Chapter 3

THE NESTLING

I

Stefan's initial and astonishing success was not to be repeated that winter. The great Constantine, anxious to benefit by the flood tide of his client's popularity, had indeed called at the studio in search of more material, but after a careful survey, had decided against exhibiting “Tempest” and “Pursuit.” Before these pictures he had stood wrapped in speculation for some time, pursing his lips and fingering the over-heavy seals of his fob. Mary had watched him eagerly, deeply curious as to the effect of the paintings. But Stefan had been careless to the point of rudeness; he had long since lost interest in his old work. When at last the swarthy little dealer, who was a Greek Jew, and had the keen, perceptions of both races, had shaken his head, Mary was not surprised, was indeed almost glad.

“Mr. Byrd,” Constantine had pronounced, in his heavy, imperfect English, “I think we would make a bad mistake to exhibit these paintings now. Technically they are clever, oh, very clever indeed, but they would be unpopular; and this once,” he smiled shrewdly, “the public would be right about it. Your Danaë was a big conception as well as fine painting; it had inspiration--feeling--” his thick but supple hands circled in emphasis--“we don't want to go back simply to cleverness. When you paint me something as big again as that one I exhibit it; otherwise,” with a shrug, “I think we spoil our market.”

After this visit Stefan, quite unperturbed, had turned the two fantasies to the wall.

“I dare say Constantine is right about them,” he said; “they are rather crazy things, and anyhow, I'm sick of them.”

Mary was quite relieved to have them hidden. The merman in particular had got upon her nerves of late.

As the winter advanced, the Byrds' circle of acquaintances grew, and many visitors dropped into the studio for tea. These showed much interest in Stefan's new picture, a large study of Mary in the guise of Demeter, for which she was posing seated, robed in her Berber gown. Miss Mason in particular was delighted with the painting, which she dubbed a “companion piece” to the Danaë. The story of Constantine's decision against the two salon canvases got about and, amusingly enough, heightened the Byrds' popularity. The Anglo-Saxon public is both to take its art neat, preferring it coated with a little sentiment. It now became accepted that Stefan's genius was due to his wife, whose love had lighted the torch of inspiration.

“Ah, Mr. Byrd,” Miss Mason had summed up the popular view, in one of her rare romantic moments, “the love of a good woman--!” Stefan had looked completely vague at this remark, and Mary had burst out laughing.

“Why, Sparrow,” for so, to Miss Mason's delight, she had named her, “don't be Tennysonian, as Stefan would say. It was Stefan's power to feel love, and not mine to call it out, that painted the Danaë,” and she looked at him with proud tenderness.

But the Sparrow was unconvinced. “You can't tell me. If 'twas all in him, why didn't some other girl over in Paris call it out long ago?”

“Lots tried,” grinned Stefan, with his cheeky-boy expression.

“Ain't he terrible,” Miss Mason sighed, smiling. She adored Mary's husband, but consistently disapproved of him.

Try as she would, Mary failed to shake her friends' estimate of her share in the family success. It became the fashion to regard her as a muse, and she, who had felt oppressed by Stefan's lover-like deification, now found her friends, too, conspiring to place her on a pedestal. Essentially simple and modest, she suffered real discomfort from the cult of adoration that surrounded her. Coming from a British community which she felt had underestimated her, she now found herself made too much of. A smaller woman would have grown vain amid so much admiration; Mary only became inwardly more humble, while outwardly carrying her honors with laughing deprecation.

For some time after the night of Constance's reception, Stefan had shown every evidence of contentment, but as the winter dragged into a cold and slushy March he began to have recurrent moods of his restless irritability. By this time Mary was moving heavily; she could no longer keep brisk pace with him in his tramps up the Avenue, but walked more slowly and for shorter distances. She no longer sprang swiftly from her chair or ran to fetch him a needed tool; her every movement was matronly. But she was so well, so entirely normal, as practically to be unconscious of a change to which her husband was increasingly alive.

Another source of Stefan's dissatisfaction lay in the progress of his Demeter. This picture showed the Goddess enthroned under the shade of a tree, beyond which spread harvest fields in brilliant sunlight. At her feet a naked boy, brown from the sun, played with a pile of red and golden fruits. In the distance maids and youths were dancing. The Goddess sat back drowsily, her eyelids drooping, her hands and arms relaxed over her chair. She had called all this richness into being, and now in the heat of the day she rested, brooding over the fecund earth. So far, the composition was masterly, but the tones lacked the necessary depth; they were vivid where they should have been warm, and he felt the deficiency without yet having been able to remedy it.

“Oh, damn!” said Stefan one morning, throwing down his brush. “This picture is architectural, absolutely. What possessed me to try such a conception? I can only do movement. I can't be static. Earth! I don't understand it--everything good I've done has been made of air and fire, or water.” He turned an irritable face to Mary.

“Why did you encourage me in this?”

She looked up in frank astonishment, about to reply, but he forestalled her.

“Oh, yes, I know I was pleased with the idea--it isn't your fault, of course, and yet--Oh, what's the use!” He slapped down his pallette and made for the door. “I'm off to get some air,” he called.

Mary felt hurt and uneasy. The nameless doubts of the autumn again assailed her. What would be the end, she wondered, of her great adventure? The distant prospect vaguely troubled her, but she turned easily from it to the immediate future, which held a blaze of joy sufficient to obliterate all else.

The thought of her baby was to Mary like the opening of the gates of paradise to Christian the Pilgrim. Her heart shook with joy of it. She passed through her days now only half conscious of the world about her. She had, together with her joy, an extraordinary sense of physical well-being, of the actual value of the body. For the first time she became actively interested in her beauty. Even on her honeymoon she had never dressed to please her husband with the care she now gave to the donning of her loose pink and white negligées and the little boudoir caps she had bought to wear with them. That Stefan paid her fewer compliments, that he often failed to notice small additions to her wardrobe, affected her not at all. “Afterwards he will be pleased; afterwards he will love me more than ever,” she thought, but, even so, knew that it was not for him she was now fair, but for that other. She did not love Stefan less, but her love was to be made flesh, and it was that incarnation she now adored. If she had been given to self-analysis she might have asked what it boded that she had never--save for that one moment's adoration of his genius the day he completed the Danaë--felt for Stefan the abandonment of love she felt for his coming child. She might have wondered, but she did not, for she felt too intensely in these days to have much need of thought. She loved her husband--he was a great man--they were to have a child. The sense of those three facts made up her cosmos.

Farraday had asked her in vain on more than one occasion for another manuscript. The last time she shook her head, with one of her rare attempts at explanation, made less rarely to him than to her other friends.

“No, Mr. Farraday, I can't think about imaginary children just now. There's a spell over me--all the world waits, and I'm holding my breath. Do you see?”

He took her hand between both his.

“Yes, my dear child, I do,” he answered, his mouth twisting into its sad and gentle smile. He had come bringing a sheaf of spring flowers, narcissus, and golden daffodils, which she was holding in her lap. He thought as he said good-bye that she looked much more like Persephone than the Demeter of Stefan's picture.

In spite of her deep-seated emotion, Mary was gay and practical enough in these late winter days, with her small household tasks, her occasional shopping, and her sewing. This last had begun vaguely to irritate Stefan, so incessant was it.

“Mary, do put down that sewing,” he would exclaim; or “Don't sing the song of the shirt any more to-day;” and she would laughingly fold her work, only to take it up instinctively again a few minutes later.

One evening he came upon her bending over a table in their sitting room, tracing a fine design on cambric with a pencil. Something in her pose and figure opened a forgotten door of memory; he watched her puzzled for a moment, then with a sudden exclamation ran upstairs, and returned with a pad of paper and a box of water-color paints. He was visibly excited. “Here, Mary,” he said, thrusting a brush into her hand and clearing a place on the table. “Do something for me. Make a drawing on this pad, anything you like, whatever first comes into your head.” His tone was eagerly importunate. She looked up in surprise, “Why, you funny boy! What shall I draw?”

“That's just it--I don't know. Please draw whatever you want to--it doesn't matter how badly--just draw something.”

Mystified, but acquiescent, Mary considered for a moment, looking from paper to brush, while Stefan watched eagerly.

“Can't I use a pencil?” she asked.

“No, a brush, please, I'll explain afterwards.”

“Very well.” She attacked the brown paint, then the red, then mixed some green. In a few minutes the paper showed a wobbly little house with a red roof and a smudged foreground of green grass with the suggestion of a shade-giving tree.

“There,” she laughed, handing him the pad, “I'm afraid I shall never be an artist,” and she looked up.

His face had dropped. He was staring at the drawing with an expression of almost comic disappointment.

“Why, Stefan,” she laughed, rather uncomfortably, “you didn't think I could draw, did you?”

“No, no, it isn't that, Mary. It's just--the house. I thought you might--perhaps draw birds--or flowers.”

“Birds?--or flowers?” She was at a loss.

“It doesn't matter; just an idea.”

He crumpled up the little house, and closed the paintbox. “I'm going out for awhile; good-bye, dearest”; and, with a kiss, he left the room.

Mary sat still, too surprised for remonstrance, and in a moment heard the bang of the flat door.

“Birds, or flowers?” Suddenly she remembered something Stefan had told her, on the night of their engagement, about his mother. So that was it. Tears came to her eyes. Rather lonely, she went to bed.

Meanwhile Stefan, his head bare in the cold wind, was speeding up the Avenue on the top of an omnibus.

“Houses are cages,” he said to himself. For some reason, he felt hideously depressed.

* * * * *

“I called on Miss Berber last evening,” Stefan announced casually at breakfast the next morning.

“Did you?” replied Mary, surprised, putting down her cup. “Well, did you have a nice time?”

“It was mildly amusing,” he said, opening the newspaper. The subject dropped.

II

Mary, who had lived all her life in a small town within sight of the open fields, was beginning to feel the confinement of city life. Even during her year in London she had joined other girls in weekend bicycling excursions out of town, or tubed to Golder's Green or Shepherd's Bush in search of country walks. Now that the late snows of March had cleared away, she began eagerly to watch for swelling buds in the Square, and was dismayed when Stefan told her that the spring, in this part of America, was barely perceptible before May.

“That's the first objection I've found to your country, Stefan,” she said.

He was scowling moodily out of the window. “The first? I see nothing but objections.”

“Oh, come!” she smiled at him; “it hasn't been so bad, has it?”

“Better than I had expected,” he conceded. “But it will soon be April, and I remember the leaves in the Luxembourg for so many Aprils back.”

She came and put her arm through his. “Do you want to go, dear?”

“Oh, hang it all, Mary, you don't suppose I want to leave you?” he answered brusquely, releasing his arm. “I want my own place, that's all.”

She had, in her quieter way, become just as homesick for England, though sharing none of his dislike of her adopted land.

“Well, shall we both go?” she suggested.

He laughed shortly. “Don't be absurd, dearest--what would your doctor say to such a notion? No, we've got to stick it out,” and he ruffled his hair impatiently.

With a suppressed sigh Mary changed the subject. “By the by, I want you to meet Dr. Hillyard; I have asked her to tea this afternoon.”

“Do you honestly mean it when you say she is not an elderly ironsides with spectacles?”

“I honestly assure you she is young and pretty. Moreover, I forbid you to talk like an anti-suffragist,” she laughed.

“Very well, then, I will be at home,” with an answering grin.

