Chapter 2

MATED

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.”

“Then I'm glad I kept it dark. You say your stuff is for children? Where were you going to?”

She told him.

“A woman's the boss of that shop. She's O.K. and so's her paper, but her prices aren't high.” He considered. “Better come to our shop. We run two monthlies and a weekly, one critical, one household, one entirely for children. The boss is a great pal of mine. Name of Farraday--an American. Come on!” And he wheeled her abruptly back the way they had come. She followed unresistingly, intensely amused at his quick, jerky sentences and crisp manner--the very antithesis of his former Scottish heaviness.

“Mr. McEwan, what an actor you would have made!”

She smiled up at him as she hurried at his side. He looked about with pretended caution, then stooped to her ear.

“Hoots, lassie!” he whispered, with a solemn wink.

“Stefan will never believe this!” she said, bubbling with laughter.

At the door of a building close to the corner where they had met he stopped, and for a moment his manner, though not his voice, assumed its erstwhile weightiness.

“Never mind!” he held up an admonishing forefinger. “I do the talking. What do you know about business? Nothing!” His hand swept away possible objections. “I know your work.” She gasped, but the finger was up again, solemnly wagging. “And I say it's good. How many words?” he half snapped.

“Three thousand five hundred,” she answered.

“Then I say, two hundred dollars--not a cent less--and what I say _goes_, see?” The finger shot out at her, menacing.

“I leave it to you, Mr. McEwan,” she answered meekly, and followed him to the lift, dazed. “This,” she said to herself, “simply is not happening!” She felt like Alice in Wonderland.

They shot up many stories, and emerged into a large office furnished with a switch-board, benches, tables, desks, pictures, and office boys. A ceaseless stenographic click resounded from behind an eight-foot partition; the telephone girl seemed to be engaged conjointly on a novel and a dozen plugs; the office boys were diligent with their chewing gum; all was activity. Mary felt at a loss, but the great McEwan, towering over the switchboard like a Juggernaut, instantly compelled the operator's eyes from their multiple distractions. “Good morning, Mr. McEwan--Spring one-O-two-four,” she greeted him.

“'Morning. T'see Mr. Farraday,” he economized.

“M'st Farraday--M'st McEwan an' lady t'see you. Yes. M'st Farraday'll see you right away. 'Sthis three-one hundred? Hold th' line, please,” said the operator in one breath, connecting two calls and waving McEwan forward simultaneously. Mary followed him down a long corridor of doors to one which he opened, throwing back a second door within it.

They entered a sunny room, quiet, and with an air of spacious order. Facing them was a large mahogany table, almost bare, save for a vase which held yellow roses. Flowers grew in a window box and another vase of white roses stood on a book shelf. Mary's eyes flew to the flowers even before she observed the man who rose to greet them from beyond the table. He was very tall, with the lean New England build. His long, bony face was unhandsome save for the eyes and mouth, which held an expression of great sweetness. He shook hands with a kindly smile, and Mary took an instant liking to him, feeling In his presence the ease that comes of class-fellowship. He looked, she thought, something under forty years old.

“I am fortunate. You find me in a breathing spell,” he was saying.

“He's the busiest man in New York, but he always has time,” McEwan explained, and, indeed, nothing could have been more unhurried than the whole atmosphere of both man and room. Mary said so.

“Yes, I must have quiet or I can't work,” Farraday replied. “My windows face the back, you see, and my walls are double; I doubt if there's a quieter office in New York.”

“Nor a more charming, I should think,” added Mary, looking about at the restful tones of the room, with its landscapes, its beautifully chosen old furniture, and its flowers.

“The owner thanks you,” he acknowledged, with his kindly smile.

“Business, business,” interjected McEwan, who, Mary was amused to observe, approximated much more to the popular idea of an American than did his friend. “I've brought you a find, Farraday. This lady writes for children--she's printed stuff in England. I haven't read it, but I know it's good because I've seen her telling stories to the kids by the hour aboard ship, and you couldn't budge them. You can see,” he waved his hand at her, “that her copy would be out of the ordinary run.”

This absurdity would have embarrassed Mary but that Mr. Farraday turned on her a smile which seemed to make them allies in their joint comprehension of McEwan's advocacy.

“She's got a story with her for you to see,” went on that enthusiast. “I've told her if it's good enough for our magazine it's two hundred dollars good enough. There's the script.” He took it from her, and flattened it out on Farraday's table. “Look it over and write her.”

“What's your address?” he shot at Mary. She produced it.

“I'll remember that,” McEwan nodded; “coming round to see you. There you are, James. We won't keep you. You have no time and I have less. Come on, Mrs. Byrd.” He made for the door, but Farraday lifted his hand.

“Too fast, Mac,” he smiled. “I haven't had a chance yet. A mere American can't keep pace with the dynamic energy you store in Scotland. Where does it come from? Do you do nothing but sleep there?”

“Much more than that. He practises the art of being a Scotchman,” laughed Mary.

“He has no need to practise. You should have heard him when he first came over,” said Farraday.

“Well, if you two are going to discuss me, I'll leave you at it; I'm not a highbrow editor; I'm the poor ad man--my time means money to me.” McEwan opened the door, and Mary rose to accompany him.

“Won't you sit down again, Mrs. Byrd? I'd like to ask you a few questions,” interposed Farraday, who had been turning the pages of Mary's manuscript. “Mac, you be off. I can't focus my mind in the presence of a human gyroscope.”

“I've got to beat it,” agreed the other, shaking hands warmly with Mary. “But don't you be taken in by him; he likes to pretend he's slow, but he's really as quick as a buzz-saw. See you soon,” and with a final wave of the hand he was gone.

“Now tell me a little about your work,” said Farraday, turning on Mary his kind but penetrating glance. She told him she had published three or four stories, and in what magazines.

“I only began to write fiction a year ago,” she explained. “Before that I'd done nothing except scribble a little verse at home.”

“What kind of verse?”

“Oh, just silly little children's rhymes.”

“Have you sold any of them?”

“No, I never tried.”

“I should like to see them,” he said, to her surprise. “I could use them perhaps if they were good. As for this story,” he turned the pages, “I see you have an original idea. A child bird-tamer, dumb, whose power no one can explain. Before they talk babies can understand the birds, but as soon as they learn to speak they forget bird language. This child is dumb, so he remembers, but can't tell any one. Very pretty.”

Mary gasped at his accurate summary of her idea. He seemed to have photographed the pages in his mind at a glance.

“I had tried to make it a little mysterious,” she said rather ruefully. His smile reassured her.

“You have,” he nodded, “but we editors learn to get impressions quickly. Yes,” he was reading as he spoke, “I think it likely I can use this. The style is good, and individual.” He touched a bell, and handed the manuscript to an answering office boy. “Ask Miss Haviland to read this, and report to me to-day,” he ordered.

“I rarely have time to read manuscripts myself,” he went on, “but Miss Haviland is my assistant for our children's magazine. If her judgment confirms mine, as I feel sure it will, we will mail you a cheque to-night, Mrs. Byrd--according to our friend McEwan's instructions--” and he smiled.

Mary blushed with pleasure, and again rose to go, with an attempt at thanks. The telephone bell had twice, with a mere thread of sound, announced a summons. The editor took up the receiver. “Yes, in five minutes,” he answered, hanging up and turning again to Mary.

“Don't go yet, Mrs. Byrd; allow me the luxury of postponing other business for a moment. We do not meet a new contributor and a new citizen every day.” He leant back with an air of complete leisure, turning to her his kindly, open smile. She felt wonderfully at her ease, as though this man and she were old acquaintances. He asked more about her work and that of her husband.

“We like to have some personal knowledge of our authors; it helps us in criticism and suggestion,” he explained.

Mary described Stefan's success in Paris, and mentioned his sketches of downtown New York. Farraday looked interested.

“I should like to see those,” he said. “We have an illustrated review in which we sometimes use such things. If you are bringing me your verses, your husband might care to come too, and show me the drawings.”

Again the insistent telephone purred, and this time he let Mary go, shaking her hand and holding the door for her.

“Bring the verses whenever you like, Mrs. Byrd,” was his farewell.

When she had gone, James Farraday returned to his desk, lit a cigar, and smoked absently for a few moments, staring out of the window. Then he pulled his chair forward, and unhooked the receiver.

VI

Mary hurried home vibrant with happiness, and ran into the studio to find Stefan disconsolately gazing out of the window. He whirled at her approach, and caught her in his arms.

“Wicked one! I thought, like Persephone, you had been carried off by Dis and his wagon,” he chided. “I could not work when I realized you had been gone so long. Where have you been?” He looked quite woebegone.

“Ah, I'm so glad you missed me,” she cried from his arms. Then, unable to contain her delight, she danced to the center of the room, and, throwing back her head, burst into song. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” chanted Mary full-throated, her chest expanded, pouring out her gratitude as whole-heartedly as a lark.

“Mary, I can see your wings,” interrupted Stefan excitedly. “You're soaring!” He seized a stick of charcoal and dashed for paper, only to throw down his tools again in mock despair. “Pouf, you're beyond sketching at this moment--you need a cathedral organ to express you. What has happened? Have you been sojourning with the immortals?”

But Mary had stopped singing, and dropped on the divan as if suddenly tired. She held out her arms to Stefan, and he sat beside her, lover-like.

“Oh, dearest,” she said, her voice vibrating with tenderness, “I've wanted so to help, and now I think I've sold a story, and I've found a chance for your New York drawings. I'm so happy.”

“Why, you mysterious creature, your eyes have tears in them--and all because you've helped me! I've never seen your tears, Mary; they make your eyes like stars lost in a pool.” He kissed her passionately, and she responded, but waited eagerly to hear him praise her success. After a moment, however, he got up and wandered to his drawing board.

“You say you found a chance for these,” indicating the sketches. “How splendid of you! Tell me all about it.” He was eagerly attentive, but she might never have mentioned her story. Apparently, that part of her report simply had not registered in his brain.

Mary's spirits suddenly dropped. She had come from an interview in which she was treated as a serious artist, and her husband could not even hear the account of her success. She rose and began to prepare their luncheon, recounting her adventures meanwhile in a rather flat voice. Stefan listened to her description of McEwan's metamorphosis only half credulously.

“Don't tell me,” he commented, “that the cloven hoof will not out. Do you mean to say it's to him that you owe this chance?”

She nodded.

“I don't see how we can take favors from that brute,” he said, running his hands moodily into his pockets.

Mary looked at him in frank astonishment.

“I don't understand you, Stefan,” she said. “Mr. McEwan was kindness itself, and I am grateful to him, but there can be no question of receiving favors on your part. He introduced me to Mr. Farraday as a writer, and it was only through me that your work was mentioned at all.” She was hurt by his narrow intolerance, and he saw it.

“Very well, goddess, don't flash your lightnings at me.” He laughed gaily, and sat down to his luncheon. Throughout it Mary listened to a detailed account of his morning's work.

Next day she received by the first post a cheque for two hundred dollars, with a formal typewritten note from Farraday, expressing pleasure, and a hope that the Household Publishing Company might receive other manuscripts from her for its consideration. Stefan was setting his pallette for a morning's work on the Danaë. She called to him rather constrainedly from the door where she had opened the letter.

“Stefan, I've received a cheque for two hundred dollars for my story.”

“That's splendid,” he answered cheerfully. “If I sell these sketches we shall be quite rich. We must move from this absurd place to a proper studio flat. Mary shall have a white bathroom, and a beautiful blue and gold bed. Also minions to set food before her. Tra-la-la,” and he hummed gaily. “I'm ready to begin, beloved,” he added.

As Mary prepared for her sitting she could not subdue a slight feeling of irritation. Apparently she might never, even for a moment, enjoy the luxury of being a human being with ambitions like Stefan's own, but must remain ever pedestaled as his inspiration. She was irked, too, by his hopelessly unpractical attitude toward affairs. She would have enjoyed the friendly status of a partner as a wholesome complement to the ardors of marriage. She knew that her husband differed from the legendary bohemian in having a strictly upright code in money matters, but she wished it could be less visionary. He mentally oscillated between pauperism and riches. Let him fail to sell a picture and he offered to pawn his coat; but the picture sold, he aspired to hire a mansion. In a word, she began to see that he was incapable either of foresight or moderation. Could she alone, she wondered, supply the deficiency?

