of cheapness and comfort. A second smaller table of good design, two brass candlesticks, and a little looking-glass in faded greenish gilt, rejoiced Mary's heart, without unreasonably lightening her pocket. During these purchases Miss Mason's authority paled, but she reasserted herself on the question of iceboxes. One dealer's showroom was half full of them, and Miss Mason pounced on a small one, little used, marked six dollars. “That's real cheap--you couldn't do better--it's a good make, too.” Mary had never seen an ice-box in her life, and said so, striking Miss Mason almost dumb.

“I'm sure we shouldn't need such a thing,” she demurred.

Recovering speech, Miss Mason launched into the creed of the ice-box--its ubiquity, values and economies. Mary understood she was receiving her second initiation into flat life, and mentally bracketed this new cult with that of the divan.

“All right, Miss Mason. In Rome, et cetera,” she capitulated, and paid for the ice-box.

Thanks to her friend, their shopping had been so expeditious that the day was still young. Mary was fired by the determination to have some sort of nest for her tired and probably disheartened husband to return to that evening, and Miss Mason entered whole-heartedly into the scheme. The transportation of their scattered purchases was the main difficulty, but it yielded to the little spinster's inspiration. A list of their performances between noon and five o'clock would read like the description of a Presidential candidate's day. They dashed back to the studio and reassured themselves as to the labors of the janitress. Miss Mason unearthed the lurking husband, and demanded of him a friend and a hand-cart. These she galvanized him into producing on the spot, and sent the pair off armed with a list of goods to be retrieved. In the midst of this maneuver the department store's great van faithfully disgorged their bed and bedding. Hardly waiting to see these deposited, the two hurried out in quest of sandwiches and milk.

“I guess we're the lightning home-makers, all right,” was Miss Mason's comment as they lunched.

Returning to the department store they bought and brought away with them a kettle, a china teapot (“Fifteen cents in the basement,” Miss Mason instructed), three cups and saucers, six plates, a tin of floor-polish and a few knives, forks, and spoons. Meanwhile they had telephoned the hotel to send over the baggage. When the street car dropped them near the studio they found the two Italians seated on the steps, the furniture and baggage in the room, and Mrs. Corriani wiping her last window pane. “I shall want your husband again for this floor,” commanded the indefatigable Miss Mason, opening her tin of polish, “and his friend for errands.” They fell upon their task.

An hour later the spinster dropped into the rocking chair. “Well, we've done it,” she said, “and I don't mind telling you I'm tuckered out.”

Mary's voice answered from the sink, where she was sluicing her face and arms.

“You've been a marvel--the whole thing has been Napoleonic--and I simply don't know how to thank you.” She appeared at the door of the closet, which was to serve as kitchenette and bathroom, drying her hands.

“My, your face is like a rose! _You_ don't look tired any!” exclaimed the spinster. “As for thanks, why, it's been a treat to me. I've felt like I was a girl again. But we're through now, and I've got to go.” She rose. “I guess I'll enjoy my sleep to-night.”

“Oh, don't go, Miss Mason, stay for tea and let my husband thank you too.”

But the little New Englander again showed her simple tact. “No, no, my dear, it's time I went, and you and Mr. Byrd will want to be alone together your first evening,” and she pulled on her cotton gloves.

At the door Mary impulsively put her arms round Miss Mason and kissed her.

“You have been good to me--I shall never forget it,” she whispered, almost loath to let this first woman friend of her new life go.

Alone, Mary turned to survey the room.

The floor, of wide uneven planks, was bare, but it carried a dark stain, and this had been waxed until it shone. The walls, painted gray, had yielded a clean surface to the mop. The grate was blackened. On either side of it stood the two large chairs, and Mary had thrown a strip of bright stuff over the cushions of the Morris. Beside this chair stood the smaller table, polished, and upon it blue and white tea things. Near the large window stood the other table, with Stefan's palette, paint tubes, and brushes in orderly array, and a plain chair beside it, while centered at that end was the model-throne. Opposite the fireplace the divan fronted the wall, obscured by Mary's steamer rug and green deck cushion. At the end of the room the heavy chest of drawers, with its dark walnut paint, faced the window, bearing the gilded mirror and a strip of embroidery. On the mantlepiece stood Mary's traveling clock and the two brass candlesticks, and above it Stefan's pastoral of the stream and the dancing faun was tacked upon the wall. She could hear the kettle singing from the closet, through the open door of which a shaft of sunlight fell from the tiny window to the floor.

Suddenly Mary opened her arms. “Home,” she whispered, “home.” Tears started to her eyes. With a caressing movement she leant her face against the wall, as to the cheek of her lover.