And so he was, and on his best behavior, when the little doctor arrived an hour later. She had been found by the omniscient Miss Mason, and after several visits Mary had more than endorsed the Sparrow's enthusiastic praise.

When the slight, well-tailored little figure entered the room Stefan found it hard to believe that this fresh-faced girl was the physician, already a specialist in her line, to whom Mary's fate had been entrusted. For the first time he wondered if he should not have shared with Mary some responsibility for her arrangements. But as, with an unwonted sense of duty, he questioned the little doctor, his doubts vanished. Without a trace of the much hated professional manner she gave him glimpses of wide experience, and at one point mentioned an operation she had just performed--which he knew by hearsay as one of grave difficulty--with the same enthusiastic pleasure another young woman might have shown in the description of a successful bargain-hunt. She was to Stefan a new type, and he was delighted with her. Mary, watching him, thought with affectionate irony that had the little surgeon been reported plain of face he would have denied himself in advance both the duty and the pleasure of meeting her.

Over their tea, Dr. Hillyard made a suggestion.

“Where are you planning to spend the summer?” she asked.

Stefan looked surprised. “We thought we ought to be here, near you,” he answered.

“Oh, no,” the doctor shook her head; “young couples are always martyrizing themselves for these events. By May it will be warm, and Mrs. Byrd isn't acclimatized to our American summers. Find a nice place not too far from the city--say on Long Island--and I can run out whenever necessary. You both like the country, I imagine?”

Stefan was overjoyed. He jumped up.

“Dr. Hillyard, you've saved us. We thought we had to be prisoners, and I've been eating my heart out for France. The country will be a compromise.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, smiling a little, “Mrs. Byrd has been longing for England for a month or more.”

“I never said so!” and “She never told me!” exclaimed Mary and Stefan simultaneously.

“No, you didn't,” the little doctor nodded wisely at her patient, “but I know.”

Stefan immediately began to plan an expedition in search of the ideal spot, as unspoiled if possible as Shadeham, but much nearer town. All through dinner he discussed it, his spirits hugely improved, and immediately after rang up Constance Elliot for advice.

“Hold the line,” the lady's voice replied, “while I consult.” In a minute or two she returned.

“Mr. Farraday is dining with us, and I've asked him. He lives at Crab's Bay, you know.”

“No, I don't,” objected Stefan.

“Well, he does,” her voice laughed back. “He was born there. He says if you like he will come over and talk to you about it, and I, like a self-sacrificing hostess, am willing to let him.”

“Splendid idea,” said Stefan, “ask him to come right over. Mary,” he called, hanging up the receiver, “Constance is sending Farraday across to advise us.”

“Oh, dear,” said she; “sometimes I feel almost overwhelmed by all the favors we receive from our friends.”

“Fiddlesticks! They are paid by the pleasure of our society. You don't seem to realize that we are unusually interesting and attractive people,” laughed he with a flourish.

“Vain boy!”

“So I am, and vain of being vain. I believe in being as conceited as possible, conceited enough to make one's conceit good.”

She smiled indulgently, knowing that, as he was talking nonsense, he felt happy.

Farraday appeared in a few minutes, and they settled in a group round the fire with coffee and cigarettes. Stefan offered Mary one. She shook her head.

“I'm not smoking now, you know.”

“Did Dr. Hillyard say so?” he asked quickly.

“No, but--”

“Then don't be poky, dearest.” He lit the cigarette and held it out to her, but she waved it back.

“Don't tease, dear,” she murmured, noticing that Farraday was watching them. Stefan with a shrug retained the cigarette in his left hand, and smoked it ostentatiously for some minutes, alternately with his own. Mary, hoping he was not going to be naughty, embarked on the Long Island topic.

“We want to be within an hour of the city,” she explained, “but in pretty country. We want to keep house, but not to pay too much. We should like to be near the sea. Does that sound wildly impossible?”

Farraday fingered his cigarette reflectively.

“I rather think,” he said at last, “that my neighborhood most nearly meets the requirements. I have several hundred acres at Crab's Bay, which belonged to my father, running from the shore halfway to the railroad station. The village itself is growing suburban, but the properties beyond mine are all large, and keep the country open. We are only an hour from the city--hardly more, by automobile.”

“Are there many tin cans?” enquired Stefan, flippantly. “In Michigan I remember them as the chief suburban decoration.”

“Yes?” said Farraday, in his invariably courteous tone, “I've never been there. It is a long way from New York.”

“Touché,” cried Stefan, grinning. “But you would think pessimism justified if you'd ever had my experience of rural life.”

“Was your father really American?” enquired his guest with apparent irrelevance.

“Yes, and a minister.”

“Oh, a minister. I see,” the other replied, quietly.

“Explains it, does it?” beamed Stefan, who was nothing if not quick. They all laughed, and the little duel was ended. Mary took up the broken discussion.

“Is there the slightest chance of our finding anything reasonably cheap in such a neighborhood?” she asked.

“I was just coming to that,” said Farraday. “You would not care to be in the village, and any houses that might be for rent there would be expensive, I'm afraid. But it so happens there is a cottage on the edge of my property where my father's old farmer used to live. After his death I put a little furniture in the place, and have occasionally used it. But it is entirely unnecessary to me, and you are welcome to it for the summer if it would suit you. The rent would be nominal. I don't regard it commercially, it's too near my own place.”

Mary flushed. “It's most awfully good of you,” she said, “but I don't know if we ought to accept. I'm afraid you may be making it convenient out of kindness.”

“Mary, how British!” Stefan interrupted. He had taken lately so to labeling her small conventionalities. “Why accuse Mr. Farraday of altruistic insincerity? I think his description sounds delightful. Let's go tomorrow and see the cottage.”

“If you will wait till Sunday,” Farraday smiled, “I shall be delighted to drive you out. It might be easier for Mrs. Byrd.”

Mary again demurred on the score of giving unnecessary trouble, but Stefan overrode her, and Farraday was obviously pleased with the plan. It was arranged that he should call for them in his car the following Sunday, and that they should lunch with him and his mother. When he had left Stefan performed a little pas seul around the room.

“Tra-la-la!” he sang; “birds, Mary, trees, water. No more chimney pots, no more walking up and down that tunnel of an avenue. See what it is to have admiring friends.”

Mary flushed again. “Why will you spoil everything by putting it like that?”

He stopped and patted her cheek teasingly.

“It's me they admire, Mary, the great artist, creator of the famous Danaë,” and he skipped again, impishly.

Mary was obliged to laugh. “You exasperating creature!” she said, and went to bed, while he ran up to the studio to pull out the folding easel and sketching-box of his old Brittany days.

III

When on the following Sunday morning Farraday drove up to the house, Mary was delighted to find Constance Elliot in the tonneau.

“Theodore has begun golfing again, now that the snow has gone,” she greeted her, “so that I am a grass widow on holidays as well as all the week.”

“Why don't you learn to play, too?” Mary asked, as they settled themselves, Stefan sitting in front with Farraday, who was driving.

“Oh, for your English feet, my dear!” sighed Constance. “They are bigger than mine--I dare say so, as I wear fours--but you can walk on them. I was brought up to be vain of my extremities, and have worn two-inch heels too long to be good for more than a mile. The links would kill me. Besides,” she sighed again prettily, “dear Theodore is so much happier without me.”

“How can you, Constance!” objected Mary.

“Yes, my dear,” went on the other, her beautiful little hands, which she seldom gloved, playing with the inevitable string of jade, “the result of modern specialization. Theodore is a darling, and in theory a Suffragist, but he has practised the matrimonial division of labor so long that he does not know what to do with the woman out of the home.”

“This is Queensborough Bridge,” she pointed out in a few minutes, as they sped up a huge iron-braced incline. “It looks like eight pepper-castors on a grid, surmounted by bayonets, but it is very convenient.”

Mary laughed. Constance's flow of small talk always put her in good spirits. She looked about her with interest as the car emerged from the bridge into a strange waste land of automobile factories, new stone-faced business buildings, and tumbledown wooden cottages. The houses, in their disarray, lay as if cast like seeds from some titanic hand, to fall, wither or sprout as they listed, regardless of plan. The bridge seemed to divide a settled civilization from pioneer country, and as they left the factories behind and emerged into fields dotted with advertisements and wooden shacks Mary was reminded of stories she had read of the far West, or of Australia. Stefan leant back from the front seat, and waved at the view.

“Behold the tin can,” he cried, “emblem of American civilization!” She saw that he was right; the fields on either side were dotted with tins, bottles, and other husks of dinners past and gone. Gradually, however, this stage was left behind: they began to pass through villages of pleasant wooden houses painted white or cream, with green shutters, or groups of red-tiled stucco dwellings surrounded by gardens in the English manner. Soon these, too, were left, and real country appeared, prettily wooded, in which low-roofed homesteads clung timidly to the roadside as if in search of company.

“What dear little houses!” Mary exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Constance, “that is the Long Island farmhouse type, as good architecturally as anything America has produced, but abandoned in favor of Oriental bungalows, Italian palaces and French châteaux.”

“I should adore a little house like one of those.”

“Wait till you see Mr. Farraday's cottage; it's a lamb, and his home like it, only bigger. What can one call an augmented lamb? I can only think of sheep, which doesn't sound well.”

“I'm afraid we should say it was 'twee' in England,” Mary smiled, “which sounds worse.”

“Yes, I'd rather my house were a sheep than a 'twee,' because I do at least know that a sheep is useful, and I'm sure a 'twee' can't be.”

“It's not a noun, Constance, but an adjective, meaning sweet,” translated Mary, laughing. She loved Constance's nonsense because it was never more than that. Stefan's absurdities were always personal and, often, not without a hidden sting.

“Well,” Constance went on, “you must be particularly 'twee' then, to James' mother, who is a Quaker from Philadelphia, and an American gentlewoman of the old school. His father was a New Englander, and took his pleasures sadly, as I tell James he does; but his mother is as warm as a dear little toast, and as pleasant--well--as the dinner bell.”

“What culinary similes, Constance!”

“My dear, from sheep to mutton is only a step, and I'm so hungry I can think only in terms of a menu. And that,” she prattled on, “reminds me of Mr. McEwan, whose face is the shape of a mutton chop. He is sure to be there, for he spends half his time with James. Do you like him?”

“Yes, I do,” said Mary; “increasingly.”

“He's one of the best of souls. Have you heard his story?”

“No, has he one?”

“Indeed, yes,” replied Constance. “The poor creature, who, by the way, adores you, is a victim of Quixotism. When he first came to New York he married a young girl who lived in his boarding-house and was in trouble by another man. Mac found her trying to commit suicide, and, as the other man had disappeared, married her to keep her from it. She was pretty, I believe, and I think he was fond of her because of her terrible helplessness. The first baby died, luckily, but when his own was born a year or two later the poor girl was desperately ill, and lost most of what little mind she possessed. She developed two manias--the common spendthrift one, and the conviction that he was trying to divorce her. That was ten years ago. He has to keep her at sanitariums with a companion to check her extravagance, and he pays her weekly visits to reassure her as to the divorce. She costs him nearly all he makes, in doctors' bills and so forth--he never spends a penny on himself, except for a cheap trip to Scotland once a year. Yet, with it all, he is one of the most cheerful souls alive.”

“Poor fellow!” said Mary. “What about the child?”