That evening when they returned from dinner, which as a rare treat they had eaten in the café of their old hotel, they found McEwan waiting their arrival from a seat on the stairs.

“Here you are,” his hearty voice called to them as they labored up the last flight. “I was determined not to miss you. I wanted to pay my respects to the couple, and see how the paint-slinging was getting on.”

Mary, knowing now that the Scotchman was not the slow-witted blunderer he had appeared on board ship, looked at him with sudden suspicion. Was she deceived, or did there lurk a teasing gleam in those blue eyes? Had McEwan used the outrageous phrase “paint-slinging” with malice aforethought? She could not be sure. But if his object was to get a rise from Stefan, he was only partly successful. True, her husband snorted with disgust, but, at a touch from her and a whispered “Be nice to him,” restrained himself sufficiently to invite McEwan in with a frigid show of politeness. But once inside, and the candles lighted, Stefan leant glumly against the mantelpiece with his hands in his pockets, evidently determined to leave their visitor entirely on Mary's hands.

McEwan was nothing loath. He helped himself to a cigarette, and proceeded to survey the walls of the room with interest.

“Nifty work, Mrs. Byrd. You must be proud of him,” and again Mary seemed to catch a glint in his eye. “These sketches now,” he approached the table on which lay the skyscraper studies. “Very harsh--cruel, you might say--but clever, yes, _sir_, mighty clever.” Mary saw Stefan writhe with irritation at the other's air of connoisseur. She shot him a glance at once amused and pleading, but he ignored it with a shrug, as if to indicate that Mary was responsible for this intrusion, and must expect no aid from him.

McEwan now faced the easel which held the great Danaë, shrouded by a cloth.

“Is this the latest masterpiece--can it be seen?” he asked, turning to his host, his hand half stretched to the cover.

Mary made an exclamation of denial, and started forward to intercept the hand. But even as she moved, dismay visible on her face, the perverse devil which had been mounting in Stefan's brain attained the mastery. She had asked him to be nice to this jackass--very well, he would.

“Yes, that's the best thing I've done, McEwan. As you're a friend of both of us, you ought to see it,” he exclaimed, and before Mary could utter a protest had wheeled the easel round to the light and thrown back the drapery. He massed the candles on the mantelpiece. “Here,” he called, “stand here where you can see properly. Mythological, you see, Danaë. What do you think of it?” There were mischief and triumph in his tone, and a shadow of spite.

Mary had blushed crimson and stood, incapable of speech, in the darkest corner of the room. McEwan had not noticed her protest, it had all happened so instantaneously. He followed Stefan's direction, and faced the canvas expectantly. There was a long silence. Mary, watching, saw the spruce veneer of metropolitanism fall from their guest like a discarded mask--the grave, steady Highlander emerged. Stefan's moment of malice had flashed and died--he stood biting his nails, already too ashamed to glance in Mary's direction. At last McEwan turned. There was homage in his eyes, and gravity.

“Mr. Byrd,” he said, and his deep voice carried somewhat of its old Scottish burr, “I owe ye an apology. I took ye for a tricky young mon, clever, but better pleased with yersel' than ye had a right to be. I see ye are a great artist, and as such, ye hae the right even to the love of that lady. Now I will congratulate her.” He strode over to Mary's corner and took her hand. “Dear leddy,” he said, his native speech still more apparent, “I confess I didna think the young mon worthy, and in me blunderin' way, I would hae kept the two o' ye apart could I hae done it. But I was wrong. Ye've married a genius, and ye can be proud o' the way ye're helping him. Now I'll bid ye good night, and I hope ye'll baith count me yer friend in all things.” He offered his hand to Stefan, who took it, touched. Gravely he picked up his hat, and opened the door, turning for a half bow before closing it behind him.

Stefan knew that he had behaved unpardonably, that he had been betrayed into a piece of caddishness, but McEwan had given him the cue for his defense. He hastened to Mary and seized her hand.

“Darling, forgive me. I knew you didn't want the picture shown, but it's got to be done some day, hasn't it? It seemed a shame for McEwan not to see what you have inspired. I ought not to have shown it without asking you, but his appreciation justified me, don't you think?” His tone coaxed.

Mary was choking back her tears. Explanations, excuses, were to her trivial, nor was she capable of them. Wounded, she was always dumb, and to discuss a hurt seemed to her to aggravate it.

“Don't let's talk about it, Stefan,” she murmured. “It seemed to me you showed the picture because I did not wish it--that's what I don't understand.” She spoke lifelessly.

“No, no, you mustn't think that,” he urged. “I was irritated, and I'm horribly sorry, but I do think it should be shown.”

But Mary was not deceived. If only for a moment, he had been disloyal to her. The urge of her love made it easy to forgive him, but she knew she could not so readily forget.

Though she put a good face on the incident, though Stefan was his most charming self throughout the evening, even though she refused to recognize the loss, one veil of illusion had been stripped from her heart's image of him.

In his contrite mood, determined to please her, Stefan recalled the matter of her stories, and for the first time spoke of her success with enthusiasm. He asked her about the editor, and offered to go with her the next morning to show Mr. Farraday his sketches.

“Have you anything else to take him?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Mary. “I am to show him some verses I wrote at home in Lindum. Just little songs for children.”

“Verses,” he exclaimed; “how wonderful! I knew you were a goddess and a song-bird, but not that you were a poet, too.”

“Nor am I; they are the most trifling things.”

“I expect they are delicious, like your singing. Read them to me, beloved,” he begged.

But Mary would not. He pressed her several times during the evening, but for the first time since their marriage he found he could not move her to compliance.

“Please don't bother about them, Stefan. They are for children; they would not interest you.”

He felt himself not wholly forgiven.

VII

A day or two later the Byrds went together to the office of the Household Publishing Company and sent in their names to Mr. Farraday. This time they had to wait their turn for admittance for over half an hour, sharing the benches of the outer office with several men and women of types ranging from the extreme of aestheticism to the obviously commercial. The office was hung with original drawings of the covers of the firm's three publications--The Household Review, The Household Magazine, and The Child at Home. Stefan prowled around the room mentally demolishing the drawings, while Mary glanced through the copies of the magazines that covered the large central table. She was impressed by the high level of makeup and illustration in all three periodicals, contrasting them with the obvious and often inane contents of similar English publications. At a glance the sheets appeared wholesome, but not narrow; dignified, but not dull. She wondered how much of their general tone they owed to Mr. Farraday, and determined to ask McEwan more about his friend when next she saw him. Her speculations were interrupted by Stefan, who somewhat excitedly pulled her sleeve, pointing to a colored drawing of a woman's head on the wall behind her.

“Look, Mary!” he ejaculated. “Rotten bourgeois art, but an interesting face, eh? I wonder if it's a good portrait. It says in the corner, 'Study of Miss Felicity Berber.' An actress, I expect. Look at the eyes; subtle, aren't they? And the heavy little mouth. I've never seen a face quite like it.” He was visibly intrigued.

Mary thought the face provocative, but somewhat unpleasant.

“It's certainly interesting--the predatory type, I should think,” she replied. “I'll bet it's true to life--the artist is too much of a fool to have created that expression,” Stefan went on. “Jove, I should like to meet her, shouldn't you?” he asked naïvely.

“Not particularly,” said Mary, smiling at him. “She'll have to be your friend; she's too feline for me.”

“The very word, observant one,” he agreed.

At this point their summons came. Mary was very anxious that her husband should make a good impression. “I hope you'll like him, dearest,” she whispered as for the second time the editor's door opened to her.

Farraday shook hands with them pleasantly, but turned his level glance rather fixedly on her husband, Mary thought, before breaking into his kindly smile. Stefan returned the smile with interest, plainly delighted at the evidences of taste that surrounded him.

“I'm sorry you should have had to wait so long,” said Farraday. “I'm rarely so fortunately unoccupied as on your first visit, Mrs. Byrd. You've brought the verses to show me? Good! And Mr. Byrd has his drawings?” He turned to Stefan. “America owes you a debt for the new citizen you have given her, Mr. Byrd. May I offer my congratulations?”

“Thanks,” beamed Stefan, “but you couldn't, adequately, you know.”

“Obviously not,” assented the other with a glance at Mary. “Our mutual friend, McEwan, was here again yesterday, with a most glowing account of your work, Mr. Byrd; he seems to have adopted the rôle of press agent for the family.”

“He's the soul of kindness,” said Mary.

“Yes, a thoroughly good sort,” Stefan conceded. “Here are the New York sketches,” he went on, opening his portfolio on Farraday's desk. “Half a dozen of them.”

“Thank you, just a moment,” interposed the editor, who had opened Mary's manuscript. “Your wife's work takes precedence. She is an established contributor, you see,” he smiled, running his eyes over the pages.

Stefan sat down. “Of course,” he said, rather absently.

Farraday gave an exclamation of pleasure.

“Mrs. Byrd, these are good; unusually so. They have the Stevenson flavor without being imitations. A little condensation, perhaps--I'll pencil a few suggestions--but I must have them all. I would not let another magazine get them for the world! Let me see, how many are there! Eight. We might bring them out in a series, illustrated. What if I were to offer the illustrating to Mr. Byrd, eh?” He put down the sheets and glanced from wife to husband, evidently charmed with his idea. “What do you think, Mr. Byrd? Is your style suited to her work?” he asked.

Stefan looked thoroughly taken aback. He laughed shortly. “I'm a painter, Mr. Farraday, not an illustrator. I haven't time to undertake that kind of thing. Even these drawings,” he indicated the portfolio, “were done in spare moments as an amusement. My wife suggested placing them with you--I shouldn't have thought of it.”

To Mary his tone sounded needlessly ungracious, but the editor appeared not to notice it.

“I beg your pardon,” he replied suavely. “Of course, if you don't illustrate--I'm sorry. The collaboration of husband and wife would have been an attraction, even though the names were unknown here. I'll get Ledward to do them.”

Stefan sat up. “You don't mean Metcalf Ledward, the painter, do you?” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” replied Farraday quietly; “he often does things for us--our policy is to popularize the best American artists.”

Stefan was nonplused. Ledward illustrating Mary's rhymes! He felt uncomfortable.

“Don't you think he would get the right atmosphere better perhaps than anyone?” queried Farraday, who seemed courteously anxious to elicit Stefan's opinion. Mary interposed hastily.

“Mr. Farraday, he can't answer you. I'm afraid I've been stupid, but I was so pessimistic about these verses that I wouldn't show them to him. I thought I would get an outside criticism first, just to save my face,” she hurried on, anxious in reality to save her husband's.

“I pleaded, but she was obdurate,” contributed Stefan, looking at her with reproach.

Farraday smiled enlightenment. “I see. Well, I shall hope you will change your mind about the illustrations when you have read the poems--that is, if your style would adapt itself. Now may I see the sketches?” and he held out his hand for them.

Stefan rose with relief. Much as he adored Mary, he could not comprehend the seriousness with which this man was taking the rhymes which she herself had described as “just little songs for children.” He was the more baffled as he could not dismiss Farraday's critical pretensions with contempt, the editor being too obviously a man of cultivation. Now, however, that attention had been turned to his own work, Stefan was at his ease. Here, he felt, was no room for doubts.

“They are small chalk and charcoal studies of the spirit of the city--mere impressions,” he explained, putting the drawings in Farraday's hands with a gesture which belied the carelessness of his words.

Farraday glanced at them, looked again, rose, and carried them to the window, where he examined them carefully, one by one. Mary watched him breathlessly, Stefan with unconcealed triumph. Presently he turned again and placed them in a row on the bare expanse of his desk. He stood looking silently at them for a moment more before he spoke.

