The Nest Builder Part 16

"I'm sorry I have to run away now," Farraday continued almost hurriedly.

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

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

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

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

"But he is!" He danced about the room, hugely entertained by his idea.

"Don't you see, that is why he is so eager about your verses, and why he was so bouleverse by the Danae! Poor chap, I feel quite sorry for him.

You must be nice to him."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X

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

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

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

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

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

"I've arranged it all," she concluded triumphantly, looking from one to the other with her dark alert glance.

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

"But the sale itself, Mrs. Elliot, you can hardly have arranged that?"

she laughed.

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

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

"Within reason, certainly," answered the other. "Why not?"

"In England," Mary laughed, "if a woman were to do that, unless she were a d.u.c.h.ess, a Pankhurst, or a great actress, they wouldn't even come."

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

Suffragists always put things through, and I shall concentrate on this for the next three weeks. I consider the picture sold."

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

"Oh, Stefan, isn't it awfully good of her?" exclaimed Mary, linking her arm through his. He was staring at his empty canvas. "Yes, splendid,"

he responded carelessly, "but of course she'll have the kudos, and her organization will benefit, too."

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

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

He was lost in his new idea. Mary told herself she had in part misjudged him. His comment on their friend's a.s.sistance was not dictated by lack of appreciation so much as by indifference. No sooner was the picture's future settled than he had ceased to be interested in it. The practical results of its sale would have little real meaning for him, she knew.

She began to see that all he asked of humanity was that it should leave him untrammeled to do his work, while yielding him full measure of the beauty and acclamation that were his food. "Well," she thought, "I'm the wife of a genius. It's a great privilege, but it is strange, for I always supposed if I married it would simply be some good, kind man. He would have been very dull," she smiled to herself, mentally contrasting the imagined with the real.

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

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

She was wakened by Stefan's arms round her.

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

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

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

"Clever boy!" she exclaimed delighted, for he had never made the coffee before. In a moment he produced rolls and b.u.t.ter.

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

"For me? More excitements!" he warbled. "But I shan't open them till the curtain comes down. There, we've finished." He jumped up. "Beautiful, allow me to present to you the Byrds' Christmas tree." With a dramatic gesture he unhooked a cord. The curtain fell. There in the full morning light stood a tree, different from any Mary had ever seen. There were no candles on it, but from top to bottom it was all one glittering white.

There were no garish tinsel ornaments, but from every branch hung a white bird, wings outstretched, and under each bird lay, on the branch below, something white. At the foot of the tree stood a little painting framed in pale silver. It was of a nude baby boy, sitting wonderingly upon a hilltop at early dawn. His eyes were lifted to the sky, his hands groped. Mary, with an exclamation of delight, stepped nearer. Then she saw what the white things were under the spreading wings of the birds.

Each was the appurtenance of a baby. One was a tiny cap, one a cloak, others were dresses, little jackets, vests. There were some tiny white socks, and, at the very top of the tree, a rattle of white coral and silver.

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

"Do you like it, darling?" he asked delightedly, his arms about her.

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

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