“He's alive, but she takes very little notice of him. He spends most of his time with Mrs. Farraday, who is a saint. James, poor man, adores children, and is glad to have him.”

“Why hasn't Mr. Farraday married, I wonder?” Mary murmured under the covering purr of the car.

“Oh, what a waste,” groaned Constance. “An ideal husband thrown away! Nobody knows, my dear. I think he was hit very hard years ago, and never got over it. He won't say, but I tell him if I weren't ten years older, and Theodore in evidence, I should marry him myself out of hand.”

“I like him tremendously, but I don't think I should ever have felt attracted in that way,” said Mary, who was much too natural a woman not to be interested in matrimonial speculations.

“That's because you are two of a kind, simple and serious,” nodded Constance. “I could have adored him.”

They had been speeding along a country lane between tall oaks, and, breasting a hill, suddenly came upon the sea, half landlocked by curving bays and little promontories. Beyond these, on the horizon, the coast of Connecticut was softly visible. Mary breathed in great draughts of salt-tanged air.

“Oh, how good!” she exclaimed.

“Here we are,” cried Constance, as the machine swung past white posts into a wooded drive, which curved and curved again, losing and finding glimpses of the sea. No buds were out, but each twig bulged with nobbins of new life; and the ground, brown still, had the swept and garnished look which the March winds leave behind for the tempting of Spring. Persephone had not risen, but the earth listened for her step, and the air held the high purified quality that presages her coming.

“Lovely, lovely,” breathed Mary, her eyes and cheeks glowing.

The car stopped under a porte cochère, before a long brown house of heavy clapboards, with shingled roof and green blinds. Farraday jumped down and helped Mary out, and the front door opened to reveal the shining grin of McEwan, poised above the gray head of a little lady who advanced with outstretched hand to greet them.

“My mother--Mrs. Byrd,” Farraday introduced.

“I am very pleased to meet thee. My son has told me so much about thee and thy husband. Thee must make thyself at home here,” beamed the little lady, with one of the most engaging smiles Mary had ever beheld.

Stefan was introduced in his turn, and made his best continental bow. He liked old ladies, who almost invariably adored him. McEwan greeted him with a “Hello,” and shook hands warmly with the two women. They all moved into the hall, Mary under the wing of Mrs. Farraday, who presently took her upstairs to a bedroom.

“Thee must rest here before dinner,” said she, smoothing with a tiny hand the crocheted bedspread. “Ring this bell if there is anything thee wants. Shall I send Mr. Byrd up to thee?”

“Indeed, I'm not a bit tired,” said Mary, who had never felt better.

“All the same I would rest a little if I were thee,” Mrs. Farraday nodded wisely. Mary was fascinated by her grammar, never having met a Quaker before. The little lady, who barely reached her guest's shoulder, had such an air of mingled sweetness and dignity as to make Mary feel she must instinctively yield to her slightest wish. Obediently she lay down, and Mrs. Farraday covered her feet.

Mary noticed her fine white skin, soft as a baby's, the thousand tiny lines round her gentle eyes, her simple dress of brown silk with a cameo at the neck, her little, blue-veined hands. No wonder the son of such a woman impressed one with his extraordinary kindliness.

The little lady slipped away, and Mary, feeling unexpected pleasure in the quiet room and the soft bed, closed her eyes gratefully.

At luncheon, or rather dinner, for it was obvious that Mrs. Farraday kept to the old custom of Sunday meals, a silent, shock-headed boy of about ten appeared, whom McEwan with touching pride introduced as his son. He was dressed in a kilt and small deerskin sporran, with the regulation heavy stockings, tweed jacket and Eton collar.

“For Sundays only--we have to be Yankees on school days, eh, Jamie?” explained his father. The boy grinned in speechless assent, instantly looking a duplicate of McEwan.

Mary's heart warmed to him at once, he was so shy and clumsy; but Stefan, who detested the mere suspicion of loutishness, favored him with an absent-minded stare. Mary, who sat on Farraday's right, had the boy next her, with his father beyond, Stefan being between Mrs. Farraday and Constance. The meal was served by a gray-haired negro, of manners so perfect as to suggest the ideal southern servant, already familiar to Mary in American fiction. As if in answer to a cue, Mrs. Farraday explained across the table that Moses and his wife had come from Philadelphia with her on her marriage, and had been born in the South before the war. Mary's literary sense of fitness was completely satisfied by this remark, which was received by Moses with a smile of gentle pride.

“James,” said Constance, “I never get tired of your mother's house; it is so wonderful to have not one thing out of key.”

Farraday smiled. “Bless you, she wouldn't change a footstool. It is all just as when she married, and much of it, at that, belonged to her mother.”

This explained what, with Mary's keen eye for interiors, had puzzled her when they first arrived. She had expected to see more of the perfect taste and knowledge displayed in Farraday's office, instead of which the house, though dignified and hospitable, lacked all traces of the connoisseur. She noticed in particular the complete absence of any color sense. All the woodwork was varnished brown, the hangings were of dull brown velvet or dark tapestry, the carpets toneless. Her bedroom had been hung with white dimity, edged with crochet-work, but the furniture was of somber cherry, and the chintz of the couch-cover brown with yellow flowers. The library, into which she looked from where she sat, was furnished with high glass-doored bookcases, turned walnut tables, and stuffed chairs and couches with carved walnut rims. Down each window the shade was lowered half way, and the light was further obscured by lace curtains and heavy draperies of plain velvet. The pictures were mostly family portraits, with a few landscapes of doubtful merit. There were no flowers anywhere, except one small vase of daffodils upon the dinner table. According to all modern canons the house should have been hideous; but it was not. It held garnered with loving faith the memories of another day, as a bowl of potpourri still holds the sun of long dead summers. It fitted absolutely the quiet kindliness, the faded face and soft brown dress of its mistress. It was keyed to her, as Constance had understood, to the last detail.

“Yes,” said Farraday, smiling down the table at his mother, “she could hardly bring herself to let me build my picture gallery on the end of the house--nothing but Christian charity enabled her to yield.”

The old lady smiled back at her tall son almost like a sweetheart. “He humors me,” she said; “he knows I'm a foolish old woman who love, my nest as it was first prepared for me.”

“Oh, I can so well understand that,” said Mary.

“Do you mean to say, Mrs. Farraday,” interposed Stefan, “that you have lived in this one house, without changing it, all your married life?”

She turned to him in simple surprise. “Why, of course; my husband chose it for me.”

“Marvelous!” said Stefan, who felt that one week of those brown hangings would drive him to suicide.

“Nix on the home-sweet-home business for yours, eh, Byrd?” threw in McEwan with his glint of a twinkle.

“Boy,” interposed their little hostess, “why will thee always use such shocking slang? How can I teach Jamie English with his father's example before him?” She shook a tiny finger at the offender.

“Ma'am, if I didn't sling the lingo, begging your pardon, in my office, they would think I was a highbrow, and then--good night Mac!”

“Don't believe him, Mother,” said Farraday. “It isn't policy, but affection. He loves the magazine crowd, and likes to do as it does. Besides,” he smiled, “he's a linguistic specialist.”

“You think slang is an indication of local patriotism?” asked Mary.

“Certainly,” said Farraday. “If we love a place we adopt its customs.”

“That's quite true,” Stefan agreed. “In Paris I used the worst argot of the quarter, but I've always spoken straightforward English because the only slang I knew in my own tongue reminded me of a place I loathed.”

“Stefan used to be dreadfully unpatriotic, Mrs. Farraday,” explained Mary, “but he is outgrowing it.”

“Am I?” Stefan asked rather pointedly.

“Art,” said McEwan grandly, “is international; Byrd belongs to the world.” He raised his glass of lemonade, and ostentatiously drank Stefan's health. The others laughed at him, and the conversation veered. Mary absorbed herself in trying to draw out the bashful Jamie, and Stefan listened while his hostess talked on her favorite theme, that of her son, James Farraday.

They had coffee in the picture gallery, a beautiful room which Farraday had extended beyond the drawing-room, and furnished with perfect examples of the best Colonial period. It was hung almost entirely with the work of Americans, in particular landscapes by Inness, Homer Martin, and George Munn, while over the fireplace was a fine mother and child by Mary Cassatt. For the first time since their arrival Stefan showed real interest, and leaving the others, wandered round the room critically absorbing each painting.

“Well, Farraday,” he said at the end of his tour, “I must say you have the best of judgment. I should have been mighty glad to paint one or two of those myself.” His tone indicated that more could not be said.

Meanwhile, Mary could hardly wait for the real object of their expedition, the little house. When at last the car was announced, Mrs. Farraday's bonnet and cloak brought by a maid, and everybody, Jamie included, fitted into the machine, Mary felt her heart beating with excitement. Were they going to have a real little house for their baby? Was it to be born out here by the sea, instead of in the dusty, overcrowded city? She strained her eyes down the road. “It's only half a mile,” called Farraday from the wheel, “and a mile and a half from the station.” They swung down a hill, up again, round a bend, and there was a grassy plateau overlooking the water, backed by a tree-clad slope. Nestling under the trees, but facing the bay, was just such a little house as Mary had admired along the road, low and snug, shingled on walls and roof, painted white, with green shutters and a little columned porch at the front door. A small barn stood near; a little hedge divided house from lane; evidences of a flower garden showed under the windows. “Oh, what a duck!” Mary exclaimed. “Oh, Stefan!” She could almost have wept.

Farraday helped her down.

“Mrs. Byrd,” said he with his most kindly smile, “here is the key. Would you like to unlock the door yourself?”

She blushed with pleasure. “Oh, yes!” she cried, and turned instinctively to look for Stefan. He was standing at the plateau's edge, scrutinizing the view. She called, but he did not hear. Then she took the key and, hurrying up the little walk, entered the house alone.

A moment later Stefan, hailed stentoriously by McEwan, followed her.

She was standing in a long sitting-room, low-ceilinged and white-walled, with window-seats, geraniums on the sills, brass andirons on the hearth, an eight-day clock, a small old fashioned piano, an oak desk, a chintz-covered grandmother's chair, a gate-legged table, and a braided rag hearth-rug. Her hands were clasped, her eyes shining.

“Oh, Stefan!” she exclaimed as she heard his step. “Isn't it a darling? Wouldn't it be simply ideal for us?”

“It seems just right, and the view is splendid. There's a good deal that's paintable here.”

“Is there? I'm so glad. That makes it perfect. Look at the furniture, Stefan, every bit right.”

“And the moldings,” he added. “All handcut, do you see? The whole place is actually old. What a lark!” He appeared almost as pleased as she.

“Here come the others. Let's go upstairs, dearest,” she whispered.

There were four bedrooms, and a bathroom. The main room had a four-post bed, and opening out of it was a smaller room, almost empty. In this Mary stood for some minutes, measuring with her eye the height of the window from the floor, mentally placing certain small furnishings. “It would be ideal, simply ideal,” she repeated to herself. Stefan was looking out of the window, again absorbed in the view. She would have liked so well to share with him her tenderness over the little room, but he was all unmindful of its meaning to her, and, as always, his heedlessness made expression hard for her. She was still communing with the future when he turned from the window.

“Come along, Mary, let's go downstairs again.”

