The Nest Builder Part 13

Mary was silent. Again the burden of his ideal oppressed her. There was no comfort in it. It might be above humanity, she felt, but it was not of it. Again her mind returned to the pictures and Farraday's criticism.

"Sinister!" So he would have summed up all the others, except the Danae.

To that at least the word could not apply. Her heart lifted at the realization of how truly she had helped Stefan. In his tribute to her there was only beauty. She knew now that her gift must be without reservation.

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

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

"How glorious of you, darling!" he exclaimed, "and oh, how beautiful you look! You have never been so wonderful. If I could paint that rapt face!

Quick, I believe I can get it. Stand there, on the throne." He seized his pallette and brushes and worked furiously while Mary stood, still flaming with her renunciation. In a few minutes it was done. He ran to her and covered her face with kisses. "Come and look!" he cried exultingly, holding her before the canvas.

The strange face with its too-wide eyes and exotic mouth was gone.

Instead, she saw her own purely cut features, but fired by such exultant adoration as lifted them to the likeness of a deity. The picture now was incredibly pure and pa.s.sionate--the very flaming essence of love. Tears started to her eyes and dropped unheeded. She turned to him wors.h.i.+ping.

"Beloved," she cried, "you are great, great. I adore you," and she kissed him pa.s.sionately.

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

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

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

"Why, darling, what's the matter, aren't you well?" She shook her head.

"What can be wrong?" She looked at him speechless.

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

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

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

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

Mary flushed crimson, tears of emotion in her eyes. "Oh, Stefan, yes.

I've known it for weeks; haven't you guessed?" Her arms reached to him blindly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why, no," he half laughed. "You'll think me childish, but I never did.

I suppose I vaguely faced the possibility, but I put it from me. We had each other and our love--that seemed enough."

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

He puckered his brows, puzzled. "Why, my dear, it's for love--companions.h.i.+p--inspiration. Nothing more so far as I am concerned." They stared nakedly at each other. For the first time the veils were stripped away. They had felt themselves one, and behold!

here was a barrier, impenetrable as marble, dividing each from the comprehension of the other. To Stefan it was inconceivable that a marriage should be based on anything but mutual desire. To Mary the thought of marriage apart from children was an impossibility. They had come to their first spiritual deadlock.

VIII

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

mistresses.

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

Mary rejoiced in his new enthusiasm, and persuaded herself that his indifference to children was merely the result of his lonely bachelorhood, and would disappear forever at the sight of his own child.

Now that her great secret was shared she became happier, and openly commenced those preparations which she had long been cheris.h.i.+ng in thought. Miss Mason was sent for, and the great news confided to her.

They undertook several shopping expeditions, as a result of which Mary would sit with a pile of sewing on her knee while Stefan worked to complete his picture. Miss Mason took to dropping in occasionally with a pattern or some trifle of wool or silk. Mary was always glad to see her, and even Stefan found himself laughing sometimes at her shrewd New England wit. For the most part, however, he ignored her, while he painted away in silence behind the great canvas.

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

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

"Very well, wise one, we will hold in our wings a little longer," he agreed, "but when we do fly, it must be high." His brush soared in ill.u.s.tration.

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

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

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

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

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

As Christmas approached they began to make acquaintances among the polyglot population of the neighborhood. Their old hotel, the culinary aristocrat of the district, possessed a cafe in which, with true French hospitality, patrons were permitted to occupy tables indefinitely on the strength of the slenderest orders. Here for the sake of the French atmosphere Stefan would have dined nightly had Mary's frugality permitted. As it was, they began to eat there two or three nights a week, and dropped in after dinner on many other nights. They would sit at a bare round table smoking their cigarettes, Mary with a cup of coffee, Stefan with the liqueur he could never induce her to share, and watching the groups that dotted the other tables. Or they would linger at the cheapest of their restaurants and listen to the conversation of the young people, aggressively revolutionary, who formed its clientele.

These last were always noisy, and a.s.sumed as a pose manners even worse than those they naturally possessed. Every one talked to every one else, regardless of introductions, and Stefan had to summon his most crus.h.i.+ng manner to prevent Mary from being monopolized by various very youthful and visionary men who openly admired her. He was inclined to abandon the place, but Mary was amused by it for a time, bohemianism being a completely unknown quant.i.ty to her.

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

"Imitation or not, it's most delightfully absurd and amusing," said she, watching the group nearest her. This consisted of a very short and rotund man with hair a la Paderewski and a frilled evening s.h.i.+rt, a thin man of incredible stature and lank black locks, and a pretty young girl in a tunic, a tam o' shanter, enormous green hairpins, and tiny patent-leather shoes decorated with three inch heels. To her the lank man, who wore a red velvet s.h.i.+rt and a khaki-colored suit reminiscent of Mr. Bernard Shaw, was explaining the difference between syndicalism and trade-unionism in the same conversational tone which men in Lindum had used in describing to Mary the varying excellences of the two local hunts. "I.W.W." and "A.F. of L." fell from his lips as "M.F.H."

and "J.P." used to from theirs. The contrast between the two worlds entertained her not a little. She thought all these young people looked clever, though singularly vulgar, and that her old friends would have appeared by comparison refres.h.i.+ngly clean and cultivated, but quite stupid.

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

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

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