The Nest Builder Part 35

The face was not a portrait--it was Felicity only in its potentialities, but it was she, unmistakably. The picture was brilliant, fantastic, and unpleasant. Mary said so.

"Of course it is unpleasant," he answered, "and so is life. Isn't it unpleasant that girls should kill themselves because of some fool man?

And wouldn't sub-humans have a right to ribald laughter at a system which fosters such things!"

"He has painted me as a sub-human, Mrs. Byrd," drawled Felicity through her smoke, "but when I hear his opinion of humans I feel complimented."

"It seems to me," said Mary, "that she's not laughing at humans in general, but at this particular girl, for having cared. That's what makes it unpleasant to me."

"I dare say she is," said Stefan carelessly. "In any case, I'm glad you find it unpleasant--in popular criticism the word is only a synonym for true."

To Mary the picture was theatrical rather than true, but she did not care to argue the point. She turned to the portrait, a clever study in lights keyed to the opalescent tones of the silk dress, and showing Felicity poised for the first step of a dance. The face was still in charcoal--Stefan always blocked in his whole color scheme before beginning a head--but even so, it was alluring.

Mary said with truth that it would be a fine portrait.

"Yes, I like it. Full of movement. Nothing architectural about that," he said, glancing by way of contrast at the great Demeter drowsing from the furthest wall. "The silk is interesting, isn't it?"

Mary's throat ached painfully. He was utterly unconscious of any hurt to her in the transfer of this first extravagance of theirs. If he had done it consciously, with intent to wound, she thought it might have hurt her less.

"It's very pretty," she said conventionally.

"Bare, perhaps, rather than pretty," murmured Miss Berber behind her veil of smoke.

Mary flushed. This woman had a trick of always making her appear gauche.

She looked at her watch, not sorry to see that it was already time to leave.

"I must go, Stefan, I have to catch the one o'clock," she said, holding out her hand.

"What a shame. Can't you even stay to lunch?" he asked dutifully. She shook her head, the ache in her throat making speech difficult. She seemed very stiff and matter-of-fact, he thought, and her clothes were uninteresting. He kissed her, however, and held the door while she shook hands with Felicity, who half rose. The transom was open, and through it Mary, who had paused on the landing to b.u.t.ton her glove, overheard Miss Berber's valedictory p.r.o.nouncement.

"The English are a remarkable race--remarkable. Character in them is fixed--in us, fluid."

Mary sped down the first flight, in terror of hearing Stefan's reply.

All that evening she held the baby in her arms--she could hardly bring herself to put him down when it was time to go to bed.

IV

On November the 1st Mary received their joint bank book. The figures appalled her. She had drawn nothing except for the household bills, but Stefan had apparently been drawing cash, in sums of fifty or twenty-five dollars, every few days for weeks past. Save for his meals and a little new clothing she did not know on what he could have spent it; but as they had made nothing since the sale of his drawings in the spring, their once stout balance had dwindled alarmingly. One check, even while she felt its extravagance, touched her to sympathy. It was drawn to Henrik Jensen for two hundred dollars. Stefan must have been helping Adolph's brother to his feet again; perhaps that was where more of the money had gone.

Stefan came home that afternoon, and Mary very unwillingly tackled the subject. He looked surprised.

"I'd no idea I'd been drawing so much! Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

he exclaimed. "Yes, I've given poor old Henrik a bit from time to time; I thought I'd mentioned it to you."

"You did in the summer, now I come to think of it, but I thought you meant a few dollars, ten or twenty."

"Much good that would have done him. The poor old chap was stranded.

He's all right now, has a new business. I've been meaning to tell you about it. He supplies furniture on order to go with Felicity's gowns--backgrounds for personalities, and all that stuff. I put it up to her to help find him a job, and she thought of this right off." He grinned appreciatively. "Smart, eh? We both gave him a hand to start it."

"You might have told me, I should have been so interested," said Mary, trying not to sound hurt.

"I meant to, but it's only just been arranged, and I've had no chance to talk to you for ages."

"Not my doing, Stefan," she said softly.

"Oh, yes, the baby and all that." He waved his arm vaguely, and began to fidget. She steered away from the rocks.

"Anyhow, I'm glad you've helped him," she said sincerely.