They found the others waiting in the sitting-room, and Farraday detached Stefan to show him a couple of old prints, while Mrs. Farraday led Constance and Mary to an exploration of the kitchen. Chancing to look back from the hall, Mary saw that McEwan had seated himself in the grandmother's chair, and was holding the heavy shy Jamie at his knee, one arm thrown round him. The boy's eyes were fixed in dumb devotion on his father's face.

“The two poor lonely things,” she thought.

The little kitchen was spotless, tiled shoulder-high, and painted blue above. Against one wall a row of copper saucepans grinned their fat content, echoed by the pale shine of an opposing row of aluminum. Snowy larder shelves showed through one little door; through another, laundry tubs were visible. There was a modern coal stove, with a boiler. The quarters were small, but perfect to the last detail. Mrs. Farraday's little face fairly beamed with pride as they looked about them.

“He did it all, bought every pot and pan, arranged each detail. There were no modern conveniences until old Cotter died--_he_ would not let James put them in. My boy loves this cottage; he sometimes spends several days here all alone, when he is very tired. He doesn't even like me to send Moses down, but of course I won't hear of that.” She shook her head with smiling finality. There were some things, her manner suggested, that little boys could not be allowed.

“But, Mrs. Farraday,” Mary exclaimed, “how can we possibly take the house from him if he uses it?”

“My dear,” the little lady's hand lighted on Mary's arm, “when thee knows my James better, thee will know that his happiness lies in helping his friends find theirs. He would be deeply disappointed if thee did not take it,” and her hand squeezed Mary's reassuringly.

“We are too wonderfully lucky--I don't know how to express my gratitude,” Mary answered.

“I think the good Lord sends us what we deserve, my dear, whether of good or ill,” the little lady replied, smiling wisely.

Constance sighed contentedly. “Oh, Mrs. Farraday, you are so good for us all. I'm a modern backslider, and hardly ever go to church, but you always make me feel as if I had just been.”

“Backslider, Constance? 'Thy own works praise thee, and thy children rise up and call thee blessed--thy husband also,'” quoted their hostess.

“Well, I don't know if my boys and Theodore call me blessed, but I hope the Suffragists will one day. Goodness knows I work hard enough for them.”

“I've believed in suffrage all my life, like all Friends,” Mrs. Farraday answered, “but where thee has worked I have only prayed for it.”

“If prayers are heard, I am sure yours should count more than my work, dear lady,” said Constance, affectionately pressing the other's hand.

The little Quaker's eyes were bright as she looked at her friend.

“Ah, my dear, thee is too generous to an old woman.”

Mary loved this little dialogue, “What dears all my new friends are,” she thought; “how truly good.” All the world seemed full of love to her in these days; her heart blossomed out to these kind people; she folded them in the arms of her spirit. All about, in nature and in human kind, she felt the spring burgeoning, and within herself she felt it most of all. But of this Mary could express nothing, save through her face--she had never looked more beautiful.

Coming into the dining room she found Farraday watching her. He seemed tired. She put out her hand.

“May we really have it? You are sure?”

“You like it?” he smiled, holding the hand.

She flushed with the effort to express herself. “I adore it. I can't thank you.”

“Please don't,” he answered. “You don't know what pleasure this gives me. Come as soon as you can; everything is ready for you.”

“And about the rent?” she asked, hating to speak of money, but knowing Stefan would forget.

“Dear Mrs. Byrd, I had so much rather lend it, but I know you wouldn't like that. Pay me what you paid for your first home in New York.”

“Oh, but that would be absurd,” she demurred.

“Make that concession to my pride in our friendship,” he smiled back.

She saw that she could not refuse without ungraciousness. Stefan had disappeared, but now came quickly in from the kitchen door.

“Farraday,” he called, “I've been looking at the barn; you don't use it, I see. If we come, should you mind my having a north light cut in it? With that it would make an ideal workshop.”

“I should be delighted,” the other answered; “it's a good idea and will make the place more valuable. I had the barn cleaned out thinking some one might like it for a garage.”

“We shan't run to such an extravagance yet awhile,” laughed Mary.

“A bicycle for me and the station hack for Mary,” Stefan summed up. “I suppose there is such a thing at Crab's Bay?”

“She won't have to walk,” Farraday answered.

Started on practical issues, Mary's mind had flown to the need of a telephone to link them to her doctor. “May we install a 'phone?” she asked. “I never lived with one till two months ago, but already it is a confirmed vice with me.”

“Mayn't I have it put in for you--there should be one here,” said he.

“Oh, no, please!”

“At least let me arrange for it,” he urged.

“Now, son, thee must not keep Mrs. Byrd out too late. Get her home before sundown,” Mrs. Farraday's voice admonished. Obediently, every one moved toward the hall. At a word from McEwan, the mute Jamie ran to open the tonneau door. Farraday stopped to lock the kitchen entrance and found McEwan on the little porch as he emerged, while the others were busy settling themselves in the car. As Farraday turned the heavy front door lock, his friend's hand fell on his shoulder.

“Ought ye to do it, James?” McEwan asked quietly.

Farraday raised his eyes, and looked steadily at the other, with his slow smile.

“Yes, Mac, it's a good thing to do. In any case, I shouldn't have been likely to marry, you know.” The two friends took their places in the car.

IV

After much consideration from Mary, the Byrds decided to give up their recently acquired flat, but to keep the old studio. She felt they should not attempt to carry three rents through the summer, but, on the other hand, Stefan was still working at his Demeter, using an Italian model for the boy's figure, and could not finish it conveniently elsewhere. Then, too, he expressed a wish for a pied-à-terre in the city, and as Mary had very tender associations with the little studio she was glad to think of keeping it.

Stefan was working fitfully at this time. He would have spurts of energy followed by fits of depression and disgust with his work, during which he would leave the house and take long rides uptown on the tops of omnibuses. Mary could not see that these excursions in search of air calmed his nervousness, and she concluded that the spring fever was in his blood and that he needed a change of scene at least as much as she did.

About this time he sold his five remaining drawings of New York to the Pan-American Magazine, a progressive monthly. They gained considerable attention from the art world, and were seized upon by certain groups of radicals as a sermon on the capitalistic system. On the strength of them, Stefan was hailed as that rarest of all beings, a politically minded artist, and became popular in quarters from which his intolerance had hitherto barred him.

It entertained him hugely to be proclaimed as a champion of democracy, for he had made the drawings in impish hatred not of a class but of American civilization as a whole.

Their bank account, in spite of much heightened living expenses, remained substantial by reason of this new sale, but Stefan was as indifferent as ever to its control, and Mary's sense of caution was little diminished. Her growing comprehension of him warned her that their position was still insecure; he remained, for all his success, an unknown quantity as a producer. She wanted him to assume some interest in their affairs, and suggested separate bank accounts, but he begged off.

“Let me have a signature at the bank, so that I can cash checks for personal expenses, but don't ask me to keep accounts, or know how much we have,” he said. “If you find I am spending too much at any time, just tell me, and I will stop.”

Further than this she could not get him to discuss the matter, and saw that she must think out alone some method of bookkeeping which would be fair to them both, and would establish a record for future use. Ultimately she transferred her own money, less her private expenditures during the winter, to a separate account, to be used for all her personal expenses. The old account she put in both their names, and made out a monthly schedule for the household, beyond which she determined never to draw. Anything she could save from this amount she destined for a savings bank, but over and above it she felt that her husband's earnings were his, and that she could not in honor interfere with them. Mary was almost painfully conscientious, and this plan cost her many heart-searchings before it was complete.

After her baby was born she intended to continue her writing; she did not wish ever to draw on Stefan for her private purse. So far at least, she would live up to feminist principles.

There was much to be done before they could leave the city, and Mary had practically no assistance from Stefan in her arrangements. She would ask his advice about the packing or disposal of a piece of furniture, and he would make some suggestion, often impracticable; but on any further questioning he would run his hands through his hair, or thrust them into his pockets, looking either vague or nervous. “Why fuss about such things, dear?” or “Do just as you like,” or “I'm sure I haven't a notion,” were his most frequent answers. He developed a habit of leaving his work and following Mary restlessly from room to room as she packed or sorted, which she found rather wearing.

On one such occasion--it was the day before they were to leave--she was carrying a large pile of baby's clothes from her bedroom to a trunk in the sitting-room, while Stefan stood humped before the fireplace, smoking. As she passed him he frowned nervously.

“How heavily you tread, Mary,” he jerked out. She stood stock-still and flushed painfully.

“I think, Stefan,” she said, with the tears of feeling which came over-readily in these days welling to her eyes, “instead of saying that you might come and help me to carry these things.”

He looked completely contrite. “I'm sorry, dearest, it was a silly thing to say. Forgive me,” and he kissed her apologetically, taking the bundle from her. He offered to help several times that afternoon, but as he never knew where anything was to go, and fidgeted from foot to foot while he hung about her, she was obliged at last to plead release from his efforts.

“Stefan dear,” she said, giving him rather a harassed smile, “you evidently find this kind of thing a bore. Why don't you run out and leave me to get on quietly with it?”

“I know I've been rotten to you, and I thought you wanted me to help,” he explained, in a self-exculpatory tone.

She stroked his cheek maternally. “Run along, dearest. I can get on perfectly well alone.”

“You're a brick, Mary. I think I'll go. This kind of thing--” he flung his arm toward the disordered room--“is too utterly unharmonious.” And kissing her mechanically he hastened out.

That night for the first time in their marriage he did not return for dinner, but telephoned that he was spending the evening with friends. Mary, tired out with her packing, ate her meal alone and went to bed immediately afterwards. His absence produced in her a dull heartache, but she was too weary to ponder over his whereabouts.

Early next morning Mary telephoned Miss Mason. Stefan, who had come home late, was still asleep when the Sparrow arrived, and by the time he had had his breakfast the whole flat was in its final stage of disruption. A few pieces of furniture were to be sent to the cottage, a few more stored, and the studio was to be returned to its original omnibus status. Mrs. Corriani, priestess of family emergencies, had been summoned from the depths; the Sparrow had donned an apron, Mary a smock; Lily, the colored maid, was packing china into a barrel, surrounded by writhing seas of excelsior. For Stefan, the flat might as well have been given over to the Furies. He fetched his hat.

“Mary,” he said, “I'm not painting again until we have moved. Djinns, Afrits and Goddesses should be allowed to perform their spiritings unseen of mortals. I shall go and sit in the Metropolitan and contemplate Rodin's Penseur--he is so spacious.”

“Very well, dearest,” said Mary brightly. She had slept away her low spirits. “Don't forget Mr. Farraday is sending his car in for us at three o'clock.”

He looked nonplused. “You don't mean to say we are moving to-day?”

“Yes, you goose,” she laughed, “don't you remember?”

“I'm frightfully sorry, Mary, but I made an engagement for this evening, to go to the theatre. I knew you would not want to come,” he added.

Mary looked blank. “But, Stefan,” she exclaimed, “everything is arranged! We are dining with the Farradays. I told you several times we were moving on the fourth. You make it so difficult, dear, by not taking any interest.” Her voice trembled. She had worked and planned for their flitting for a week past, was all eagerness to be gone, and now he, who had been equally keen, seemed utterly indifferent.

He fidgeted uncomfortably, looking contrite yet rebellious. Mary was at a loss. The Sparrow, however, promptly raised her crest and exhibited a claw.