But emotion lay deep in Mary--she was ashamed that it should rise to facile tears. “Silly girl,” she thought, and drying her eyes proceeded more calmly to her final task, which was to change her dress for one fitted to honor Stefan's homecoming.

Hardly was she ready when she heard his feet upon the stair. Her heart leapt with a double joy, for he was springing up two steps at a time, triumph in every bound. The door burst open; she was enveloped in a whirlwind embrace. “Mary,” he gasped between kisses, “I've sold the boy--sold him for a hundred! At the very last place--just as I'd given up. You beloved oracle!”

Then he held her away from him, devouring with his eyes her glowing face, her hair, and her soft blue dress. “Oh, you beauty! The day has been a thousand years long without you!” He caught her to him again.

Mary's heart was almost bursting with happiness as she clung to him. Here, in the home she had prepared, he had brought her his success, and their love glorified both. Her emotion left her wordless. Another moment, and his eyes swept the room.

“Why, Mary!” It was a shout of joy. “You magician, you miracle-worker! It's beautiful! Don't tell me how you did it--” hastily--“I couldn't understand. It's enough that you waved your hand and beauty sprang up! Look at my little faun dancing--we must dance too!” He lilted a swaying air, and whirled her round the room with gipsy glee. His face looked like the faun's, elfin, mischievous, happy as the springtime.

At last he dropped into a chair. Then Mary fetched her teakettle. They quenched their thirst, she shared his cigarette, they prattled like children. It was late before they remembered to go out in search of dinner, hours later before they dropped asleep upon the gilded Janus-faced couch that had become for Mary the altar of a sacrament.

IV

Mary's original furnishings had cost her less than a hundred dollars. In the first days of their housekeeping she made several additions, and Stefan contributed a large second-hand easel, a stool, and a piece of strangely colored drapery for the divan. This he discovered during a walk with Mary, in the window of an old furniture dealer, and instantly fell a victim to. He was so delighted with it that Mary had not the heart to veto its purchase, though it was a sad extravagance, costing them more than a week's living expenses. The stuff was of oriental silk, shot with a changing sheen, of colors like a fire burning over water, which made it seem a living thing in their hands. The night they took it home Stefan lit six candles in its honor.

In spite of these expenses Mary banked four hundred dollars, leaving herself enough in hand for a fortnight to come, for she found that they could live on twenty-five dollars a week. She calculated that they must make, as an absolute minimum, to be safe, one hundred dollars a month, for she was determined, if possible, not to draw further upon their hoard. This was destined for a future use, the hope of which trembled constantly in her heart. All her plans centered about this hope, but she still forebore to speak of it to Stefan, even as she had done before their marriage. Perhaps she instinctively feared a possible lack of response in him. Meanwhile, she must safeguard her nest.

In spite of Stefan's initial success, Mary wondered if his art would at first yield the necessary monthly income, and cast about for some means by which she could increase his earnings. She had come to America to attain independence, and there was nothing in her code to make dependence a necessary element of marriage.

“Stefan,” she said one morning, as she sat covering a cushion, while he worked at one of the unfinished pastorals, “you know I sold several short stories for children when I was in London. I think I ought to try my luck here, don't you?”

“You don't need to, sweetheart,” he replied. “Wait till I've finished this little thing. You see if the man I sold the boy to won't jump at it for another hundred.” And he whistled cheerily.

“I'm sure he will,” she smiled. “Still, I should like to help.”

“Do it if you want to, Beautiful, only I can't associate you with pens and typewriters. I'm sure if you were just to open your mouth, and sing, out there in the square--” he waved a brush--“people would come running from all over the city and throw yellow and green bills at you like leaves, till you had to be dug out with long shovels by those funny street-cleaners who go about looking dirty in white clothes. You would be a nymph in a shower of gold--only the gold would be paper! How like America!” He whistled again absently, touching the canvas with delicate strokes.

“You are quite the most ridiculous person in the world,” she laughed at him. “You know perfectly well that my voice is much too small to be of practical value.”

“But I'm not being practical, and you mustn't be literal, darling--goddesses never should.”

“Be practical just for a moment then,” she urged, “and think about my chances of selling stories.”

“I couldn't,” he said absently, holding his brush suspended. “Wait a minute, I've got an idea! That about the shower of gold--I know--Danaë!” he shouted suddenly, throwing down his palette. “That's how I'll paint you. I've been puzzling over it for days. Darling, it will be my chef d'oeuvre!” He seized her hands. “Think of it! You standing under a great shaft of sun, nude, exalted, your hands and eyes lifted. About you gold, pouring down in cataracts, indistinguishable from the sunlight--a background of prismatic fire--and your hair lifting into it like wings!” He was irradiated.