“Mr. Byrd,” he said at last, “this is very remarkable work.” Mary exhaled an audible breath of relief, and turned a glowing face to Stefan. “It is the most remarkable work,” went on the editor, “that has come into this office for some time past. Frankly, however, I can't use it.”

Mary caught her breath--Stefan stared. The other went on without looking at them:

“This company publishes strictly for the household. Our policy is to send into the average American home the best that America produces, but it must be a best that the home can comprehend. These drawings interpret New York as you see it, but they do not interpret the New York in which our readers live, or one which they would be willing to admit existed.”

“They interpret the real New York, though,” interposed Stefan.

“Obviously so, to you,” replied the editor, looking at him for the first time. “For me, they do not. These drawings are an arraignment, Mr. Byrd, and--if you will pardon my saying so--a rather bitter and inhuman one. You are not very patriotic, are you?” His keen eyes probed the artist.

“Emphatically no,” Stefan rejoined. “I'm only half American by birth, and wholly French by adoption.”

“That explains it,” nodded Farraday gravely. “Well, Mr. Byrd, there are undoubtedly publications in which these drawings could find a place, and I am only sorry that mine are not amongst them. May I, however, venture to offer you a suggestion?”

Stefan was beginning to look bored, but Mary interposed with a quick “Oh, please do!” Farraday turned to her.

“Mrs. Byrd, you will bear me out in this, I think. Your husband has genius--that is beyond question--but he is unknown here as yet. Would it not be a pity for him to be introduced to the American public through these rather sinister drawings? We are not fond of the too frank critic here, you know,” he smiled, whimsically. “You may think me a Philistine, Mr. Byrd,” he continued, “but I have your welfare in mind. Win your public first with smiles, and later they may perhaps accept chastisement from you. If you have any drawings in a different vein I shall feel honored in publishing them”--his tone was courteous--“if not, I should suggest that you seek your first opening through the galleries rather than the press. Whichever way you decide, if I can assist you at all by furnishing introductions, I do hope you will call on me. Both for your wife's sake and for your own, it would be a pleasure. And now”--gathering up the drawings--“I must ask you both to excuse me, as I have a long string of appointments. Mrs. Byrd, I will write you our offer for the verses. I don't know about the illustrations; you must consult your husband.” They found themselves at the door bidding him goodbye: Mary with a sense of disappointment mingled with comprehension; Stefan not knowing whether the more to deplore what he considered Farraday's Philistinism, or to admire his critical acumen.

“His papers and his policy are piffling,” he summed up at last, as they walked down the Avenue, “but I must say I like the man himself--he is the first person of distinction I have seen since I left France.”

“Oh! Oh! The first?” queried Mary.

“Darling,” he seized her hand and pressed it, “I said the first person, not the first immortal!” He had a way of bestowing little endearments in public, which Mary found very attractive, even while her training obliged her to class them as solecisms.

“I felt sure you would like him. He seems to me charming,” she said, withdrawing the hand with a smile.

“Grundy!” he teased at this. “Yes, the man is all right, but if that is a sample of their attitude toward original work over here we have a pretty prospect of success. 'Genius, get thee behind me!' would sum it up. Imbeciles!” He strode on, his face mutinous.

Mary was thinking. She knew that Farraday's criticism of her husband's work was just. The word “sinister” had struck home to her. It could be applied, she felt, with equal truth to all his large paintings but one--the Danaë.

“Stefan,” she asked, “what did you think of his advice to win the public first by smiles?”

“Tennysonian!” pronounced Stefan, using what she knew to be his final adjective of condemnation.

“A little Victorian, perhaps,” she admitted, smiling at this succinct repudiation. “Nevertheless, I'm inclined to think he was right. There is a sort of Pan-inspired terror in your work, you know.”

He appeared struck. “Mary, I believe you've hit it!” he exclaimed, suddenly standing still. “I've never thought of it like that before--the thing that makes my work unique, I mean. Like the music of Pan, it's outside humanity, because I am.”

“Don't say that, dear,” she interrupted, shocked.

“Yes, I am. I hate my kind--all except a handful. I love beauty. It is not my fault that humanity is ugly.”

Mary was deeply disturbed. Led on by a chance phrase of hers, he was actually boasting of just that lack which was becoming her secret fear for him. She touched his arm, pleadingly.

“Stefan, don't speak like that; it hurts me dreadfully. It is awful for any one to build up a barrier between himself and the world. It means much unhappiness, both for himself and others.”

He laughed affectionately at her. “Why, sweet, what do we care? I love you enough to make the balance true. You are on my side of the barrier, shutting me in with beauty.”

“Is that your only reason for loving me?” she asked, still distressed.

“I love you because you have a beautiful body and a beautiful mind--because you are like a winged goddess of inspiration. Could there be a more perfect reason?”

Mary was silent. Again the burden of his ideal oppressed her. There was no comfort in it. It might be above humanity, she felt, but it was not of it. Again her mind returned to the pictures and Farraday's criticism. “Sinister!” So he would have summed up all the others, except the Danaë. To that at least the word could not apply. Her heart lifted at the realization of how truly she had helped Stefan. In his tribute to her there was only beauty. She knew now that her gift must be without reservation.

Home again, she stood long before the picture, searching its strange face. Was she wrong, or did there linger even here the sinister, half-human note?

“Stefan,” she said, calling him to her, “I was wrong to ask you not to make the face like me. It was stupid--'Tennysonian,' I'm afraid.” She smiled bravely. “It _is_ me--your ideal of me, at least--and I want you to make the face, too, express me as I seem to you.” She leant against him. “Then I want you to exhibit it. I want you to be known first by our gift to each other, this--which is our love's triumph.” She was trembling; her face quivered--he had never seen her so moved. She fired him.

“How glorious of you, darling!” he exclaimed, “and oh, how beautiful you look! You have never been so wonderful. If I could paint that rapt face! Quick, I believe I can get it. Stand there, on the throne.” He seized his pallette and brushes and worked furiously while Mary stood, still flaming with her renunciation. In a few minutes it was done. He ran to her and covered her face with kisses. “Come and look!” he cried exultingly, holding her before the canvas.

The strange face with its too-wide eyes and exotic mouth was gone. Instead, she saw her own purely cut features, but fired by such exultant adoration as lifted them to the likeness of a deity. The picture now was incredibly pure and passionate--the very flaming essence of love. Tears started to her eyes and dropped unheeded. She turned to him worshiping.

“Beloved,” she cried, “you are great, great. I adore you,” and she kissed him passionately.

He had painted love's apotheosis, and his genius had raised her love to its level. At that moment Mary's actually was the soul of flame he had depicted it.

That day, illumined by the inspiration each had given each, was destined to mark a turning point in their common life. The next morning the understanding which Mary had for long instinctively feared, and against which she had raised a barrier of silence, came at last.

She was standing for some final work on the Danaë, but she had awakened feeling rather unwell, and her pose was listless. Stefan noticed it, and she braced herself by an effort, only to droop again. To his surprise, she had to ask for her rest much sooner than usual; he had hitherto found her tireless. But hardly had she again taken the pose than she felt herself turning giddy. She tottered, and sat down limply on the throne. He ran to her, all concern.

“Why, darling, what's the matter, aren't you well?” She shook her head. “What can be wrong?” She looked at him speechless.

“What is it, dearest, has anything upset you?” he went on with--it seemed to her--incredible blindness.

“I can't stand in that pose any longer, Stefan; this must be the last time,” she said at length, slowly.

He looked at her as she sat, pale-faced, drooping on the edge of the throne. Suddenly, in a flash, realization came to him. He strode across the room, looked again, and came back to her.

“Why, Mary, are you going to have a baby?” he asked, quite baldly, with a surprised and almost rueful expression.

Mary flushed crimson, tears of emotion in her eyes. “Oh, Stefan, yes. I've known it for weeks; haven't you guessed?” Her arms reached to him blindly.

He stood rooted for a minute, looking as dumfounded as if an earthquake had rolled under him. Then with a quick turn he picked up her wrap, folded it round her, and took her into his arms. But it was a moment too late. He had hesitated, had not been there at the instant of her greatest need. Her midnight fears were fulfilled, just as her instinct had foretold. He was not glad. There in his arms her heart turned cold.

He soon rallied; kissed her, comforted her, told her what a fool he had been; but all he said only confirmed her knowledge. “He is not glad. He is not glad,” her heart beat out over and over, as he talked.

“Why did you not tell me sooner, darling? Why did you let me tire you like this?” he asked.

Impossible to reply. “Why didn't you know?” her heart cried out, and, “I wasn't tired until to-day,” her lips answered.

“But why didn't you tell me?” he urged. “I never even guessed. It was idiotic of me, but I was so absorbed in our love and my work that this never came to my mind.”

“But at first, Stefan?” she questioned, probing for the answer she already knew, but still clinging to the hope of being wrong. “I never talked about it because you didn't seem to care. But in the beginning, when you proposed to me--the day we were married--at Shadeham--did you never think of it then?” Her tone craved reassurance.

“Why, no,” he half laughed. “You'll think me childish, but I never did. I suppose I vaguely faced the possibility, but I put it from me. We had each other and our love--that seemed enough.”

She raised her head and gazed at him in wide-eyed pain. “But, Stefan, what's marriage _for?_” she exclaimed.

He puckered his brows, puzzled. “Why, my dear, it's for love--companionship--inspiration. Nothing more so far as I am concerned.” They stared nakedly at each other. For the first time the veils were stripped away. They had felt themselves one, and behold! here was a barrier, impenetrable as marble, dividing each from the comprehension of the other. To Stefan it was inconceivable that a marriage should be based on anything but mutual desire. To Mary the thought of marriage apart from children was an impossibility. They had come to their first spiritual deadlock.

VIII

Love, feeling its fusion threatened, ever makes a supreme effort for reunity. In the days that followed, Stefan enthusiastically sought to rebuild his image of Mary round the central fact of her maternity. He became inspired with the idea of painting her as a Madonna, and recalled all the famous artists of the past who had so glorified their hearts' mistresses.

“You are named for the greatest of all mothers, dearest, and my picture shall be worthy of the name,” he would cry. Or he would call her Aphrodite, the mother of Love. “How beautiful our son will be--another Eros,” he exclaimed.

Mary rejoiced in his new enthusiasm, and persuaded herself that his indifference to children was merely the result of his lonely bachelorhood, and would disappear forever at the sight of his own child. Now that her great secret was shared she became happier, and openly commenced those preparations which she had long been cherishing in thought. Miss Mason was sent for, and the great news confided to her. They undertook several shopping expeditions, as a result of which Mary would sit with a pile of sewing on her knee while Stefan worked to complete his picture. Miss Mason took to dropping in occasionally with a pattern or some trifle of wool or silk. Mary was always glad to see her, and even Stefan found himself laughing sometimes at her shrewd New England wit. For the most part, however, he ignored her, while he painted away in silence behind the great canvas.

Mary had received twelve dollars for each of her verses--ninety-six dollars in all. Before Christmas Stefan sold his pastoral of the dancing faun for one hundred and twenty-five, and Mary felt that financially they were in smooth water, and ventured to discuss the possibility of larger quarters. For these they were both eager, having begun to feel the confinement of their single room; but Mary urged that they postpone moving until spring.

“We are warm and snug here for the winter, and by spring we shall have saved something substantial, and really be able to spread out,” she argued.

“Very well, wise one, we will hold in our wings a little longer,” he agreed, “but when we do fly, it must be high.” His brush soared in illustration.

She had discussed with him the matter of the illustrations for her verses as soon as she received her cheque from Farraday. They had agreed that it would be a pity for him to take time for them from his masterpiece.

“Besides, sweetheart,” he had said, “I honestly think Ledward will do them better. His stuff is very graceful, without being sentimental, and he understands children, which I'm afraid I don't.” He shrugged regretfully. “Didn't you paint that adorable lost baby?” she reminded him. “I've always grieved that we had to sell it.”

“I'll buy it back for you, or paint you another better one,” he offered promptly.

So the verses went to Ledward, and the first three appeared in the Christmas number of The Child at Home, illustrated--as even Stefan had to admit--with great beauty.