“Land sakes, Mr. Byrd,” she piped, “you are a mighty fine artist, but that don't prevent your being a husband first these days! Men are all alike--” she turned to Mary--“always ready to skedaddle off when there's work to be done. Now, young man--” she pointed a mandatory finger--“you run and telephone your friends to call the party off.” Her voice shrilled, her beady eyes snapped; she looked exactly like one of her namesakes, ruffled and quarreling at the edge of its nest.

Stefan burst out laughing. “All right, Miss Sparrow, smooth your feathers. Mary, I'm a mud-headed idiot--I forgot the whole thing. Pay no attention to my vagaries, dearest, I'll be at the door at three.” He kissed her warmly, and went out humming, banging the door behind him.

“My father was the same, and my brothers,” the Sparrow philosophized. “Spring-cleaning and moving took every ounce of sense out of them.” Mary sighed. Her zest for the preparations had departed.

Presently, seeing her languor, Miss Mason insisted Mary should lie down and leave the remaining work to her. The only resting place left was the old studio, where their divan had been replaced. Thither Mary mounted, and lying amidst its dusty disarray, traced in memory the months she had spent there. It had been their first home. Here they had had their first quarrel and their first success, and here had come to her her annunciation. Though they were keeping the room, it would never hold the same meaning for her again, and though she already loved their new home, it hurt her at the last to bid their first good-bye. Perhaps it was a trick of fatigue, but as she lay there the conviction came to her that with to-day's change some part of the early glamour of marriage was to go, that not even the coming of her child could bring to life the memories this room contained. She longed for her husband, for his voice calling her the old, dear, foolish names. She felt alone, and fearful of the future.

“My grief,” exclaimed Miss Mason from the door an hour later. “I told you to go to sleep 'n here you are wide awake and crying!”

Mary smiled shamefacedly.

“I'm just tired, Sparrow, that's all, and have been indulging in the 'vapors.'” She squeezed her friend's hand. “Let's have some lunch.”

“It's all ready, and Lily with her hat 'n coat on. Come right downstairs--it's most two o'clock.”

Mary jumped up, amazed at the time she had wasted. Her spell of depression was over, and she was her usual cheerful self when, at three o'clock, she heard Stefan's feet bounding up the stairs for the last time.

“Tra-la, Mary, the car is here!” he called. “Thank God we are getting out of this city! Good-by, Miss Sparrow, don't peck me, and come and see us at Crab's Bay. March, Lily. A riverderci, Signora Corriani. Come, dearest.” He bustled them all out, seized two suitcases in one hand and Mary's elbow in the other, chattered his few words of Italian to the janitress, chaffed Miss Mason, and had them all laughing by the time they reached the street. He seemed in the highest spirits, his moods of the last weeks forgotten.

As the car started he kissed his fingers repeatedly to Miss Mason and waved his hat to the inevitable assemblage of small boys.

“The country, darling!” he cried, pressing Mary's hand under the rug. “Farewell to ugliness and squalor! How happy we are going to be!”

Mary's hand pressed his in reply.

V

It was late April. The wooded slopes behind “The Byrdsnest,” as Mary had christened the cottage, were peppered with a pale film of green. The lawn before the house shone with new grass. Upon it, in the early morning, Mary watched beautiful birds of types unknown to her, searching for nest-making material. She admired the large, handsome robins, so serious and stately after the merry pertness of the English sort, but her favorites were the bluebirds, and another kind that looked like greenish canaries, of which she did not know the name. None of them, she thought, had such melodious song as at home in England, but their brilliant plumage was a constant delight to her.

Daffodils were springing up in the garden, crocuses were out, and the blue scylla. On the downward slope toward the bay the brown furry heads of ferns had begun to push stoutly from the earth. The spring was awake.

Stefan seemed thoroughly contented again. He had his north light in the barn, but seldom worked there, being absorbed in outdoor sketching. He was making many small studies of the trees still bare against the gleam of water, with a dust of green upon them. He could get a number of valuable notes here, he told Mary.

During their first two weeks in the country his restlessness had often recurred. He had gone back and forth to the city for work on his Demeter, and had even slept there on several occasions. But one morning he wakened Mary by coming in from an early ramble full of joy in the spring, and announcing that the big picture was now as good as he could make it, and that he was done with the town. He threw back the blinds and called to her to look at the day.

“It's vibrant, Mary; life is waking all about us.” He turned to the bed.

“You look like a beautiful white rose, cool with the dew.”

She blushed--he had forgotten lately his old habit of pretty speech-making. He came and sat on the bed's edge, holding her hand.

“I've had my restless devil with me of late, sweetheart,” he said. “But now I feel renewed, and happy. I shan't want to leave you any more.” He kissed her with a gravity at which she might have wondered had she been more thoroughly awake. His tone was that of a man who makes a promise to himself.

Since that morning he had been consistently cheerful and carefree, more attentive to Mary than for some time past, and pleased with all his surroundings. She was overjoyed at the change, and for her own part never tired of working in the house and garden, striving to make more perfect the atmosphere of simple homeliness which Farraday had first imparted to them. Lily was fascinated by her kitchen and little white bedroom.

“This surely is a cute little house, yes, _ma'am_,” she would exclaim emphatically, with a grin.

Lily was a small, chocolate-colored negress, with a neat figure, and the ever ready smile which is God's own gift to the race. Mary, who hardly remembered having seen a negro till she came to America, had none of the color-prejudice which grows up in biracial communities. She found Lily civil, cheerful, and intelligent, and felt a sincere liking for her which the other reciprocated with a growing devotion.

Often in these days a passerby--had there been any--could have heard a threefold chorus rising about the cottage, a spring-song as unconscious as the birds'. From the kitchen Lily's voice rose in the endless refrain of a hymn; Mary's clear tones traveled down from the little room beside her own, where she was preparing a place for the expected one; and Stefan's whistle, or his snatches of French song, resounded from woods or barn. Youth and hope were in the house, youth was in the air and earth.

Farraday's gardens were the pride of the neighborhood, these and the library expressing him as the house did his mother. Several times he sent down an armful of flowers to the Byrdsnest, and, one Sunday morning, Mary had just finished arranging such a bunch in her vases when she heard the chug of an automobile in the lane. She looked out to see Constance, a veiled figure beside her, stopping a runabout at the gate. Delighted, she hastened to the door. Constance hailed her.

“Mary, behold the charioteer! Theodore has given me this machine for suffrage propaganda during the summer, and I achieved my driver's license yesterday. I'm so vain I'm going to make Felicity design me a gown with a peacock's tail that I can spread. I've brought her with me to show off too, and because she needed air. How are you, bless you? May we come in?”

Not waiting for an answer, she jumped down and hugged Mary, Miss Berber following in more leisurely fashion. Mary could not help wishing Constance had come alone, as she now felt a little self-conscious before strangers. However, she shook hands with Miss Berber, and led them both into the sitting-room.

“Simply delicious!” exclaimed Constance, glancing eagerly about her, “and how divinely healthy you look--like a transcendental dairy-maid! This place was made for you, and how you've improved it. Look, Felicity, at her chintz, and her flowers, and her _cunning_ pair of china shepherdesses!” She ran from one thing to another, ecstatically appreciative.

Mary had had no chance to speak yet, and, as Felicity was absorbed in the languid removal of a satin coat and incredible yards of apple green veiling, Constance held the floor.

“Look at her pair of love-birds sidling along the curtain pole, as tame as humans! Where did you find that wooden cage? And that white cotton dress? You smell of lavender and an ironing-board! Oh, dear,” she began again, “driving is very wearing, and I should like a cocktail, but I must have milk. Milk, my dear Mary, is the only conceivable beverage in this house. Have you a cow? You ought to have a cow--a brindled cow--also a lamb; 'Mary had,' et cetera. My dear, stop me. Enthusiasm converts me into an 'agreeable rattle,' as they used to call our great-grandmothers.”

“Subdue yourself with this,” laughed Mary, holding out the desired glass of milk. “Miss Berber, can I get anything for you?”

Felicity by this time was unwrapped, and had disposed herself upon a window-seat, her back to the light.

“Wine or water, Mrs. Byrd; I do not drink milk,” she breathed, lighting a cigarette.

“We have some Chianti; nothing else, I'm afraid,” said Mary, and a glass of this the designer deigned to accept, together with a little yellow cake set with currants, and served upon a pewter plate.

“I see, Mrs. Byrd,” Felicity murmured, as Constance in momentary silence sipped her milk, “that you comprehend the first law of decoration for woman--that her accessories must be a frame for her type. I--how should I appear in a room like this?” She gave a faint shrug. “At best, a false tone in a chromatic harmony. You are entirely in key.”

Her eyelids drooped; she exhaled a long breath of smoke. “Very well thought out--unusually clever--for a layman,” she uttered, and was still, with the suggestion of a sibyl whose oracle has ceased to speak.

Mary tried not to find her manner irritating, but could not wholly dispel the impression that Miss Berber habitually patronized her.

She laughed pleasantly.

“I'm afraid I can't claim to have been guided by any subtle theories--I have merely collected together the kind of things I am fond of.”

“Mary decorates with her heart, Felicity, you with your head,” said Constance, setting down her empty tumbler.

“I'm afraid I should find the heart too erratic a guide to art. Knowledge, Mrs. Byrd, knowledge must supplement feeling,” said Felicity, with a gesture of finality.

“Really!” answered Mary, falling back upon her most correct English manner. There was nothing else to say. “She is either cheeky, or a bromide,” she thought.

“Felicity,” exclaimed Constance, “don't adopt your professional manner; you can't take us in. You know you are an outrageous humbug.”

“Dear Connie,” replied the other with the ghost of a smile, “you are always so amusing, and so much more wide awake in the morning than I am.”

Conversation languished for a minute, Constance having embarked on a cake. For some reason which she could not analyze, Mary felt in no great hurry to call Stefan from the barn, should he be there.

Felicity rose. “May we not see your garden, Mrs. Byrd?”

“Certainly,” said Mary, and led the way to the door. Felicity slipped out first, and wandered with her delicate step a little down the path.

“Isn't it darling!” exclaimed Constance from the porch, surveying the flower-strewn grass, the feathery trees, and the pale gleam of the water. Mary began to show her some recent plantings, in particular a rose-bed which was her last addition to the garden.

“I see you have a barn,” said Felicity, flitting back to them with a hint of animation. “Is it picturesque inside? Would it lend itself to treatment?” She wandered toward it, and there was nothing for the others to do but follow.

“Oh, yes,” explained Mary, “my husband has converted it into a studio. He may be working there now--I had been meaning to call him.”

She felt a trifle uncomfortable, almost as if she had put herself in the wrong.

“Coo-oo, Stefan,” she called as they neared the barn, Felicity still flitting ahead. The door swung open, and there stood Stefan, pallette in hand, screwing up his eyes in the sun.

As they lit on his approaching visitor an expression first of astonishment, and then of something very like displeasure, crossed his face. At sight of it, Mary's spirits subconsciously responded by a distinct upward lift. Stefan waved his brush without shaking hands, and then, seeing Constance, broke into a smile.

“How delightful, Mrs. Elliot! How did you come? By auto? And you drove Miss Berber? We are honored. You are our first visitors except the Farradays. Come and see my studio.”

They trooped into the quaint little barn, which appeared to wear its big north light rather primly, as a girl her first low-necked gown. It was unfurnished, save for a table and easel, several canvases, and an old arm-chair. Felicity glanced at the sketches.