"I knew you would be. Look here, Mary, can we go on at the present rate--barring Jensen--till I finish the Nixie? I don't want Constantine to have the Demeter alone, it isn't good enough."

"I think it is as good as the Nixie," she said, on a sudden impulse. He swung round, staring at her almost insolently.

"My dear girl, what do you know about it?" His voice was cold.

The blood rushed to her heart. He had never spoken to her in that tone before. As always, her hurt silenced her.

He prowled for a minute, then repeated his question about their expenses.

"I don't want to have to think in cents again unless I must," he added.

Mary considered, remembering the now almost finished ma.n.u.script in her desk.

"Yes, I think we can manage, dear."

"That's a blessing; then we won't talk about it any more," he exclaimed, pinching her ear in token of satisfaction.

The next day Mary sent her ma.n.u.script to be typed. In a week it had gone to Farraday at his office, complete all but three chapters, of which she enclosed an outline. With it she sent a purely formal note, asking, in the event of the book being accepted, what terms the Company could offer her, and whether she could be paid partly in advance. She put the request tentatively, knowing nothing of the method of paying for serials. In another week she had a typewritten reply from Farraday, saying that the serial had been most favorably reported, that the Company would buy it for fifteen hundred dollars, with a guarantee to begin serialization within the year, on receipt of the final chapters, that they enclosed a contract, and were hers faithfully, etc. With this was a personal note from her friend, congratulating her, and explaining that his estimate of her book had been more than borne out by his readers.

"I don't want you to think others less appreciative than I," was his tactful way of intimating that her work had been accepted on its merits alone.

The letters took Mary's breath away. She had no idea that her work could fetch such a price. This stroke of fortune completely lifted her financial anxieties, but her spirits did not rise correspondingly. Six months ago she would have been girlishly triumphant at such a success, but now she felt at most a dull satisfaction. She hastened, however, to write the final chapters, and deposited the check when it came in her own bank, drawing the next month's housekeeping money half from that and half from Stefan's rapidly dwindling account. That she was able to do this gave her a feeling of relief, no more.

Mary had now nursed her baby for over four months, and began to feel a nervous la.s.situde which she attributed--quite wrongly--to this fact.

As Elliston still gained weight steadily, however, she gave her own condition no thought. But the last leaves had fallen from the trees, sea and woods looked friendless, and the evenings were long and lonely. The neighbors had nearly all gone back to the city. Farraday only came down at week-ends, Jamie was busy with his lessons, and Constance still lingered in Vermont. As for Stefan, he came home late and left early; often he did not come at all. She began to question seriously if she had been right to remain in the cottage. Her heart told her no, but her pride said yes, and her pride was strong; also, it was backed by reason.

Her steady brain, which was capable of quite impersonal thinking, told her that Stefan would be actively discontented just now in company with his family, and that this discontent would eat into his remaining love for her.

But her heart repudiated this mental cautioning, crying out to her to go to him, to pour out her love and need, to capture him safely in her arms. More than once she nerved herself for such an effort, only to become incapable of the least expression at his approach. Emotionally inarticulate even in happiness, Mary was quite dumb in grief. Her conversation became trite, her sore heart drew a mantle of the commonplace over its wound; Stefan found her more than ever "English."

So lonely was she at this time that she would have asked little Miss Mason to stay with her, but for the lack of a spare bedroom. Of all her friends, only Mrs. Farraday remained at hand. Mary spent many hours at the old lady's house, and rejoiced each time the pony chaise brought her to the Byrdsnest. Mrs. Farraday loved to drive up in the morning and watch the small Elliston in his bath, comparing his feats with her memories of her own baby. She liked, too, to call at the cottage for mother and child, and take them for long rambling drives behind her ruminant pony.

But the little Quakeress usually had her house full of guests--quaint, elderly folk from Delaware or from the Quaker regions of Pennsylvania--and could not give more than occasional time to these excursions. She had become devoted to Mary, whom she secretly regarded as her ideal of the woman her James should marry. That her son had not yet met such a woman was, after the loss of her husband, the little lady's greatest grief.

In the midst of this dead period of graying days, Constance Elliot burst one morning--a G.o.d from the Machine--tearing down the lane in her diminutive car with the great figure of Gunther, like some Norse divinity, beside her. She fell out of her auto, and into an explanation, in one breath, embracing Mary warmly between sentences.