Mary would have given infinitely much for his collaboration, but she had not urged it, feeling he was right in his refusal.

As Christmas approached they began to make acquaintances among the polyglot population of the neighborhood. Their old hotel, the culinary aristocrat of the district, possessed a cafe in which, with true French hospitality, patrons were permitted to occupy tables indefinitely on the strength of the slenderest orders. Here for the sake of the French atmosphere Stefan would have dined nightly had Mary's frugality permitted. As it was, they began to eat there two or three nights a week, and dropped in after dinner on many other nights. They would sit at a bare round table smoking their cigarettes, Mary with a cup of coffee, Stefan with the liqueur he could never induce her to share, and watching the groups that dotted the other tables. Or they would linger at the cheapest of their restaurants and listen to the conversation of the young people, aggressively revolutionary, who formed its clientele. These last were always noisy, and assumed as a pose manners even worse than those they naturally possessed. Every one talked to every one else, regardless of introductions, and Stefan had to summon his most crushing manner to prevent Mary from being monopolized by various very youthful and visionary men who openly admired her. He was inclined to abandon the place, but Mary was amused by it for a time, bohemianism being a completely unknown quantity to her.

“Don't think this is the real thing,” he explained; “I've had seven years of that in Paris. This is merely a very crass imitation.”

“Imitation or not, it's most delightfully absurd and amusing,” said she, watching the group nearest her. This consisted of a very short and rotund man with hair a la Paderewski and a frilled evening shirt, a thin man of incredible stature and lank black locks, and a pretty young girl in a tunic, a tam o' shanter, enormous green hairpins, and tiny patent-leather shoes decorated with three inch heels. To her the lank man, who wore a red velvet shirt and a khaki-colored suit reminiscent of Mr. Bernard Shaw, was explaining the difference between syndicalism and trade-unionism in the same conversational tone which men in Lindum had used in describing to Mary the varying excellences of the two local hunts. “I.W.W.” and “A.F. of L.” fell from his lips as “M.F.H.” and “J.P.” used to from theirs. The contrast between the two worlds entertained her not a little. She thought all these young people looked clever, though singularly vulgar, and that her old friends would have appeared by comparison refreshingly clean and cultivated, but quite stupid.

“Why, Stefan, are dull, correct people always so clean, and clever and original ones usually so unwashed?” she wondered.

“Oh, the unwashed stage is like the measles,” he replied; “you are bound to catch it in early life.”

“I suppose that's true. I know even at Oxford the Freshmen go through an utterly ragged and disreputable phase, in which they like to pretend they have no laundry bill.”

“Yes, it advertises their emancipation. I went through it in Paris, but mine was a light case.”

“And brief, I should think,” smiled Mary, to whom Stefan's feline perfection of neatness was one of his charms.

At the hotel, on the other hand, the groups, though equally individual, lacked this harum-scarum quality, and, if occasionally noisy, were clean and orderly.

“Is it because they can afford to dress better?” Mary asked on their next evening there, noting the contrast.

“No,” said Stefan. “That velvet shirt cost as much probably as half a dozen cotton ones. These people have more, certainly, or they wouldn't be here--but the real reason is that they are a little older. The other crowd is raw with youth. These have begun to find themselves; they don't need to advertise their opinions on their persons.” He was looking about him with quite a friendly eye.

“You don't seem to hate humanity this evening, Stefan,” Mary commented.

“No,” he grinned. “I confess these people are less objectionable than most.” He spoke in rapid French to the waiter, ordering another drink.

“And the language,” he continued. “If you knew what it means to me to hear French!”

Mary nodded rather ruefully. Her French was of the British school-girl variety, grammatically precise, but with a hopeless, insular accent. After a few attempts Stefan had ceased trying to speak it with her. “Darling,” he had begged, “don't let us--it is the only ugly sound you make.”

One by one they came to know the habitués of these places. In the restaurant Stefan was detested, but tolerated for the sake of his wife. “Beauty and the Beast” they were dubbed. But in the hotel café he made himself more agreeable, and was liked for his charming appearance, his fluent French, and his quick mentality. The “Villagers,” as these people called themselves, owing to their proximity to New York's old Greenwich Village, admired Mary with ardor, and liked her, but for a time were baffled by her innate English reserve. Mentally they stood round her like a litter of yearling pups about a stranger, sniffing and wagging friendly but uncertain tails, doubtful whether to advance with affectionate fawnings or to withdraw to safety. This was particularly true of the men--the women, finding Mary a stanch Feminist, and feeling for her the sympathy a bride always commands from her sex, took to her at once. The revolutionary group on the other hand would have broken through her pleasant aloofness with the force--and twice the speed--of a McEwan, had Stefan not, with them, adopted the role of snarling watchdog.

One of Mary's first after dinner friendships was made at the hotel with a certain Mrs. Elliott, who turned out to be the President of the local Suffrage Club. Scenting a new recruit, this lady early engaged the Byrds in conversation and, finding Mary a believer, at once enveloped her in the camaraderie which has been this cause's gift to women all the world over. They exchanged calls, and soon became firm friends.

Mrs. Elliot was an attractive woman in middle life, of slim, graceful figure and vivacious manner. She had one son out in the world, and one in college, and lived in a charming house just off the Avenue, with an adored but generally invisible husband, who was engaged in business downtown. As a girl Constance Elliot had been on the stage, and had played smaller Shakespearean parts in the old Daly Company, but, bowing to the code of her generation, had abandoned her profession at marriage. Now, in middle life, too old to take up her calling again with any hope of success, yet with her mental activity unimpaired, she found in the Suffrage movement her one serious vocation.

“I am nearly fifty, Mrs. Byrd,” she said to Mary, “and have twenty good years before me. I like my friends, and am interested in philanthropy, but I am not a Jack-of-all-trades by temperament. I need work--a real job such as I had when the boys were little, or when I was a girl. We are all working hard enough to win the vote, but what we shall fill the hole in our time with when we have it, I don't know. It will be easy for the younger ones--but I suppose women like myself will simply have to pay the price of having been born of our generation. Some will find solace as grandmothers--I hope I shall. But my elder son, who married a pretty society girl, is childless, and my younger such a light-hearted young rascal that I doubt if he marries for years to come.”

Mary was much interested in this problem, which seemed more salient here than in her own class in England, in which social life was a vocation for both sexes.

At Mrs. Elliot's house she met many of the neighborhood's more conventional women, and began to have a great liking for these gently bred but broad-minded and democratic Americans. She also met a mixed collection of artists, actresses, writers, reformers and followers of various “isms”; for as president of a suffrage club it was Mrs. Elliot's policy to make her drawing rooms a center for the whole neighborhood. She was a charming hostess, combining discrimination with breadth of view; her Fridays were rallying days for the followers of many more cults than she would ever embrace, but for none toward which she could not feel tolerance.

At first Stefan, who, man-like, professed contempt for social functions, refused to accompany Mary to these at-homes. But after Mrs. Elliot's visit to the studio he conceived a great liking for her, and to Mary's delight volunteered to accompany her on the following Friday. Few misanthropes are proof against an atmosphere of adulation, and in this Mrs. Elliot enveloped Stefan from the moment of first seeing his Danaë. She introduced him as a genius--America's coming great painter, and he frankly enjoyed the novel sensation of being lionized by a group of clever and attractive women.

Mrs. Elliot affected house gowns of unusual texture and design, which flowed in adroitly veiling lines about her too slim form. These immediately attracted the attention of Stefan, who coveted something equally original for Mary. He remarked on them to his hostess on his second visit.

“Yes,” she said, “I love them. I am eclipsed by fashionable clothing. Felicity Berber designs all my things. She's ruinous,” with a sigh, “but I have to have her. I am a fool at dressing myself, but I have intelligence enough to know it,” she added, laughing.

“Felicity Berber,” questioned Stefan. “Is that a creature with Mongolian eyes and an O-shaped mouth?”

“What a good description! Yes--have you met her?”

“I haven't, but you will arrange it, won't you?” he asked cajolingly. “I saw a drawing of her--she's tremendously paintable. Do tell me about her. Wait a minute. I'll get my wife!”

He jumped up, pounced on Mary, who was in a group by the tea-table, and bore her off regardless of her interrupted conversation.

“Mary,” he explained, all excitement, “you remember that picture at the magazine office? Yes, you do, a girl with slanting black eyes--Felicity Berber. Well, she isn't an actress after all. Sit down here. Mrs. Elliot is going to tell us about her.” Mary complied, sharing their hostess' sofa, while Stefan wrapped himself round a stool. “Now begin at the beginning,” he demanded, beaming; “I'm thrilled about her.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Elliot, dropping a string of jade beads through her fingers, “so are most people. She's unique in her way. She came here from the Pacific coast, I believe, quite unknown, and trailing an impossible husband. That was five years ago--she couldn't have been more than twenty-three. She danced in the Duncan manner, but was too lazy to keep it up. Then she went into the movies, and her face became the rage; it was on all the picture postcards. She got royalties on every photograph sold, and made quite a lot of money, I believe. But she hates active work, and soon gave the movies up. About that time the appalling husband disappeared. I don't know if she divorced him or not, but he ceased to be, as it were. His name was Noaks.” She paused, “Does this bore you?” she asked Mary.

“On the contrary,” smiled she, “it's most amusing--like the penny novelettes they sell in England.”

“Olympian superiority!” teased Stefan. “Please go on, Mrs. Elliot. Did she attach another husband?”

“No, she says she hates the bother of them,” laughed their hostess. “Men are always falling in love with her, but-openly at least-she seems uninterested in them.”

“Hasn't found the right one, I suppose,” Stefan interjected.

“Perhaps that's it. At any rate her young men are always confiding their woes to me. My status as a potential grandmother makes me a suitable repository for such secrets.”

“Ridiculous,” Stefan commented.

“But true, alas!” she laughed. “Well, Felicity had always designed the gowns for her dancing and acting, and after the elimination of Mr. Noaks she set up a dressmaking establishment for artistic and individual gowns. She opened it with a thé dansant, at which she discoursed on the art of dress. Her showroom is like a sublimated hotel lobby--tea is served there for visitors every afternoon. Her prices are high, and she has made a huge success. She's wonderfully clever, directs everything herself. Felicity detests exertion, but she has the art of making others work for her.”

“That sounds as if she would get fat,” said Stefan, with a shudder.

“Doesn't it?” agreed Mrs. Elliot. “But she's as slim as a panther, and intensely alive nervously, for all her physical laziness.”

“Do you like her?” Mary asked.

“Yes, I really do, though she's terribly rude, and I tell her I'm convinced she's a dangerous person. She gives me a feeling that gunpowder is secreted somewhere in the room with her. I will get her here to meet you both--you would be interested. She's never free in the afternoon; we'll make it an evening.” With a confirming nod, Mrs. Elliot rose to greet some newcomers.

“Mary,” Stefan whispered, “we'll go and order you a dress from this person. Wouldn't that be fun?”

“How sweet of you, dearest, but we can't afford it,” replied Mary, surreptitiously patting his hand.

“Nonsense, of course we can. Aren't we going to be rich?” scoffed he.

“Look who's coming!” exclaimed Mary suddenly.

Farraday was shaking hands with their hostess, his tall frame looking more than ever distinguished in its correct cutaway. Almost instantly he caught sight of Mary and crossed the room to her with an expression of keen pleasure.

“How delightful,” he greeted them both. “So you have found the presiding genius of the district! Why did I not have the inspiration of introducing you myself?” He turned to Mrs. Elliot, who had rejoined them. “Two more lions for you, eh, Constance?” he said, with a twinkle which betokened old friendship.

“Yes, indeed,” she smiled, “they have no rivals for my Art and Beauty cages.”

“And what about the literary circus? I suppose you have been making Mrs. Byrd roar overtime?”

Their hostess looked puzzled.

“Don't tell me that you are in ignorance of her status as the Household Company's latest find?” he ejaculated in mock dismay.

Mrs. Elliot turned reproachful eyes on Mary. “She never told me, the unfriendly woman!”