“In pastoral mood again,” she commented, with what might have been the faintest note of sarcasm. Stefan's eyebrows twitched nervously.

“There's nothing to see in here-these are the merest sketches,” he said abruptly. “Come along, Mrs. Elliot, I've been working since before breakfast; let's say good-morning to the flowers.” And with his arm linked through hers he piloted Constance back toward the lawn.

“Mr. Byrd ought never to wear tweed, do you think? It makes him look heavy,” remarked Felicity.

Again Mary had to suppress a feeling of irritation. “I rather like it,” she said. “It's so comfy and English.”

“Yes?” breathed Felicity vaguely, walking on.

Suddenly she appeared to have a return of animation.

She floated forward quickly for a few steps, turned with a swaying movement, and waited for Mary with hands and feet poised.

“The grass under one's feet, Mrs. Byrd, it makes them glad. One could almost dance!”

Again she fluttered ahead, this time overtaking Constance and Stefan, who had halted in the middle of the lawn. She swayed before them on tiptoe.

“Connie,” she was saying as Mary came up, “why does one not more often dance in the open?”

Though her lids still drooped she was half smiling as she swayed.

“It may be the spring; or perhaps I have caught the pastoral mood of Mr. Byrd's work; but I should like to dance a little. Music,” her palms were lifted in repudiation, “is unnecessary. One has the birds.”

“Good for you, Felicity! That _will_ be fun,” Constance exclaimed delightedly. “You don't dance half often enough, bad girl. Come along, people, let's sit on the porch steps.”

They arranged themselves to watch, Constance and Mary on the upper step, Stefan on the lower, his shoulders against his wife's knees, while Felicity dexterously slipped off her sandals and stockings.

Her dress, modeled probably on that of the central figure in Botticelli's Spring, was of white chiffon, embroidered with occasional formal sprigs of green leaves and hyacinth-blue flowers, and kilted up at bust and thigh. Her loosely draped sleeves hung barely to the elbow. A line of green crossed from the shoulders under each breast, and her hair, tightly bound, was decorated with another narrow band of green. She looked younger than in the city--almost virginal. Stooping low, she gathered a handful of blue scylla from the grass, Mary barely checking an exclamation at this ravishing of her beloved bulbs. Then Felicity lay down upon the grass; her eyes closed; she seemed asleep. They waited silently for some minutes. Stefan began to fidget.

Suddenly a robin called. Felicity's eyes opened. They looked calm and dewy, like a child's. She raised her head--the robin called again. Felicity looked about her, at the flowers in her hand, the trees, the sky. Her face broke into smiles, she rose tall, taller, feet on tiptoe, hands reaching skyward. It was the waking of spring. Then she began to dance.

Gone was the old languor, the dreamy, hushed steps of her former method. Now she appeared to dart about the lawn like a swallow, following the calls of the birds. She would stand poised to listen, her ear would catch a twitter, and she was gone; flitting, skimming, seeming not to touch the earth. She danced to the flowers in her hand, to the trees, the sky, her face aglint with changing smiles, her skirts rippling like water.

At last the blue flowers seemed to claim her solely. She held them sunward, held them close, always swaying to the silent melody of the spring. She kissed them, pressed them to her heart; she sank downward, like a bird with folding wings, above a clump of scylla; her arms encircled them, her head bent to her knees--she was still.

Constance broke the spell with prolonged applause; Mary was breathless with admiration; Stefan rose, and after prowling restlessly for a moment, hurried to the dancer and stooped to lift her.

As if only then conscious of her audience, Felicity looked up, and both the other women noticed the expression that flashed across her face before she took the proffered hand. It seemed compounded of triumph, challenge, and something else. Mary again felt uncomfortable, and Constance's quick brain signaled a warning.

“Surely not getting into mischief, are you, Felicity?” she mentally questioned, and instantly began to east about for two and two to put together.

“Wonderful!” Stefan was saying. “You surely must have wings--great, butterfly ones--only we are too dull to see them. You were exactly like one of my pictures come to life.” He was visibly excited.

“Husband disposed of, available lovers unattractive, asks me to drive her out here; that's one half,” Constance's mind raced. “Wife on the shelf, variable temperament, studio in town; and that's the other. I've found two and two; I hope to goodness they won't make four,” she sighed to herself anxiously.

Mary meanwhile was thanking Miss Berber. She noticed that the dancer was perfectly cool--not a hair ruffled by her efforts. She looked as smooth as a bird that draws in its feathers after flight. Stefan was probably observing this, too, she thought; at any rate he was hovering about, staring at Felicity, and running his hands through his hair. Mary could not be sure of his expression; he seemed uneasy, as if discomfort mingled with his pleasure.

They had had a rare and lovely entertainment, and yet no one appeared wholly pleased except the dancer herself. It was very odd.

Constance looked at her watch. “Now, Felicity, this has all been ideal, but we must be getting on. I 'phoned James, you know, and we are lunching there. I was sure Mrs. Byrd wouldn't want to be bothered with us.”

Mary demurred, with a word as to Lily's capacities, but Constance was firm.

“No, my dear, it's all arranged. Besides, you need peace and quiet. Felicity, where are your things? Thank you, Mr. Byrd, in the sitting-room. Mary, you dear, I adore you and your house--I shall come again soon. Where are my gloves?” She was all energy, helping Felicity with her veil, settling her own hat, kissing Mary, and cranking the runabout--an operation she would not allow Stefan to attempt for her--with her usual effervescent efficiency. “I'd no idea it was so late!” she exclaimed.

As Felicity was handed by Stefan into the car, she murmured something in French, Constance noticed, to which he shook his head with a nervous frown. As the machine started, he was left staring moodily after it down the lane.

“Thee is earlier than I expected,” little Mrs. Farraday said to Constance, when they arrived at the house. “I am afraid we shall have to keep thee waiting for thy lunch for half an hour or more.”

“How glad I shall be--” Stefan turned to Mary, half irritably--“when this baby is born, and you can be active again.”

He ate his lunch in silence, and left the table abruptly at the end. Nor did she see him again until dinner time, when he came in tired out, his boots whitened with road dust.

“Where have you been, dearest?” she asked. “I've been quite anxious about you.”

“Just walking,” he answered shortly, and went up to his room. The tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them away resolutely. She must not mind, must not show him that she even dreamed of any connection between his moodiness and the events of the morning.

“My love must be stronger than that, now of all times,” thought Mary. “Afterwards--afterwards it will be all right.” She smiled confidently to herself.

VI

It was the end of June. Mary's rosebushes were in full bloom and the little garden was languid with the scent of them. The nesting birds had all hatched their broods--every morning now Mary watched from her bedroom window the careful parents carrying worms and insects into the trees. She always looked for them the moment she got up. She would have loved to hang far out of the window as she used to do in her old home in England, and call good-morning to her little friends--but she was hemmed in by the bronze wire of the windowscreens. These affected her almost like prison bars; but Long Island's summer scourge had come, and after a few experiences of nights sung sleepless by the persistent horn of the enemy and made agonizing by his sting, she welcomed the screens as deliverers. The mosquitoes apart, Mary had adored the long, warm days--not too hot as yet on the Byrdsnest's shady eminence--and the perpetually smiling skies, so different from the sulky heavens of England. But she began to feel very heavy, and found it increasingly difficult to keep cool, so that she counted the days till her deliverance. She felt no fear of what was coming. Dr. Hillyard had assured her that she was normal in every respect--“as completely normal a woman as I have ever seen,” she put it--and should have no complications. Moreover, Mary had obtained from her doctor a detailed description of what lay before her, and had read one or two hand-books on the subject, so that she was spared the fearful imaginings and reliance on old wives' tales which are the results of the ancient policy of surrounding normal functions with mystery.

Now the nurse was here, a tall, grave-eyed Canadian girl, quiet of speech, silent in every movement. Mary had wondered if she ought to go into Dr. Hillyard's hospital, and was infinitely relieved to have her assurance that it was unnecessary. She wanted her baby to be born here in the country, in the sweet place she had prepared for it, surrounded by those she loved. Everything here was perfect for the advent--she could ask for nothing more. True, she was seeking comparatively little of Stefan, but she knew he was busily painting, and he was uniformly kind and affectionate when they were together. He had not been to town for over two months.

Mrs. Farraday was a frequent caller, and Mary had grown sincerely to love the sweet-faced old lady, who would drive up in a low pony chaise, bringing offerings of fruit and vegetables, or quaint preserves from recipes unknown to Mary, which had been put up under her own direction.

Then, too, McEwan would appear at week-ends or in the evening, tramping down the lane to hail the house in absurd varieties of the latest New York slang, which, never failed to amuse Mary. The shy Jamie was often with her; they were now the most intimate of friends. He would show her primitive tools and mechanical contrivances of his own making, and she would tell him stories of Scotland, of Prince Charlie and Flora, of Bruce and Wallace, of Bannockburn, or of James, the poet king. Of these she had a store, having been brought up, as many English girls happily are, on the history and legends of the island, rather than on less robust feminine fare.

Farraday, too, sometimes dropped in in the evening, to sit on the porch with Stefan and Mary and talk quietly of books and the like. Occasionally he came with McEwan or Jamie; he never came alone--though this she had not noticed--at hours when Stefan was unlikely to be with her.

At the suggestion of Mrs. Farraday, whose word was the social law of the district, the most charming women in the neighborhood had called on Mary, so that her circle of acquaintances was now quite wide. She had had in addition several visits from Constance, and the Sparrow had spent a week-end with them, chirping admiration of the place and encomiums of her friend's housekeeping. But Mary liked best to be with Stefan, or to dream alone through the hushed, sunlit hours amid her small tasks of house and garden. Now that the nurse was here, occupying the little bedroom opening from Mary's room, the final preparations had been made; there was nothing left to do but wait.

Miss McCullock had been with them three days, and Stefan had become used to her quiet presence, when late one evening certain small symptoms told her that Mary's time had come. Stefan, entering the hall, found her at the telephone. “Dr. Hillyard will be here in about an hour and a quarter,” she said quietly, hanging up the receiver. “Do you know if she has driven out before? If not, it might be well for you, Mr. Byrd, to walk to the foot of the lane soon, and be ready to signal the turning to her.” Miss McCullock always distrusted the nerves of husbands on these occasions, and planned adroitly to get them out of the way.

Stefan stared at her as flabbergasted as if this emergency had not been hourly expected. “Do you mean,” he gasped, “that Mary is ill?”

“She is not ill, Mr. Byrd, but the baby will probably be born before morning.”

“My God!” said Stefan, suddenly blanching. He had not faced this moment, had not thought about it, had indeed hardly thought about Mary's motherhood at all except to deplore its toll upon her bodily beauty. He had tried for her sake, harder than she knew, to appear sympathetic, but in his heart the whole thing presented itself as nature's grotesque price for the early rapture of their love. That the price might be tragic as well as grotesque had only now come home to him. He dropped on a chair, his memory flying back to the one other such event in which he had had part. He saw himself thrust from his mother's door--he heard her shrieks--felt himself fly again into the rain. His forehead was wet; cold tingles ran to his fingertips.

The nurse's voice sounded, calm and pleasant, above him. A whiff of brandy met his nostrils. “You'd better drink this, Mr. Byrd, and then in a minute you might go and see Mrs. Byrd. You will feel better after that, I think.”