She had blushed to the eyes. “You want me to sit to you--like that!” Her voice trembled.

He gazed at her in frank amazement. “Should you mind?” he asked, amazed. “Why, you rose, you're blushing. I believe you're shy!” He put his arms around her, smiling into her face. “You wouldn't mind, darling, for me!” he urged, his cheek to hers. “You are so glorious. I've always wanted to paint your glory since the first day I saw you. You _can't_ mind!”

He saw she still hesitated, and his tone became not only surprised but hurt. He could not conceive of shame in connection with beauty. Seeing this she mastered her shrinking. He was right, she felt--she had given him her beauty, and a denial of it in the service of his art would rebuff the God in him--the creator. She yielded, but she could not express the deeper reason for her emotion. As he was so oblivious, she could not bring herself to tell him why in particular she shrank from sitting as Danaë. He had not thought of the meaning of the myth in connection with her all-absorbing hope.

“Promise me one thing,” she pleaded. “Don't make the face too like me--just a little different, dearest, please!”

This a trifle fretted him.

“I don't really see why; your face is just the right type,” he puzzled. “I shan't sell the picture, you know. It will be for us--our marriage present to each other.”

“Nevertheless, I ask it, dearest.” With that he had to be content.

Stefan obtained that afternoon a full-length canvas, and the sittings began next morning. He was at his most inspiring, laughed away Mary's stage fright, posed her with a delight which, inspired her, too, so that she stood readily as he suggested, and made half a dozen lightning sketches to determine the most perfect position, exclaiming enthusiastically meanwhile.

When absorbed, Stefan was a sure and rapid worker. Mary posed for him every morning, and at the end of a week the picture had advanced to a thing of wonderful promise and beauty. Mary would stand before it almost awed. Was this she, she pondered, this aspiring woman of flame? It troubled her a little that his ideal of her should rise to such splendor; this apotheosis left no place for the pitying tenderness of love, only for its glory. The color of this picture was like the sound of silver trumpets; the heart-throb of the strings was missing. Mary was neither morbid nor introspective, but at this time her whole being was keyed to more than normal comprehension. Watching the picture, seeing that it was a portrayal not of her but of his love for her, she wondered if any woman could long endure the arduousness of such deification, or if a man who had visioned a goddess could long content himself with a mortal.

The face, too, vaguely troubled her. True to his promise, Stefan had not made it a portrait, but its unlikeness lay rather in the meaning and expression than in the features. These differed only in detail from her own. A slight lengthening of the corners of the eyes, a fuller and wider mouth were the only changes. But the expression amidst its exaltation held a quality she did not understand. Translated into music, it was the call of the wood-wind, something wild and unhuman flowing across the silver triumph of the horns.

Of these half questionings, however, Mary said nothing, telling Stefan only what she was sure of, that the picture would be a masterpiece.

The days were shortening. Stefan found the light poor in the afternoons, and had to take part of the mornings for work on his pastoral. This he would have neglected in his enthusiasm for the Danaë, but for Mary's urgings. He obeyed her mandates on practical issues with the unquestioning acceptance of a child. His attitude suggested that he was willing to be worldly from time to time if his Mary--not too often--told him to.

The weather had turned cool, and Mr. Corriani brought them up their first scuttle of coal. They were glad to drink their morning coffee and eat their lunch before the fire, and Mary's little sable neck-piece, relic of former opulence, appeared in the evenings when they sought their dinner. This they took in restaurants near by--quaint basements, or back parlors of once fine houses, where they were served nutritious meals on bare boards, in china half an inch thick. Autumn, New York's most beautiful season, was in the air with its heart-lightening tang; energy seemed to flow into them as they breathed. They took long walks in the afternoons to the Park, which Stefan voted hopelessly banal; to the Metropolitan Museum, where they paid homage to the Sorollas and the Rodins; to the Battery, the docks, and the whole downtown district. This they found oppressive at first, till they saw it after dark from a ferry boat, when Stefan became fired by the towerlike skyscrapers sketched in patterns of light against the void.

Immediately he developed a cult for these buildings. “America's one creation,” he called them, “monstrous, rooted repellently in the earth's bowels, growing rank like weeds, but art for all that.” He made several sketches of them, in which the buildings seemed to sway in a drunken abandonment of power. “Wicked things,” he named them, and saw them menacing but fascinating, titanic engines that would overwhelm their makers. He and Mary had quite an argument about this, for she thought the skyscrapers beautiful.

“They reach sunward, Stefan, they do not menace, they aspire,” she objected.

“The aspiration is yours, Goddess. They are only fit symbols of a super-materialism. Their strength is evil, but it lures.”