“Just retribution, Constance, for poring over your propagandist sheets instead of reading our wholesome literature,” Farraday retorted. “Had you done your duty by the Household magazines you would have needed no telling.”

“A hit, a palpable hit,” she answered, laughing. “Which reminds me that I want another article from you, James, for our Woman Citizen.”

“Mrs. Byrd,” said Farraday, “behold in me a driven slave. Won't you come to my rescue and write something for this insatiable suffragist?”

Mary shook her head. “No, no, Mr. Farraday, I can't argue, either personally or on paper. You should hear me trying to make a speech! Pathetic.”

Stefan, who had ceased to follow the conversation, and was restlessly examining prints on the wall, turned at this. “Don't do it, dearest. Argument is so unbeautiful, and I couldn't stand your doing anything badly.” He drifted away to a group of women who were discussing the Italian Futurists.

“Tell me about this lion, James,” said Constance, settling herself on the sofa. “I believe she is too modest to tell me herself.” She looked at Mary affectionately.

“She has written a second 'Child's Garden,' almost rivaling the first, and we have a child's story of hers which will be as popular as some of Frances Hodgson Burnett's,” summed up Farraday.

Mary blushed with pleasure at this praise, but was about to deprecate it when Stefan signaled her away. “Mary,” he called, “I want you to hear this I am saying about the Cubists!” She left them with a little smile of excuse, and they watched her tall figure join her husband.

“James,” said Mrs. Elliot irrelevantly, “why in the world don't you marry?”

“Because, Constance,” he smiled, “all the women I most admire in the world are already married.”

“À propos, have you seen Mr. Byrd's work?” she asked.

“Only some drawings, from which I suspect him of genius. But she is as gifted in her way as he, only it's a smaller way.”

“Don't place him till you've seen his big picture, painted from her. It's tremendous. We've got to have it exhibited at Constantine's. I want you to help me arrange it for them. She's inexperienced, and he's helplessly unpractical. Oh!” she grasped his arm; “a splendid idea! Why shouldn't I have a private exhibition here first, for the benefit of the Cause?”

Farraday threw up his hands. “You are indefatigable, Constance. We'd better all leave it to you. The Byrds and Suffrage will benefit equally, I am sure.”

“I will arrange it,” she nodded smiling, her eyes narrowing, her slim hands dropping the jade beads from one to the other.

Farraday, knowing her for the moment lost to everything save her latest piece of stage management, left her, and joined the Byrds. He engaged himself to visit their studio the following week.

IX

Miss Mason was folding her knitting, and Mary sat in the firelight sewing diligently. Stefan was out in search of paints.

“I tell you what 'tis, Mary Elliston Byrd,” said Miss Mason. “It's 'bout time you saw a doctor. My mother was a physician-homeopath, one of the first that ever graduated. Take my advice, and have a woman.”

“I'd much rather,” said Mary.

“I should say!” agreed the other. “I never was one to be against the men, but oh, my--” she threw up her bony little hands--“if there's one thing I never could abide it's a man doctor for woman's work. I s'pose I got started that way by what my mother told me of the medical students in her day. Anyway, it hardly seems Christian to me for a woman to go to a man doctor.”

Mary laughed. “I wish my dear old Dad could have heard you. I remember he once refused to meet a woman doctor in consultation. She had to leave Lindum--no one would employ her. I was a child at the time, but even then it seemed all wrong to me.”

“My dear, you thank the Lord you live under the Stars and Stripes,” rejoined Miss Mason, who conceived of England as a place beyond the reach of liberty for either women or men.

“I shall live under the Tricolor if Stefan has his way,” smiled Mary.

“Child,” said her visitor, putting on her hat, “don't say it. Your husband's an elegant man--I admire him--but don't you ever let me hear he doesn't love his country.”

“I'm certainly learning to love it myself,” Mary discreetly evaded.

“You're too fine a woman not to,” retorted the other. “Now I tell you. I've been treated for my chest at the Women's and Children's Hospital. There's one little doctor there's cute's she can be. I'm goin' to get you her address. You've got to treat yourself right. Good-bye,” nodded the little woman; and was gone in her usual brisk fashion.

It was the day of Mr. Farraday's expected call, and Miss Mason had hardly departed when the bell rang. Mary hastily put away her sewing and pressed the electric button which opened the downstairs door to visitors. She wished Stefan were back again to help her entertain the editor, and greeted him with apologies for her husband's absence. She was anxious that this man, whom she instinctively liked and trusted, should see her husband at his best. Seating Farraday in the Morris chair, she got him some tea, while he looked about with interest.

The two big pictures, “Tempest,” and “Pursuit,” now hung stretched but unframed, on either side of the room. Farraday's gaze kept returning to them.

“Those are his Beaux Arts pictures; extraordinary, aren't they?” said Mary, following his eyes.

“They certainly are. Remarkably powerful. I understand there is another, though, that he has only just finished?”

“Yes, it's on the easel, covered, you see,” she answered. “Stefan must have the honor of showing you that himself.”

“I wish you would tell me, Mrs. Byrd,” said Farraday, changing the subject, “how you happened to write those verses? Had you been brought up with children, younger brothers and sisters, for instance?”

Mary shook her head. “No, I'm the younger of two. But I've always loved children more than anything in the world.” She blushed, and Farraday, watching her, realized for the first time what a certain heightened radiance in her face betokened. He smiled very sweetly at her. She in her turn saw that he knew, and was glad. His manner seemed to enfold her in a mantle of comfort and understanding.

As they finished their tea, Stefan arrived. He entered gaily, greeted Farraday, and fell upon the tea, consuming two cups and several slices of bread and butter with the rapid concentration he gave to all his acts.

That finished, he leaped up and made for the easel.

“Now, Farraday,” he cried, “you are going to see one of the finest modern paintings in the world. Why should I be modest about it? I'm not. It's a masterpiece--Mary's and mine!”

Mary wished he had not included her. Though determined to overcome the feeling, she still shrank from having the picture shown in her presence. Farraday placed himself in position, and Stefan threw back the cloth, watching the other's face with eagerness. The effect surpassed his expectation. The editor flushed, then gradually became quite pale. After a minute he turned rather abruptly from the canvas and faced Stefan.

“You are right, Mr. Byrd,” he said, in an obviously controlled voice, “it _is_ a masterpiece. It will make your name and probably your fortune. It is one of the most magnificent modern paintings I have ever seen.”

Mary beamed.

“Your praise honors me,” said Stefan, genuinely delighted.

“I'm sorry I have to run away now,” Farraday continued almost hurriedly. “You know what a busy man I am.” He shook hands with Stefan. “A thousand congratulations,” he said. “Good-bye, Mrs. Byrd; I enjoyed my cup of tea with you immensely.” The hand he offered her was cold; he hardly looked up. “You will let me have some more stories, won't you? I shall count on them. Good-bye again--my warmest congratulations to you both,” and he took his departure with a suddenness only saved from precipitation by the deliberate poise of his whole personality.

“I'm sorry he had to go so soon,” said Mary, a little blankly.

“What got into the man?” Stefan wondered, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “He was leisurely enough till he had seen the picture. I tell you what!” he exclaimed. “Did you notice his expression when he looked at it? I believe the chap is in love with you!” He turned his most impish and mischievous face to her.

Mary blushed with annoyance. “How perfectly ridiculous, Stefan! Please don't say such things.”

“But he is!” He danced about the room, hugely entertained by his idea. “Don't you see, that is why he is so eager about your verses, and why he was so bouleversé by the Danaë! Poor chap, I feel quite sorry for him. You must be nice to him.”

Mary was thoroughly annoyed. “Please don't talk like that,” she reiterated. “You don't know how it hurts when you are so flippant. If you suggest such a reason for his acceptance of my work, of course I can't send in any more.” Tears of vexation were in her eyes.

“Darling, don't be absurd,” he responded, teasingly. “Why shouldn't he be in love with you? I expect everybody to be so. As for your verses, of course he wouldn't take them if they weren't good; I didn't mean that.”

“Then why did you say it?” she asked, unplacated.

“Dearest!” and he kissed her. “Don't be dignified; be Aphrodite again, not Pallas. I never mean anything I say, except when I say I love you!”

“Love isn't the only thing, Stefan,” she replied.

“Isn't it? What else is there? I don't know,” and he jumped on the table and sat smiling there with his head on one side, like a naughty little boy facing his schoolmaster.

She wanted to answer “comprehension,” but was silent, feeling the uselessness of further words. How expect understanding of a common human hurt from this being, who alternately appeared in the guise of a god and a gamin? She remembered the old tale of the maiden wedded to the beautiful and strange elf-king. Was the legend symbolic of that mysterious thread--call it genius or what you will--that runs its erratic course through humanity's woof, marring yet illuminating the staid design, never straightened with its fellow-threads, never tied, and never to be followed to its source? With the feeling of having for an instant held in her hand the key to the riddle of his nature, Mary went to Stefan and ran her fingers gently through his hair.

“Child,” she said, smiling at him rather sadly; and “Beautiful,” he responded, with a prompt kiss.

X

The next morning brought Constance Elliot, primed with a complete scheme for the future of the Danaë. She found Mary busy with her sewing and Stefan rather restlessly cleaning his pallette and brushes. The great picture was propped against the wall, a smaller empty canvas being screwed on the easel. Stefan greeted her enthusiastically.

“Come in!” he cried, forestalling Mary. “You find us betwixt and between. She's finished,” indicating the Danaë, “and I'm thinking of doing an interior, with Mary seated. I don't know,” he went on thoughtfully; “it's quite out of my usual line, but we're too domestic here just now for anything else.” His tone was slightly grumbling. From the rocking chair Constance smiled importantly on them both. She had the happy faculty of never appearing to hear what should not have been expressed.

“Children,” she said, “your immediate future is arranged. I have a plan for the proper presentation of the masterpiece to a waiting world, and I haven't been responsible for two suffrage matinees and a mile of the Parade for nothing. I understand publicity. Now listen.”

She outlined her scheme to them. The reporters were to be sent for and informed that the great new American painter, sensation of this year's Salon, had kindly consented to a private exhibition of his masterpiece at her house for the benefit of the Cause. Tickets, one dollar each, to be limited to two hundred.

“Then a bit about your both being Suffragists, and about Mary's writing, you know,” she threw in. “Note the value of the limited sale--at once it becomes a privilege to be there.” Tickets, she went on to explain, would be sent to the art critics of the newspapers, and Mr. Farraday would arrange to get Constantine himself and one or two of the big private connoisseurs. She personally knew the curator of the Metropolitan, and would get him. The press notices would be followed by special letters and articles by some of these men. Then Constantine would announce a two weeks' exhibition at his gallery, the public would flock, and the picture would be bought by one of the big millionaires, or a gallery. “I've arranged it all,” she concluded triumphantly, looking from one to the other with her dark alert glance.

Stefan was grinning delightedly, his attention for the moment completely captured. Mary's sewing had dropped to her lap; she was round-eyed.

“But the sale itself, Mrs. Elliot, you can hardly have arranged that?” she laughed.

Constance waved her hand. “That arranges itself. It is enough to set the machinery in motion.”

“Do you mean to say,” went on Mary, half incredulous, “that you can simply send for the reporters and get them to write what you want?”

“Within reason, certainly,” answered the other. “Why not?”

“In England,” Mary laughed, “if a woman were to do that, unless she were a duchess, a Pankhurst, or a great actress, they wouldn't even come.”

Constance dismissed this with a shrug. “Ah, well, my dear, luckly we're not in England! I'm going to begin to-day. I only came over to get your permission. Let me see--this is the sixteenth--too near Christmas. I'll have the tickets printed and the press announcement prepared, and we'll let them go in the dead week after Christmas, when the papers are thankful for copy. We'll exhibit the first Saturday in the New Year. For a week we'll have follow-up articles, and then Constantine will take it. You blessed people,” and she rose to go, “don't have any anxiety. Suffragists always put things through, and I shall concentrate on this for the next three weeks. I consider the picture sold.”