He drank, then looked up, haggard.

“They'll give her plenty of chloroform, won't they?” he whispered, catching the nurse's hand. She smiled reassuringly. “Don't worry, Mr. Byrd, your wife is in splendid condition, and ether will certainly be given when it becomes advisable.”

The brandy was working now and his nerves had steadied, but he found the nurse's manner maddeningly calm. “I'll go to Mary,” he muttered, and, brushing past her, sprang up the stairs.

What he expected to see he did not know, but his heart pounded as he opened the bedroom door. The room was bright with lamplight, and in spotless order. At her small writing-table sat Mary, in a loose white dressing gown, her hair in smooth braids around her head, writing. What was she doing? Was she leaving some last message for him, in case--? He felt himself grow cold again. “Mary!” he exclaimed hoarsely.

She looked round, and called joyfully to him.

“Oh, darling, there you are. I'm getting everything ready. It's coming, Stefan dearest. I'm so happy!” Her face was excited, radiant.

He ran to her with a groan of relief, and, kneeling, caught her face to his. “Oh, Beautiful, you're all right then? She told me--I was afraid--” he stumbled, inarticulate.

She stroked his cheek comfortingly. “Dearest, isn't it wonderful--just think--by to-morrow our baby will be here.” She kissed him, between happy tears and laughter.

“You are not in pain, darling? You're all right? What were you writing when I came in?” he stammered, anxiously.

“I'm putting all the accounts straight, and paying all the bills to date, so that Lily won't have any trouble while I'm laid up,” she beamed.

Stefan stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, then burst into half-hysterical laughter.

“Oh, you marvel,” he gasped, “goddess of efficiency, unshakable Olympian! Bills! And I thought you were writing me a farewell message.”

“Silly boy,” she replied. “The bills have got to be paid; a nice muddle you would be in if you had them to do yourself. But, dearest--” her face grew suddenly grave and she took his hand--“listen. I _have_ written you something--it's there--” her fingers touched an elastic bound pile of papers. “I'm perfectly well, but if anything _should_ happen, I want my sister to have the baby. Because I think, dear--” she stroked his hand with a look of compassionate understanding--“that without me you would not want it very much. Miss Mason would take it to England for you, and you could make my sister an allowance. I've left you her address, and all that I can think of to suggest.”

He gazed at her dumbly. Her face glowed with life and beauty, her voice was sweet and steady. There she sat, utterly mistress of herself, in the shadow of life and death. Was it that her imagination was transcendent, or that she had none? He did not know, he did not understand her, but in that moment he could have said his prayers at her feet.

The nurse entered. “Now, Mr. Byrd, I think if you could go to the end of the lane and be looking out for the doctor? Mrs. Byrd ought to have her bath.”

Stefan departed. In a dream he walked to the lane's end and waited there. He was thinking of Mary, perhaps for the first time, not as a beautiful object of love and inspiration, nor as his companion, but as a woman. What was this calm strength, this certitude of hers? Why did her every word and act seem to move straight forward, while his wheeled and circled? What was it that Mary had that he had not? Of what was her inmost fiber made? It came to him that for all their loving passages his wife was a stranger to him, and a stranger whom he had never sought to know. He felt ashamed.

It was about eleven o'clock when the distance was pricked by two points of light, which, gradually expanding, proved to be the head-lamps of the doctor's car. She stopped at his hail and he climbed beside her.

“I'm glad you came, though I think I know the turning,” said Dr. Hillyard cheerfully.

“How long will it be, doctor?” he asked nervously.

“Feeling jumpy?” she replied. “Better let me give you a bromide, and try for a little sleep. Don't you worry--unless we have complications it will be over before morning.”

“Before _morning_!” he groaned. “Doctor, you won't let her suffer--you will give her something?”

He was again reassured. “Certainly. But she has a magnificent physique, with muscles which have never been allowed to soften through tight clothing or lack of exercise. I expect an easy case. Here we are, I think.” The swift little car stopped accurately at the gate, and the doctor, shutting off her power, was out in a moment, bag in hand. The nurse met them in the hall.

“Getting on nicely--an easy first stage,” she reported. The two women disappeared upstairs, and Stefan was left alone to live through as best he could the most difficult hours that fall to the lot of civilized man. Presently Miss McCullock came down to him with a powder, and advice from the doctor anent bed, but he would take neither the one nor the other. “What a sot I should be,” he thought, picturing himself lying drugged to slumber while Mary suffered.

By and by he ventured upstairs. Clouds of steam rose from the bathroom, brilliant light was everywhere, two white-swathed figures, scarcely recognizable, seemed to move with incredible speed amid a perfectly ordered chaos. All Mary's pretty paraphernalia were gone; white oil cloth covered every table, and was in its turn covered by innumerable objects sealed in stiff paper. Amid these alien surroundings Mary sat in her nightgown on the edge of the bed, her knees drawn up.

“Hello, dearest,” she called rather excitedly, “we're getting awfully busy.” Then her face contracted. “Here comes another,” she said cheerily, and gasped a little. On that Stefan fled, with a muttered “Call me if she wants me,” to the nurse.

He wandered to the kitchen. There was a roaring fire, but the room was empty--even Lily had found work upstairs. For an hour more Stefan prowled--then he rang up the Farraday's house. After an interval James' voice answered him.

“It's Byrd, Farraday,” said Stefan. “No--” quickly--“everything's perfectly all right, perfectly, but it's going on. Could you come over?”

In fifteen minutes Farraday had dressed and was at the door, his great car gliding up silently beside the doctor's. As he walked in Stefan saw that his face was quite white.

“It was awfully good of you to come,” he said.

“I'm so glad you asked me. My car is a sixty horsepower, if anything were needed.” Farraday sat down, and lighted a pipe. Stefan delivered knowledge of the waiting machine upstairs, and then recommenced his prowl. Back and forth through the two living rooms he walked, lighting, smoking, or throwing away endless cigarettes. Farraday sat drawing at his pipe. Neither spoke. One o'clock struck, and two.

Presently they heard a loud growling sound, quite un-human, but with no quality of agony. It was merely as if some animal were making a supreme physical effort. In about two minutes this was repeated. Farraday's pipe dropped on the hearth, Stefan tore upstairs. “What is it?” he asked at the open door. Something large and white moved powerfully on the bed. At the foot bent the little doctor, her hands hidden, and at the head stood the nurse holding a small can. A heavy, sweet odor filled the room.

“It's all right,” the doctor said rapidly. “Expulsive stage. She isn't suffering.”

“Hello, Stefan dear,” said a small, rather high voice, which made him jump violently. Then he saw a face on the pillow, its eyes closed, and its nose and mouth covered with a wire cone. In a moment there came a gasp, the sheathed form drew tense, the nurse spilled a few drops from her can upon the cone, the growling recommenced and heightened to a crescendo. Stefan had an impression of tremendous physical life, but the human tone of the “Hello, Stefan,” was quite gone again.

He was backing shakily out when the doctor called to him.

“It will be born quite soon, now, Mr. Byrd,” her cheery voice promised.

Trembling with relief, he stumbled downstairs. Farraday was standing rigid before the fireplace, his face quite expressionless.

“She's having ether--I don't think she's suffering. The doctor says quite soon, now,” Stefan jerked out.

“I'm thankful,” said Farraday, quietly.

He stooped and picked up his fallen pipe, but it took him a long time to refill it--particles of tobacco kept showering to the rug from his fingers. Stefan, with a new cigarette, resumed his prowl.

Midsummer dawn was breaking. The lamplight began to pale before the glimmer of the windows. A sleepy bird chirped, the room became mysterious.

There had been rapid steps overhead for some moments, and now the two men became aware that the tiger-like sounds had quite ceased. The steps overhead quieted. Farraday put out the lamp, and the blue light flooded the room.

A bird called loudly, and another answered it, high, repeatedly. The notes were right over their heads; they rose higher, insistent. They were not the notes of a bird. The nurse appeared at the door and looked at Stefan.

“Your son is born,” she said.

Instantly to both men it was as if eerie bonds, drawn over-taut, had snapped, releasing them again to the physical world about them. The high mystery was over; life was human and kindly once again. Farraday dropped into his chair and held a hand across his eyes. Stefan threw both arms round Miss McCullock's shoulders and hugged her like a child.

“Oh, hurrah!” he cried, almost sobbing with relief. “Bless you, nurse. Is she all right?”

“She's perfect--I've never seen finer condition. You can come up in a few minutes, the doctor says, and see her before she goes to sleep.”

“There's nothing needed, nurse?” asked Farraday, rising.

“Nothing at all, thank you.”

“Then I'll be getting home, Byrd,” he said, offering his hand to Stefan. “My warmest congratulations. Let me know if there's anything I can do.”

Stefan shook the proffered hand with a deeper liking than he had yet felt for this silent man.

“I'm everlastingly grateful to you, Farraday, for helping me out, and Mary will be, too. I don't know how I could have stood it alone.”

Stefan mounted the stairs tremblingly, to pause in amazement at the door of Mary's room. A second transformation had, as if by magic, taken place. The lights were out. The dawn smiled at the windows, through which a gentle breeze ruffled the curtains. Gone were all evidences of the night's tense drama; tables and chairs were empty; the room looked calm and spacious.

On the bed Mary lay quiet, her form hardly outlined under the smooth coverlet. Half fearfully he let his eyes travel to the pillow, dreading he knew not what change. Instantly, relief overwhelmed him. Her face was radiant, her cheeks pink--she seemed to glow with a sublimated happiness. Only in her eyes lay any traces of the night--they were still heavy from the anaesthetic, but they shone lovingly on him, as though deep lights were behind them.

“Darling,” she whispered, “we've got a little boy. Did you worry? It wasn't anything--only the most thrilling adventure that's ever happened to me.”

He looked at her almost with awe--then, stooping, pressed his face to the pillow beside hers.

“Were they merciful to you, Beautiful?” he whispered back. Weakly, her hand found his head.

“Yes, darling, they were wonderful. I was never quite unconscious, yet it wasn't a bit bad--only as if I were in the hands of some prodigious force. They showed me the baby, too--just for a minute. I want to see him again now--with you.”

Stefan looked up. Dr. Hillyard was in the doorway of the little room. She nodded, and in a moment reappeared, carrying a small white bundle.

“Here he is,” she said; “he weighs eight and a half pounds. You can both look at him for a moment, and then Mrs. Byrd must go to sleep.” She put the bundle gently down beside Mary, whose head turned toward it.

Almost hidden in folds of flannel Stefan saw a tiny red face, its eyes closed, two microscopic fists doubled under its chin. It conveyed nothing to him except a sense of amazement.

“He's asleep,” whispered Mary, “but I saw his eyes--they are blue. Isn't he pretty?” Her own eyes, soft with adoration, turned from her son to Stefan. Then they drooped, drowsily.

“She's falling off,” said the doctor under her breath, recovering the baby. “They'll both sleep for several hours now. Lily is getting us some breakfast--wouldn't you like some, too, Mr. Byrd?”

Stefan felt grateful for her normal, cheery manner, and for Mary's sudden drowsiness; they seemed to cover what he felt to be a failure in himself. He had been unable to find one word to say about the baby.

At breakfast, served by the sleepy but beaming Lily, Stefan was dazed by the bearing of doctor and nurse. These two women, after a night spent in work of an intensity and scope beyond his powers to gage, appeared as fresh and normal as if they had just risen from sleep, while he, unshaved and rumpled, could barely control his racked nerves and heavy head, across which doctor and nurse discussed their case with animation.

