The Nest Builder Part 17

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

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

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

"Foolish one," she smiled back at him.

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

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

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

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

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

XI

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

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

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

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

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

Stefan shook himself. "Oh, come along, Mary, let's get out of this.

We've been mewed up in this domestic atmosphere for days. I shall explode soon. Let's go somewhere."

"Very well," she agreed, folding up her work.

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

"Rather, don't I look it?"

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

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

"How affected!" laughed Mary.

"Yes," said Stefan, "amusing people usually are."

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

The house was in the thirties, a large building of white marble. A lift carried them to the top floor, and left them facing a black door with "Felicity Berber" painted on it in vermilion letters. Opening this, they found themselves in a huge windowless room roofed with opaque gla.s.s.

The floor was inlaid in a mosaic of uneven tiles which appeared to be of different shades of black. The walls, from roof to floor, were hung with s.h.i.+mmering green silk of the shade of a parrot's wing. There were no show-cases or other evidences of commercialism, but about the room were set couches of black j.a.panned wood, upon which rested flat mattresses covered in the same green as the walls. On these silk cus.h.i.+ons in black and vermilion were piled. The only other furniture consisted of low tables in black lacquer, one beside every couch. On each of these rested a lacquered bowl of Chinese red, obviously for the receipt of cigarette ashes. A similar but larger bowl on a table near the door was filled with green orchids. One large green silk rug--innocent of pattern--invited the entering visitor deeper into the room; otherwise the floor was bare. There were no pictures, no decorations, merely this green and black background, relieved by occasional splashes of vermilion, and leading up to a great lacquered screen of the same hue which obscured a door at the further end of the room.

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

"You wish to see raiment?" was her greeting.

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

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

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

The damsel brightened somewhat. "If I may have your name I will see what can be done," she offered, extending a small vermilion tray. Stefan produced a card and the damsel floated with it toward the distant exit.

Her footsteps were silent on the dead tiling, and there was no sound from the door beyond the screen.

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

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

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

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

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

"Pull that other couch a little nearer, please," she waved to Stefan, appropriating the one from which they had just risen. Upon this she stretched her full length, propping the cus.h.i.+ons comfortably under her shoulders.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I thought so," Miss Berber enunciated through a breath of smoke.

"I picked it up the other day. Quite lovely. My sylvan fitting room required just that note. I use it for country raiment only. Atmosphere, Mr. Byrd. I want my clients to feel young when they are preparing for the country. I am glad to see you here."

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

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