He was delighted with his drawings. Mary, who was beginning to develop civic pride, told him they were goblinesque.

“Clever girl, that's why I like them,” he replied.

Late in October Stefan sold his pastoral, though only for seventy-five dollars. This disappointed him greatly. He was anxious to repay his debt to Adolph, but would not accept the loan of it from his wife. Mary renewed her determination to be helpful, and sent one of her old stories to a magazine, but without success. She had no one to advise her as to likely markets, and posted her manuscript to two more unsuitable publications, receiving it back with a printed rejection slip.

Her fourth attempt, however, was rewarded by a note from the editor which gave her much encouragement. Children's stories, he explained, were outside the scope of his magazine, but he thought highly of Mrs. Byrd's manuscript, and advised her to submit it to one of the women's papers--he named several--where it might be acceptable. Mary was delighted by this note, and read it to Stefan.

“Splendid!” he cried, “I had no idea you had brought any stories over with you. Guarded oracle!” he added, teasingly.

“Oracles don't tell secrets unless they are asked,” she rejoined.

“True. And now I do ask. Give me the whole secret--read me the story,” he exclaimed, promptly putting away his brushes, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself, eagerly attentive, into the Morris chair.

Mary prepared to comply, gladly, if a little nervously. She had been somewhat hurt at his complete lack of interest in her writing; now she was anxious for his approbation. Seated in the rocking chair she read aloud the little story in her clear low voice. When she had finished she found Stefan regarding her with an expression affectionate but somewhat quizzical.

“Mary, you have almost a maternal air, sitting there reading so lovingly about a baby. It's a new aspect--the rocker helps. I've never quite liked that chair--it reminds me of Michigan.”

Mary had flushed painfully, but he did not notice it in the half light of the fire. It had grown dark as she read.

“But the story, Stefan?” she asked, her tone obviously hurt. He jumped up and kissed her, all contrition.

“Darling, it sounded beautiful in your voice, and I'm sure it is. In fact I know it is. But I simply don't understand that type of fiction; I have no key to it. So my mind wandered a little. I listened to the lovely sounds your voice made, and watched the firelight on your hair. You were like a Dutch interior--quite a new aspect, as I said--and I got interested in that.”

Mary was abashed and disappointed. For the first time she questioned Stefan's generosity, contrasting his indifference with her own absorbed interest in his work. She knew her muse trivial by comparison with his, but she loved it, and ached for the stimulus his praise would bring.

Beneath the wound to her craftsmanship lay another, in which the knife was turning, but she would not face its implication. Nevertheless it oppressed her throughout the evening, so that Stefan commented on her silence. That night as she lay awake listening to his easy breathing, for the first time since her marriage her pillow was dampened by tears.

V

In the nest morning's sun Mary's premonitions appeared absurd. Stefan waked in high spirits, and planned a morning's work on his drawings of the city, while Mary, off duty as a model, decided to take her story in person to the office of one of the women's papers. As she crossed the Square and walked up lower Fifth Avenue she had never felt more buoyant. The sun was brilliant, and a cool breeze whipped color into her cheeks.

The office to which she was bound was on the north side of Union Square. Crossing Broadway, she was held up half way over by the traffic. As she waited for an opening her attention was attracted by the singular antics of a large man, who seemed to be performing some kind of a ponderous fling upon the curbstone opposite. A moment more and she grasped that the dance was a signal to her, and that the man was none other than McEwan, sprucely tailored and trimmed in the American fashion, but unmistakable for all that. She crossed the street and shook hands with him warmly, delighted to see any one connected with the romantic days of her voyage. McEwan's smile seemed to buttress his whole face with teeth, but to her amazement he greeted her without a trace of Scotch accent.

“Well,” said he, pumping both her hands up and down in his enormous fist, “here's Mrs. Byrd! That's simply great. I've been wondering where I could locate you both. Ought to have nosed you out before now, but my job keeps me busy. I'm with a magazine house, you know--advertising manager.”

“I didn't know,” answered Mary, whose head was whirling.

“Ah,” he grinned at her, “you're surprised at my metamorphosis. I allow myself a month every year of my native heath, heather-mixture, and burr--I like to do the thing up brown. The rest of the time I'm a Gothamite, of necessity. Some time, when I've made my pile, I shall revert for keeps, and settle down into a kilt and a castle.”

Much amused by this unsuspected histrionic gift, Mary walked on beside McEwan. He was full of interest in her affairs, and she soon confided to him the object of her expedition.

“You're just the man to advise me, being on a paper,” she said, and added laughing, “I should have been terrified of you if I'd known that on the ship.”