“We are all going to bed, Mr. Byrd,” said the doctor at last, noting his exhausted aspect. “I shall get two or, three hours' nap on the sofa before going back to town, and I hope you will take a thorough rest.”

Stefan rose rather dizzily from his unfinished meal.

“Please take my room,” he said, “I couldn't stay in the house--I'm going out.” He found the atmosphere of alert efficiency created by these women utterly insupportable. The house stifled him with its teeming feminine life. In it he felt superfluous, futile. Hurrying out, he stumbled down the slope and, stripping, dived into the water. Its cold touch robbed him of thought; he became at once merely one of Nature's straying children returned again to her arms.

Swimming back, he drew on his clothes, and mounting to the garden, threw himself face down upon the grass, and fell asleep under the morning sun.

He dreamed that a drum was calling him. Its beat, muffled and irregular, yet urged him forward. A flag waved dazzlingly before his eyes; its folds stifled him. He tried to move, yet could not--the drum called ever more urgently. He started awake, to find himself on his back, the sun beating into his face, and the doctor's machine chugging down the lane.

VII

The little June baby at the Byrdsnest was very popular with the neighborhood. During the summer it seemed to Stefan that the house was never free of visitors who came to admire the child, guess his weight, and exclaim at his mother's health.

As a convalescent, Mary was, according to Constance Elliot, a complete fraud. Except for her hair, which had temporarily lost some of its elasticity, she had never looked so radiant. She was out of bed on the ninth day, and walking in the garden on the twelfth. The behavior of the baby--who was a stranger to artificial food--was exemplary; he never fretted, and cried only when he was hungry. But as his appetite troubled him every three hours during the day, and every four at night, he appeared to Stefan to cry incessantly, and his strenuous wail would drive his father from house to barn, and from barn to woods. Lured from one of these retreats by an interval of silence, Stefan was as likely as not to find an auto at the gate and hear exclamatory voices proceeding from the nursery, when he would fade into the woods again like a wild thing fearful of the trap.

His old dislike of his kind reasserted itself. It is one thing to be surrounded by pretty women proclaiming you the greatest artist of your day, and quite another to listen while they exclaim on the perfections of your offspring and the health of your wife. For the first type of conversation Stefan had still an appetite; with the second he was quickly surfeited.

Nor were women his only tormentors. The baby spent much of its time in the garden, and every Sunday Stefan would find McEwan planted on the lawn, prodding the infant with a huge forefinger, and exploding into fatuous mirth whenever he deluded himself into believing he had made it smile. Of late Stefan had begun to tolerate this man, but after three such exhibitions decided to blacklist him permanently as an insufferable idiot. Even Farraday lost ground in his esteem, for, though guilty of no banalities, he had a way of silently hovering over the baby-carriage which Stefan found mysteriously irritating. Jamie alone of their masculine friends seemed to adopt a comprehensible attitude, for he backed away in hasty alarm whenever the infant, in arms or carriage, bore down upon him. On several occasions when the Farraday household invaded the Byrdsnest Stefan and Jamie together sneaked away in search of an environment more seemly for their sex.

“You are the only creature I know just now, Jamie,” Stefan said, “with any sense of proportion;” and these two outcasts from notice would tramp moodily through the woods, the boy faithfully imitating Stefan's slouch and his despondent way of carrying his hands thrust in his pockets.

There were no more tales of Scotland for Jamie in these days, and as for Stefan he hardly saw his wife. True, she always brightened when he came in and mutely evinced her desire that he should remain, but she was never his. While he talked her eye would wander to the cradle, or if they were in another room her ear would be constantly strained to catch a cry. In the midst of a pleasant interlude she would jump to her feet with a murmured “Dinner time,” or “He must have some water now,” and be gone.

Stefan did not sleep with her--as he could not endure being disturbed at night--and she took a long nap every afternoon, so that at best the hours available for him were few. Any visitor, he thought morosely, won more attention from her than he did, and this was in a sense true, for the visitors openly admired the baby--the heart of Mary's life--and he did not.

He did not know how intensely she longed for this, how she ached to see Stefan jab his finger at the baby as McEwan did, or watch it with the tender smile of Farraday. She tried a thousand simple wiles to bring to life the father in him. About to nurse the baby, she would call Stefan to see his eager search for the comfort of her breast, looking up in proud joy as the tiny mouth was satisfied.

At the very first, when the baby was newborn, Stefan had watched this rite with some interest, but now he only fidgeted, exclaiming, “You are looking wonderfully fit, Mary,” or “Greedy little beggar, isn't he?” He never spoke of his old idea of painting her as a Madonna. If she drew his attention to the baby's tiny hands or feet, he would glance carelessly at them, with a “They're all right,” or “I'll like them better when they're bigger.”

Once, as they were going to bed, she showed Stefan the baby lying on his chest, one fist balled on either side of the pillow, the downy back of his head shining in the candle-light. She stooped and kissed it.

“His head is too deliciously soft and warm, Stefan; do kiss it good-night.”

His face contracted into an expression of distaste. “No,” he said, “I can't kiss babies,” and left the room.

She felt terribly, unnecessarily hurt. It was so difficult for her to make advances, so fatally easy for him to rebuff them.

After that, she did not draw the baby to his attention again.

Perhaps, had the child been a girl, Stefan would have felt more sentiment about it. A girl baby, lying like a pink bud among the roses of the garden, might have appealed to that elfin imagination which largely took the place in him of romance--but a boy! A boy was merely in his eyes another male, and Stefan considered the world far too full of men already.

He sealed his attitude when the question of the child's name came up. Mary had fallen into a habit of calling it “Little Stefan,” or “Steve” for short, and one morning, as the older Stefan crossed the lawn to his studio her voice floated down from the nursery in an improvised song to her “Stefan Baby.” He bounded upstairs to her.

“Mary,” he called, “you are surely not going to call that infant by my name?”

Mary, her lap enveloped in aprons and towels, looked up from the bath in which her son was practising tentative kicks.

“Why, yes, dear, I thought we'd christen him after you, as he's the eldest. Don't you think that would be nice?” She looked puzzled.

“No, I do not!” Stefan snorted emphatically. “For heaven's sake give the child a name of his own, and let me keep mine. My God, one Stefan Byrd is enough in the world, I should think!”

“Well, dear, what shall we call him, then?” she asked, lowering her head over the baby to hide her hurt.

“Give him your own name if you want to. After all, he's your child. Elliston Byrd wouldn't sound at all bad.”

“Very well,” said Mary slowly. “I think the Dad would have been pleased by that.” In spite of herself, her voice trembled.

“Good Lord, Mary, I haven't hurt you, have I?” He looked exasperated.

She shook her head, still bending over the baby.

“It's all right, dear,” she whispered.

“You're so soft nowadays, one hardly dare speak,” he muttered. “Sorry, dear,” and with a penitent kiss for the back of her neck he hastened downstairs again.

The christening was held two weeks later, in the small Episcopalian church of Crab's Bay. Stefan could see no reason for it, as neither he nor Mary was orthodox, but when he suggested omitting the ceremony she looked at him wide-eyed.

“Not christen him, Stefan? Oh, I don't think that would be fair,” she said. Her manner was simple, but there was finality in her tone--it made him feel that wherever her child was concerned she would be adamant.

The baby's godmother was, of course, Constance, and his godfathers, equally obviously, Farraday and McEwan. Mary made the ceremony the occasion of a small at-home, inviting the numerous friends from whom she had received congratulations or gifts for the baby.

Miss Mason had insisted on herself baking the christening cake; Farraday as usual supplied a sheaf of flowers. In the drawing room the little Elliston's presents were displayed, a beautiful old cup from Farraday, a christening robe, and a spoon, “pusher,” and fork from Constance, a silver bowl “For Elliston's porridge from his friend Wallace McEwan,” and a Bible in stout leather binding from Mrs. Farraday, inscribed in her delicate, slanting hand. There was even a napkin ring from the baby's aunt in England, who was much relieved that her too-independent sister had married a successful artist and done her duty by the family so promptly.

Mary was naively delighted with these offerings.

“He has got everything I should have liked him to have!” she exclaimed as she arranged them.

Stefan, led to the font, showed all the nervousness he had omitted at the altar, but looked very handsome in a suit of linen crash, while Mary, in white muslin, was at her glowing best.

Constance was inevitably late, for, like most American women, she did not carry her undeniable efficiency to the point of punctuality. At the last moment, however, she dashed up to the church with the élan of a triumphant general, bearing her husband captive in the tonneau, and no less a person than Gunther, the distinguished sculptor, on the seat beside her.

“I know you did not ask him, but he's so handsome I thought he ought to be here,” she whispered inconsequentially to Mary after the ceremony.

Of their many acquaintances few were unrepresented except Miss Berber, to whom Mary had felt disinclined to send an invitation. She had sounded Stefan on the subject, but had been answered by a “Certainly not!” so emphatic as to surprise her.

At the house Gunther, with his great height and magnificent viking head, was unquestionably the hit of the afternoon. Holding the baby, which lay confidently in his powerful hands, he examined its head, arms and legs with professional interest, while every woman in the room watched him admiringly.

“This baby, Mrs. Byrd, is the finest for his age I have ever seen, and I have modeled many of them,” he pronounced, handing it back to Mary, who blushed to her forehead with pleasure. “Not that I am surprised,” he went on, staring frankly at her, “when I look at his mother. I am doing some groups for the Pan-American exhibition next year in San Francisco. If you could give me any time, I should very much like to use your head and the baby's. I shall try and arrange it with you,” and he nodded as if that settled the matter.

“Oh,” gasped Constance, “you have all the luck. Mary! Mr. Gunther has known me for years, but have _I_ had a chance to sit for him? I feel myself turning green, and as my gown is yellow it will be most unbecoming!” And seizing Farraday as if for consolation, she bore him to the dining room to find a drink.

Stefan, who was interested in Gunther, tried to get him to the barn to see his pictures; but the sculptor would not move his eyes from Mary, and Stefan, considerably bored, was obliged to content himself with showing the studio to some of his prettiest neighbors.

Nor did his spirits improve when the party came to an end.

“Bon Dieu!” he cried, flinging himself fretfully into a chair. “Is our house never to be free of chattering women? The only person here to-day who speaks my language was Gunther, and you never gave me a chance at him.”

Mary gasped, too astonished at this accusation to refute it.

“Ever since we came down here,” he went on irritably, “the place has seethed with people, and overflowed with domesticity. I never hear one word spoken except on the subject of furniture, gardening and babies! I can't work in such an environment; it stifles all imagination. As for you, Mary--”

He looked up at her. She was standing, stricken motionless, in the center of the room. Her hair, straighter than of old, seemed to droop over her ears; her form under its loose muslin dress showed soft and blurred, its clean-cut lines gone, while her face, almost as white as the gown, was woe-begone, the eyes dark with tears. She stood there like a hurt child, all her courageous gallantry eclipsed by this unkind ending to her happy day. Stefan rose to his feet and faced her, searching for some phrase that could express his sense of deprivation. He had the instinct to stab her into a full realization of what she was losing in his eyes.

“Mary,” he cried almost wildly, “your wings are gone!” and rushed out of the room.