Mary tried to express her gratitude, but the other waved it aside. “I just love you both,” she cried in her impulsive way, “and want to see you where you ought to be--at the top!” She shook hands with Stefan effusively. “Mind you get on with your next picture!” she cried in parting; “every one will be clamoring for your work!”

“Oh, Stefan, isn't it awfully good of her?” exclaimed Mary, linking her arm through his. He was staring at his empty canvas. “Yes, splendid,” he responded carelessly, “but of course she'll have the kudos, and her organization will benefit, too.”

“Stefan!” Mary dropped his arm, dumfounded. It was not possible he should be so ungenerous. She would have remonstrated, but saw he was oblivious of her.

“Yes,” he went on absently, looking from the room to the canvas, “it's fine for every one all round--just as it should be. Now, Mary, if you will sit over there by the fire and take your sewing, I think I'll try and block in that Dutch interior effect I noticed some time back. The light is all wrong, but I can get the thing composed.”

He was lost in his new idea. Mary told herself she had in part misjudged him. His comment on their friend's assistance was not dictated by lack of appreciation so much as by indifference. No sooner was the picture's future settled than he had ceased to be interested in it. The practical results of its sale would have little real meaning for him, she knew. She began to see that all he asked of humanity was that it should leave him untrammeled to do his work, while yielding him full measure of the beauty and acclamation that were his food. “Well,” she thought, “I'm the wife of a genius. It's a great privilege, but it is strange, for I always supposed if I married it would simply be some good, kind man. He would have been very dull,” she smiled to herself, mentally contrasting the imagined with the real.

A few days before Christmas Mary noticed that one of the six skyscraper studies was gone from the studio. She spoke of it, fearing the possibility of a theft, but Stefan murmured rather vaguely that it was all right--he was having it framed. Also, on three consecutive mornings she awakened to find him busily painting at a small easel close under the window, which he would hastily cover on hearing her move. As he evidently did not wish her to see it, she wisely restrained her curiosity. She was herself busy with various little secrets--there was some knitting to be done whenever his back was turned, and she had made several shopping expeditions. On Christmas Eve Stefan was gone the whole afternoon, and returned radiant, full of absurd jokes and quivers of suppressed glee. He was evidently highly pleased with himself, but cherished with touching faith, she thought, the illusion that his manner betrayed nothing.

That night, when she was supposed to be asleep, she felt him creep carefully out of bed, heard him fumbling for his dressing gown, and saw a shaft of light as the studio door was cautiously opened. A moment later a rustling sounded through the transom, followed by the shrill whisper of Madame Corriani. Listening, she fell asleep.

She was wakened by Stefan's arms round her.

“A happy Christmas, darling! So wonderful--the first Christmas I ever remember celebrating.”

There was a ruddy glow of firelight in the room, but to her opening eyes it seemed unusually dark, and in a moment she saw that the great piece of Chinese silk they used for their couch cover was stretched across the room on cords, shutting off the window end. She jumped up hastily.

“Oh, Stefan, how thrilling!” she exclaimed, girlishly excited. As for him, he was standing before her dressed, and obviously tingling with impatience. She slipped into a dressing gown of white silk, and caught her hair loosely up. Simultaneously Stefan emerged from the kitchenette with two steaming cups of coffee, which he placed on a table before the fire.

“Clever boy!” she exclaimed delighted, for he had never made the coffee before. In a moment he produced rolls and butter.

“Déjeuner first,” he proclaimed gleefully, “and then the surprise!” They ate their meal as excitedly as two children. In the midst of it Mary rose and, fetching from the bureau two little ribbon-tied parcels, placed them in his hands.

“For me? More excitements!” he warbled. “But I shan't open them till the curtain comes down. There, we've finished.” He jumped up. “Beautiful, allow me to present to you the Byrds' Christmas tree.” With a dramatic gesture he unhooked a cord. The curtain fell. There in the full morning light stood a tree, different from any Mary had ever seen. There were no candles on it, but from top to bottom it was all one glittering white. There were no garish tinsel ornaments, but from every branch hung a white bird, wings outstretched, and under each bird lay, on the branch below, something white. At the foot of the tree stood a little painting framed in pale silver. It was of a nude baby boy, sitting wonderingly upon a hilltop at early dawn. His eyes were lifted to the sky, his hands groped. Mary, with an exclamation of delight, stepped nearer. Then she saw what the white things were under the spreading wings of the birds. Each was the appurtenance of a baby. One was a tiny cap, one a cloak, others were dresses, little jackets, vests. There were some tiny white socks, and, at the very top of the tree, a rattle of white coral and silver.

“Oh, Stefan, my dearest--'the little white bird'!” she cried.

“Do you like it, darling?” he asked delightedly, his arms about her. “Mrs. Elliot told me about Barrie's white bird--I hadn't known the story. But I wanted to show you I was glad about ours,” he held her close, “and directly she spoke of the bird, I thought of this. She went with me to get those little things--” he waved at the tree--“some of them are from her. But the picture was quite my own idea. It's right, isn't it? What you would feel, I mean? I tried to get inside your heart.”

She nodded, her eyes shining with tears. She could find no words to tell him how deeply she was touched. Her half-formed doubts were swept away--he was her own dear man, kind and comprehending. She took the little painting and sat with it on her knee, poring over it, Stefan standing by delighted at his success. Then he remembered his own parcels. The larger he opened first, and instantly donned one of the two knitted ties it held, proclaiming its golden brown vastly becoming. The smaller parcel contained a tiny jeweler's box, and in it Stefan found an old and heavy seal ring of pure design, set with a transparent greenish stone, which bore the intaglio of a winged head. He was enchanted.

“Mary, you wonder,” he cried. “You must have created this--you couldn't just have found it. It symbolizes what you have given me--sums up all that you are!” and he kissed her rapturously.

“Oh, Stefan,” she answered, “it is all perfect, for your gift symbolizes what you have brought to me!”

“Yes, darling, but not all I am to you, I hope,” he replied, rubbing his cheek against hers.

“Foolish one,” she smiled back at him.

They spent a completely happy day, rejoicing in the successful attempt of each to penetrate the other's mind. They had never, even on their honeymoon, felt more at one. Later, Mary asked him about the missing sketch.

“Yes, I sold it for the bird's trappings,” he answered gleefully; “wasn't it clever of me? But don't ask me for the horrid details, and don't tell me a word about my wonderful ring. I prefer to consider that you fetched it from Olympus.”

And Mary, whose practical conscience had given her sharp twinges over her extravagance, was glad to let it rest at that.

During the morning a great sheaf of roses came for Mary with the card of James Farraday, and on its heels a bush of white heather inscribed to them both from McEwan. The postman contributed several cards, and a tiny string of pink coral from Miss Mason. “How kind every one is!” Mary cried happily.

In the afternoon the Corrianis were summoned. Mary had small presents for them and a glass of wine, which Stefan poured to the accompaniment of a song in his best Italian. This melted the somewhat sulky Corriani to smiles, and his wife to tears. The day closed with dinner at their beloved French hotel, and a bottle of Burgundy shared with Stefan's favorite waiters.

XI

During Christmas week Stefan worked hard at his interior, but about the fifth day began to show signs of restlessness. The following morning, after only half an hour's painting, he threw down his brush.

“It's no use, Mary,” he announced, “I don't think I shall ever be able to do this kind of work; it simply doesn't inspire me.”

She looked up from her sewing. “Why, I thought it promised charmingly.”

“That's just it.” He ruffled his hair irritably. “It does. Can you imagine my doing anything 'charming'? No, the only hope for this interior is for me to get depth into it, and depth won't come--it's facile.” And he stared disgustedly at the canvas.

“I think I know what you mean,” Mary answered absently. She was thinking that his work had power and height, but that depth she had never seen in it.

Stefan shook himself. “Oh, come along, Mary, let's get out of this. We've been mewed up in this domestic atmosphere for days. I shall explode soon. Let's go somewhere.”

“Very well,” she agreed, folding up her work.

“You feel all right, don't you?” he checked himself to ask.

“Rather, don't I look it?”

“You certainly do,” he replied, but without his usual praise of her. “I have it, let's take a look at Miss Felicity Berber! I shall probably get some new ideas from her. Happy thought! Come on, Mary, hat, coat, let's hurry.” He was all impatience to be gone.

They started to walk up the Avenue, stopping at the hotel to find in the telephone book the number of the Berber establishment. It was entered, “Berber, Felicity, Creator of Raiment.”

“How affected!” laughed Mary.

“Yes,” said Stefan, “amusing people usually are.”

Though he appeared moody the crisp, sunny air of the Avenue gradually brightened him, and Mary, who was beginning to feel her confined mornings, breathed it in joyfully.

The house was in the thirties, a large building of white marble. A lift carried them to the top floor, and left them facing a black door with “Felicity Berber” painted on it in vermilion letters. Opening this, they found themselves in a huge windowless room roofed with opaque glass. The floor was inlaid in a mosaic of uneven tiles which appeared to be of different shades of black. The walls, from roof to floor, were hung with shimmering green silk of the shade of a parrot's wing. There were no show-cases or other evidences of commercialism, but about the room were set couches of black japanned wood, upon which rested flat mattresses covered in the same green as the walls. On these silk cushions in black and vermilion were piled. The only other furniture consisted of low tables in black lacquer, one beside every couch. On each of these rested a lacquered bowl of Chinese red, obviously for the receipt of cigarette ashes. A similar but larger bowl on a table near the door was filled with green orchids. One large green silk rug--innocent of pattern--invited the entering visitor deeper into the room; otherwise the floor was bare. There were no pictures, no decorations, merely this green and black background, relieved by occasional splashes of vermilion, and leading up to a great lacquered screen of the same hue which obscured a door at the further end of the room.

From the corner nearest the entrance a young woman advanced to meet them. She was clad in flowing lines of opalescent green, and her black hair was banded low across the forehead with a narrow line of emerald.

“You wish to see raiment?” was her greeting.

Mary felt rather at a loss amidst these ultra-aestheticisms, but Stefan promptly asked to see Miss Berber.

“Madame rarely sees new clients in the morning.” The green damsel was pessimistic. Mary felt secretly amused at the ostentatious phraseology.

“Tell her we are friends of Mrs. Theodore Elliot's,” replied Stefan, with his most brilliant and ingratiating smile.

The damsel brightened somewhat. “If I may have your name I will see what can be done,” she offered, extending a small vermilion tray. Stefan produced a card and the damsel floated with it toward the distant exit. Her footsteps were silent on the dead tiling, and there was no sound from the door beyond the screen.

“Isn't this a lark? Let's sit down,” Stefan exclaimed, leading the way to a couch.

“It's rather absurd, don't you think?” smiled Mary.

“No doubt, but amusing enough for mere mortals,” he shrugged, a scarcely perceptible snub in his tone. Mary was silent. They waited for several minutes. At last instinct rather than hearing made them turn to see a figure advancing down the room.

Both instantly recognized the celebrated Miss Berber. A small, slim woman, obviously light-boned and supple, she seemed to move forward like a ripple. Her naturally pale face, with its curved scarlet lips and slanting eyes, was set on a long neck, and round her small head a heavy swathe of black hair was held by huge scarlet pins. Her dress, cut in a narrow V at the neck, was all of semi-transparent reds, the brilliant happy reds of the Chinese. In fact, but for her head, she would have been only half visible as she advanced against the background of the screen. Mary's impression of her was blurred, but Stefan, whose artist's eye observed everything, noticed that her narrow feet were encased in heelless satin shoes which followed the natural shape of the feet like gloves.

“Mr. and Mrs. Byrd! How do you do?” she murmured, and her voice was light-breathed, a mere memory of sound. It suggested that she customarily mislaid it, and recaptured only an echo.

“Pull that other couch a little nearer, please,” she waved to Stefan, appropriating the one from which they had just risen. Upon this she stretched her full length, propping the cushions comfortably under her shoulders.

“Do you smoke?” she breathed, and stretching an arm produced from a hidden drawer in the table at her elbow cigarettes in a box of black lacquer, and matches in one of red. Mary declined, but Stefan immediately lighted a cigarette for himself and held a match for Miss Berber. Mary and he settled themselves on the couch which he drew up, and which slipped readily over the tiles.

“Now we can talk,” exhaled their hostess on a spiral of smoke. “I never see strangers in the morning, not even friends of dear Connie's, but there was something in the name--” She seemed to be fingering a small knob protruding from the lacquer of her couch. It must have been a bell, for in a moment the green maiden appeared.

“Chloris, has that picture come for the sylvan fitting room?” she murmured. “Yes? Bring it, please.” Her gesture seemed to waft the damsel over the floor. During this interlude the Byrds were silent, Stefan hugely entertained, Mary beginning to feel a slight antagonism toward this super-casual dressmaker.

A moment and the attendant nymph reappeared, bearing a large canvas framed in glistening green wood.

“Against the table--toward Mr. Byrd.” Miss Berber supplemented the murmur with an indicative gesture. “You know that?” dropped from her lips as the nymph glided away.

It was Stefan's pastoral of the dancing faun. He nodded gaily, but Mary felt herself blushing. Her husband's work destined for a fitting room!

“I thought so,” Miss Berber enunciated through a breath of smoke. “I picked it up the other day. Quite lovely. My sylvan fitting room required just that note. I use it for country raiment only. Atmosphere, Mr. Byrd. I want my clients to feel young when they are preparing for the country. I am glad to see you here.”

Stefan reciprocated. So far, Miss Berber had ignored Mary.

“I might consult you about my next color scheme--original artists are so rare. I change this room every year.” Her eyelids drooped.

At this point Mary ventured to draw attention to herself.

“Why is it, Miss Berber,” she asked in her clear English voice, “that you have only couches here?”

Felicity's lids trembled; she half looked up. “How seldom one hears a beautiful voice,” she uttered. “Chairs, Mrs. Byrd, destroy women's beauty. Why sit, when one can recline? My clients may not wear corsets; reclining encourages them to feel at ease without.”

Mary found Miss Berber's affectations absurd, but this explanation heightened her respect for her intelligence. “Method in her madness,” she quoted to herself.

“Miss Berber, I want you to create a gown for my wife. I am sure when you look at her you will be interested in the idea.” Stefan expected every one to pay tribute to Mary's beauty.

Again Miss Berber's fingers strayed. The nymph appeared. “How long have I, Chloris? ... Half an hour? Then send me Daphne. You notice the silence, Mr. Byrd? It rests my clients, brings health to their nerves. Without it, I could not do my work.”

Mary smiled as she mentally contrasted these surroundings with Farraday's office, where she had last heard that expression. Was quiet so rare a privilege in America, she wondered?

A moment, and a second damsel emerged, brown-haired, clad in a paler green, and carrying paper and pencil. Not until this ministrant had seated herself at the foot of Miss Berber's couch did that lady refer to Stefan's request. Then, propping herself on her elbow, she at last looked full at Mary. What she saw evidently pleased her, for she allowed herself a slight smile. “Ah,” she breathed, “an evening, or a house gown?”

“Evening,” interposed Stefan. Then to Mary, “You look your best decolletée, you know.”

“Englishwomen always do,” murmured Miss Berber.

“Will you kindly take off your hat and coat, and stand up, Mrs. Byrd?” Mary complied, feeling uncomfortably like a cloak model.

“Classic, pure classic. How seldom one sees it!” Miss Berber's voice became quite audible. “Gold, of course, classic lines, gold sandals. A fillet, but no ornaments. You wish to wear this raiment during the ensuing months, Mrs. Byrd?” Mary nodded. “Then write Demeter type,” the designer interpolated to her satellite, who was taking notes. “Otherwise it would of course be Artemis--or Aphrodite even?” turning for agreement to Stefan. “Would you say Aphrodite?”

“I always do,” beamed he, delighted.

At this point the first nymph, Chloris, again appeared, and at a motion of Miss Berber's hand rapidly and silently measured Mary, the paler hued nymph assisting her as scribe.

“Mr. Byrd,” pronounced the autocrat of the establishment, when at the conclusion of these rites the attendants had faded from the room. “I never design for less than two hundred dollars. Such a garment as I have in mind for your wife, queenly and abundant--” her hands waved in illustration--“would cost three hundred. But--” her look checked Mary in an exclamation of refusal--“we belong to the same world, the world of art, not of finance. Yes?” She smiled. “Your painting, Mr. Byrd, is worth three times what I gave for it, and Mrs. Byrd will wear my raiment as few clients can. It will give me pleasure”--her lids drooped to illustrate finality--“to make this garment for the value of the material, which will be--” her lips smiled amusement at the bagatelle--“between seventy and eighty-five dollars--no more.” She ceased.

Mary felt uncomfortable. Why should she accept such a favor at the hands of this poseuse? Stefan, however, saved her the necessity of decision. He leapt to his feet, all smiles.

“Miss Berber,” he cried, “you honor us, and Mary will glorify your design. It is probable,” he beamed, “that we cannot afford a dress at all, but I disregard that utterly.” He shrugged, and snapped a finger. “You have given me an inspiration. As soon as the dress arrives, I shall paint Mary as Demeter. Mille remerciements!” Bending, he kissed Miss Berber's hand in the continental manner. Mary, watching, felt a tiny prick of jealousy. “He never kissed my hand,” she thought, and instantly scorned herself for the idea.

The designer smiled languidly up at Stefan. “I am happy,” she murmured. “No fittings, Mrs. Byrd. We rarely fit, except the model gowns. You will have the garment in a week. Au revoir.” Her eyes closed. They turned to find a high-busted woman entering the room, accompanied by two young girls. As they departed a breath-like echo floated after them, “Oh, really, Mrs. Van Sittart--still those corsets? I can do nothing for you, you know.” Tones of shrill excuse penetrated to the lift door. At the curb below stood a dyspeptically stuffed limousine, guarded by two men in puce liveries.

The Byrds swung southward in silence, but suddenly Stefan heaved a great breath. “Nom d'un nom d'un nom d'un vieux bonhomme!” he exploded, voicing in that cumulative expletive his extreme satisfaction with the morning.

XII

Constance Elliot had not boasted her stage-management in vain. On the first Saturday in January all proceeded according to schedule. The Danaë, beautifully framed, stood at the farther end of Constance's double drawing-room, from which all other mural impedimenta, together with most of the furniture, had been removed. Expertly lighted, the picture glowed in the otherwise obscure room like a thing of flame.

Two hundred ticket holders came, saw, and were conquered. Farraday, in his most correct cutaway, personally conducted a tour of three eminent critics to the Village. Sir Micah, the English curator of the Metropolitan, reflectively tapping an eye-glass upon an uplifted finger tip, pronounced the painting a turning-point in American art. Four reporters--whose presence in his immediate vicinity Constance had insured--transferred this utterance to their note books. Artists gazed, and well-dressed women did not forbear to gush. Tea, punch, and yellow suffrage cakes were consumed in the dining room. There was much noise and excessive heat. In short, the occasion was a success.

Toward the end, when few people remained except the genial Sir Micah, whom Constance was judiciously holding with tea, smiles, and a good cigar, the all-important Constantine arrived. Prompted, Sir Micah was induced to repeat his verdict. But the picture spoke for itself, and the famous dealer was visibly impressed. Constance was able to eat her dinner at last with a comfortable sense of accomplishment. She was only sorry that the Byrds had not been there to appreciate her strategy. Stefan, indeed, did appear for half an hour, but Mary's courage had failed her entirely. She had succumbed to an attack of stage fright and shut herself up at home.

As for Stefan, he had developed one of his most contrary moods. Refusing conventional attire, he clad himself in the baggy trousers and flowing tie of his student days, under the illusion that he was thus defying the prejudices of Philistia. He was unaware that the Philistines, as represented by the gentlemen of the press, considered his costume quintessentially correct for an artist just returned from Paris, and would have been grieved had he appeared otherwise. Unconsciously playing to the gallery, Stefan on arrival squared himself against a doorway and eyed the crowds with a frown of disapprobation. He had not forgotten his early snubs from the dealers, and saw in every innocent male visitor one of the fraternity.

Constance, in her bid for publicity, had sold most of her tickets to the socially prominent, so that Stefan was soon surrounded by voluble ladies unduly furred, corseted, and jeweled. He found these unbeautiful, and his misanthropy, which had been quiescent of late, rose rampant.

Presently he was introduced to a stout matron, whose costume centered in an enormous costal cascade of gray pearls.

“Mr. Byrd,” she gushed, “I dote on art. I've made a study of it, and I can say that your picture is a triumph.”

“Madam,” he fairly scowled, “it is as easy for the rich to enter the kingdom of Art as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.” Leaving her pink with offense, he turned his back and, shaking off other would-be admirers, sought his hostess.

“My God, I can't stand any more of this--I'm off,” he confided to her. Constance was beginning to know her man. She gave him a quick scrutiny. “Yes, I think you'd better be,” she agreed, “before you spoil any of my good work. An absent lion is better than a snarling one. Run home to Mary.” She dismissed him laughingly, and Stefan catapulted himself out of the house, thereby missing the attractive Miss Berber by a few minutes. Dashing home across the Square, he flung himself on the divan with every appearance of exhaustion. “Sing to me, Mary,” he implored.

“Why, Stefan,” she asked, startled, “wasn't it a success? What's the matter?”

“Success!” he scoffed. “Oh, yes. They all gushed and gurgled and squeaked and squalled. Horrible! Sing, dearest; I must hear something beautiful.”

Failing to extract more from him, she complied.

The next day brought a full account of his success from Constance, and glowing tributes from the papers. The head-lines ranged from “Suffragettes Unearth New Genius” to “Distinguished Exhibit at Home of Theodore M. Elliot.” The verdict was unanimous. A new star had risen in the artistic firmament. One look at the headings, and Stefan dropped the papers in disgust, but Mary pored over them all, and found him quite willing to listen while she read eulogistic extracts aloud.

Thus started, the fuse of publicity burnt brightly. Constance's carefully planned follow-up articles appeared, and reporters besieged the Byrds' studio. Unfortunately for Mary, these gentry soon discovered that she was the Danaë's original, which fact created a mild succès de scandale. Personal paragraphs appeared about her and her writing, and, greatly embarrassed, she disconnected the door-bell for over a week. But the picture was all the more talked about. In a week Constantine had it on exhibition; in three, he had sold it for five thousand dollars to a tobacco millionaire.

“Mary,” groaned Stefan when he heard the news, “we have given in to Mammon. We are capitalists.”

“Oh, dear, think of our beautiful picture going to some odious nouveau riche!” Mary sighed. But she was immeasurably relieved that Stefan's name was made, and that they were permanently lifted from the ranks of the needy.

That very day, as if to illustrate their change of status, Mrs. Corriani puffed up the stairs with the news that the flat immediately below them had been abandoned over night. The tenants, a dark couple of questionable habits and nationality, had omitted the formality of paying their rent--the flat was on the market. The outcome was that Stefan and Mary, keeping their studio as a workshop, overflowed into the flat beneath, and found themselves in possession of a bed and bathroom, a kitchen and maid's room, and a sitting room. These they determined to furnish gradually, and Mary looked forward to blissful mornings at antique stores and auctions. She had been brought up amidst the Chippendale, old oak, and brasses of a cathedral close, and new furniture was anathema to her. A telephone and a colored maid-servant were installed. Their picnicking days were over.

XIII

True to her word, Constance arranged a reception in the Byrds' honor, at which they were to meet Felicity Berber. The promise of this encounter reconciled Stefan to the affair, and he was moreover enthusiastically looking forward to Mary's appearance in her new gown. This had arrived, and lay swathed in tissue paper in its box. In view of their change of fortune they had, in paying the account of seventy-five dollars, concocted a little note to Miss Berber, hoping she would now reconsider her offer, and render them a bill for her design. This note, written and signed by Mary in her upright English hand, brought forth a characteristic reply. On black paper and in vermilion ink arrived two lines of what Mary at first took to be Egyptian hieroglyphics. Studied from different angles, these yielded at last a single sentence: “A gift is a gift, and repays itself.” This was followed by a signature traveling perpendicularly down the page in Chinese fashion. It was outlined in an oblong of red ink, but was itself written in green, the capitals being supplied with tap-roots extending to the base of each name. Mary tossed the letter over to Stefan with a smile. He looked at it judicially.

“There's draughtsmanship in that,” he said; “she might have made an etcher. It's drawing, but it's certainly not handwriting.”

On the evening of the party Stefan insisted on helping Mary to dress. Together they opened the great green box and spread its contents on the bed. The Creator of Raiment had not done things by halves. In addition to the gown, she had supplied a wreath of pale white and gold metals, representing two ears of wheat arranged to meet in a point over the brow, and a pair of gilded shoes made on the sandal plan, with silver-white buckles. Pinned to the gown was a printed green slip, reading “No corsets, petticoats or jewelry may be worn with this garb.”

The dress was of heavy gold tissue, magnificently draped in generous classic folds. It left the arms bare, the drapery being fastened on either shoulder with great brooches of white metal, reproduced, as Stefan at once recognized, from Greek models. Along all the edges of the drapery ran a border of ears of wheat, embroidered in deep gold and pale silver. Mary, who had hitherto only peeped at the gown, felt quite excited when she saw it flung across the bed.

“Oh, Stefan, I do think it will be becoming,” she cried, her cheeks bright pink. She had never dreamed of owning such a dress.

He was enchanted. “It's a work of art. Very few women could wear it, but on you--! Well, it's worthy of you, Beautiful.”

During the dressing he made her quite nervous by his exact attention to every detail. The arrangement of her hair and the precise position of the wreath had to be tried and tried again, but the result justified him.

“Olympian Deity,” he cried, “I must kneel to you!” And so he did, gaily adoring, with a kiss for the hem of her robe. They started in the highest spirits, Stefan correct this time in an immaculate evening suit which Mary had persuaded him to order. As they prepared to enter the drawing room he whispered, “You'll be a sensation. I'm dying to see their faces.”

“Don't make me nervous,” she whispered back.

By nature entirely without self-consciousness, she had become very sensitive since the Danaë publicity. But her nervousness only heightened her color, and as with her beautiful walk she advanced into the room there was an audible gasp from every side. Constance pounced upon her.

“You perfectly superb creature! You ought to have clouds rolling under your feet. There, I can't express myself. Come and receive homage. Mr. Byrd, you're the luckiest man on earth--I hope you deserve it all--but then of course no man could. Mary, here are two friends of yours--Mr. Byrd, come and be presented to Felicity.”

Farraday and McEwan had advanced toward them and immediately formed the nucleus of a group which gathered about Mary. Stefan followed his hostess across the room to a green sofa, on which, cigarette in hand, reclined Miss Berber, surrounded by a knot of interested admirers.

“Yes, Connie,” that lady murmured, with the ghost of a smile, “I've met Mr. Byrd. He brought his wife to the Studio.” She extended a languid hand to Stefan, who bowed over it.

“Ah! I might have known you had a hand in that effect,” Constance exclaimed, looking across the room toward Mary.

“Of course you might,” the other sighed, following her friend's eyes. “It's perfect, I think; don't you agree, Mr. Byrd?” and she actually rose from the sofa to obtain a better view.

“Absolutely,” answered Stefan, riveted in his turn upon her.

Miss Berber was clad in black tulle, so transparent as barely to obscure her form. Sleeves she had none. A trifle of gauze traveled over one shoulder, leaving the other bare save for a supporting strap of tiny scarlet beads. Her triple skirt was serrated like the petals of a black carnation, and outlined with the same minute beads. Her bodice could scarcely be said to exist, so deep was its V. From her ears long ornaments of jet depended, and a comb in scarlet bead-work ran wholly across one side of her head. A flower of the same hue and workmanship trembled from the point of her corsage. She wore no rings, but her nails were reddened, and her sleek black hair and scarlet lips completed the chromatic harmony. The whole effect was seductive, but so crisp as to escape vulgarity.

“I must paint you, Miss Berber,” was Stefan's comment.

“All the artists say that.” She waved a faint expostulation.

Her hands, he thought, had the whiteness and consistency of a camelia.

“All the artists are not I, however,” he answered with a smiling shrug.

“Greek meets Greek,” thought Constance, amused, turning away to other guests.

“I admit that.” Miss Berber lit another cigarette. “I have seen your Danaë. The people who have painted me have been fools. Obvious--treating me like an advertisement for cold cream.”

She breathed a sigh, and sank again to the sofa. Her lids drooped as if in weariness of such banalities. Stefan sat beside her, the manner of both eliminating the surrounding group.

“One must have subtlety, must one not?” she murmured.

How subtle she was, he thought; how mysterious, in spite of her obvious posing! He could not even tell whether she was interested in him.

“I shall paint you, Miss Berber,” he said, watching her, “as a Nixie. Water creatures, you know, without souls.”

“No soul?” she reflected, lingering on a puff of smoke. “How chic!”

Stefan was delighted. Hopefully, he broke into French. She replied with fluent ease, but with a strange, though charming, accent. The exotic French fitted her whole personality, he felt, as English could not do. He was pricked by curiosity as to her origin, and did not hesitate to ask it, but she gave her shadow of a smile, and waved her cigarette vaguely. “Quién sabe?” she shrugged.

“Do you know Spanish?” he asked in French, seeking a clue.

“Only what one picks up in California.” He was no nearer a solution.

“Were you out there long?”

She looked at him vaguely. “I should like some coffee, please.”

Defeated, he was obliged to fetch a cup. When he returned, it was to find her talking monosyllabic English to a group of men.

Farraday and McEwan had temporarily resigned Mary to a stream of newcomers, and stood watching the scene from the inner drawing room.

“James,” said McEwan, “get on to the makeup of the crowd round our lady, and compare it with the specimens rubbering the little Berber.”

Farraday smiled in his grave, slow way.

“You're right, Mac, the substance and the shadow.”

Many of the women seated about the room were covertly staring at Felicity, but so far none had joined her group. This consisted, besides Stefan, of two callow and obviously enthralled youths, a heavy semi-bald man with paunched eyes and a gluttonous mouth, and a tall languid person wearing tufts of hair on unexpected parts of his face, and showing the hands of a musician.

Round Mary stood half a dozen women, their host, the kindly and practical Mr. Elliot, a white-haired man of distinguished bearing, and a gigantic young viking with tawny hair and beard and powerful hands.

“That's Gunther, an A1 sculptor,” said McEwan, indicating the viking, who was looking at Mary as his ancestors might have looked at a vision of Freia.

“They're well matched, eh, James?”

“As well as she could be,” the other answered gravely. McEwan looked at his friend. “Mon,” he said, relapsing to his native speech, “come and hae a drop o' the guid Scotch.”

Constance had determined that Felicity should dance, in spite of her well-known laziness. At this point she crossed the room to attack her, expecting a difficult task, but, to her surprise, Felicity hardly demurred. After a moment of sphinx-like communing, she dropped her cigarette and rose.

“Mr. Byrd is going to paint me as something without a soul--I think I will dance,” she cryptically vouchsafed.

“Shall I play?” offered Constance, delighted.

Miss Berber turned to the languid musician.

“Have you your ocarina, Marchmont?” she breathed.

“I always carry it, Felicity,” he replied, with a reproachful look, drawing from his pocket what appeared to be a somewhat contorted meerschaum pipe.

“Then no piano to-night, Connie. A little banal, the piano, perhaps.” Her hands waved vaguely.

A space was cleared; chairs were arranged.

Miss Berber vanished behind a portiere. The languid Marchmont draped himself in a corner, and put the fat little meerschaum to his lips. A clear, jocund sound, a mere thread of music, as from the pipe of some hidden faun, penetrated the room. The notes trembled, paused, and fell to the minor. Felicity, feet bare, toes touched with scarlet, wafted into the room. Her dancing was incredibly light; she looked like some exotic poppy swaying to an imperceptible breeze. The dance was languorously sad, palely gay, a thing half asleep, veiled. It seemed always about to break into fierce life, yet did not. The scent of mandragora hung over it--it was as if the dancer, drugged, were dreaming of the sunlight.

When, waving a negligent hand to the applause, Felicity passed Stefan at the end of her dance, he caught a murmured phrase from her.

“Not soulless, perhaps, but sleeping.” Whether she meant this as an explanation of her dance or of herself he was not sure.

Mary watched the dance with admiration, and wished to compare her impressions of it with her husband's. She tried to catch his eye across the room at the end, but he had drifted away toward the dining room. Momentarily disappointed, she turned to find Farraday at her elbow, and gladly let him lead her, also, in search of refreshments. There was a general movement in that direction, and the drawing room was almost empty as McEwan, purpose in his eye, strode across it to Constance. He spoke to her in an undertone.

“Sing? Does she? I had no idea! She never tells one such things,” his hostess replied. “Do you think she would? But she has no music. You could play for her? How splendid, Mr. McEwan. How perfectly lovely of you. I'll arrange it.” She hurried out, leaving McEwan smiling at nothing in visible contentment. In a few minutes she returned with Mary.

“Of course I will if you wish it,” the latter was saying, “but I've no music, and only know foolish little ballads.”

“Mr. McEwan says he can vamp them all, and it will be too delightful to have something from each of my women stars,” Constance urged. “Now I'll leave you two to arrange it, and in a few minutes I'll get every one back from the dining room,” she nodded, slipping away again.

“Cruel man, you've given me away,” Mary smiled.

“I always brag about my friends,” grinned McEwan. They went over to the piano.

“What price the Bard! Do you know this?” His fingers ran into the old air for “Sigh No More, Ladies.” She nodded.

“Yes, I like that.”

“And for a second,” he spun round on his stool, “what do you say to a duet?” His candid blue eyes twinkled at her.

“A duet!” she exclaimed in genuine surprise. “Do you sing, Mr. McEwan?”

“Once in a while,” and, soft pedal down, he played a few bars of Marzials' “My True Love Hath My Heart,” humming the words in an easy barytone.

“Oh, what fun!” exclaimed Mary. “I love that.” They tried it over, below their breaths.

The room was filling again. People began to settle down expectantly; McEwan struck his opening chords.

Just as Mary's first note sounded, Stefan and Felicity entered the room. He started in surprise; then Mary saw him smile delightedly, and they both settled themselves well in front.

“'Men were deceivers ever,'” sang Mary, with simple ease, and “'Hey nonny, nonny.'” The notes fell gaily; her lips and eyes smiled.

There was generous applause at the end of the little song. Then McEwan struck the first chords of the duet.

“'My true love hath my heart,'” Mary sang clearly, head up, eyes shining. “'My true love hath my heart,'” replied McEwan, in his cheery barytone.

“'--And I have his,'” Mary's bell tones announced.

“'--And I have his,'” trolled McEwan.

“'There never was a better bargain driven,'” the notes came, confident and glad, from the golden figure with its clear-eyed, glowing face. They ended in a burst of almost defiant optimism.

Applause was hearty and prolonged. McEwan slipped from his stool and sought a cigarette in the adjoining room. There was a general congratulatory movement toward Mary, in which both Stefan and Felicity joined. Then people again began to break into groups. Felicity found her sofa, Mary a chair. McEwan discovered Farraday under the arch between the two drawing-rooms, and stood beside him to watch the crowd. Stefan had moved with Felicity toward her sofa, and, as she disposed herself, she seemed to be talking to him in French. McEwan and Farraday continued their survey. Mary was surrounded by people, but her eyes strayed across the room. Felicity appeared almost animated, but Stefan seemed inattentive; he fidgeted, and looked vague.

A moment more, and quite abruptly he crossed the room, and planted himself down beside Mary.

“Ah,” sighed McEwan, apparently à propos of nothing, and with a trace of Scotch, “James, I'll now hae another whusky.”