The Nest Builder Part 37

He grinned. "I raise the ante. Three inches, at the risk of losing my job, for five minutes alone with you."

"You lose your job!" scoffed Constance, leading the way into an empty room, and seating herself at attention, one eye on her watch.

"Proceed--I am yours."

Mac sat opposite her, and shot out an emphatic forefinger.

"The Berber girl's middle name is Mischief," he began, plunging in medias res; "Byrd's is Variability; for the last five months the Mary lady's has been Mother. Am I right?"

Constance's bright eyes looked squarely at him.

"Wallace McEwan, you are," she said.

His finger continued poised. "Very well, we are 'on,' and _our_ middle name is Efficiency, eh?"

"Yes," Constance nodded doubtfully, "but--"

McEwan's hand slapped his knee. "Here's the scheme," he went on rapidly.

"Variable folk must have variety, either in place or people. If we don't want it to be people, we make it place, see? Is your country house closed yet?"

"No, I fancied I might go there to relax for a week after the fete."

"A1 luck. You won't relax, you'll have a week's house-party, sleighing, skating, coasting, all that truck. The Byrds, Farraday (I'll persuade him he can leave the office), a couple of pretty skirts with no brains--me if you like. Get me?"

Constance gasped, her mind racing. "But Mary's baby?" she exclaimed, clutching at the central difficulty.

"You're the goods," replied McEwan admiringly. "She couldn't s.h.i.+ne as Queen of the Slide if she was tied to the offspring--granted. Now then."

He leant forward. "She's had to wean him--you didn't know that. Your dope is to talk up the house-party, tell her she owes it to herself to get a change, and make her leave the boy with a trained nurse. The Mary lady's no fool, she'll be on."

Constance's eyes narrowed to slits, she fingered her beads, and nodded once, twice.

"More trouble," she said, "but it's a go. Second week in January."

He grasped her hand. "Votes for Women," he beamed.

She looked at her watch. "Five minutes exactly. Three inches, Mr.

McEwan!"

"Three inches!" he called from the door.

VI

Christmas was a blank period for Mary that year. Stefan came home on Christmas eve in a mood of somewhat forced conviviality, but Mary had had no heart for festive preparations. Stefan had failed her and she had failed her baby--these two ever present facts shadowed her world. She had bought presents for Lily and the baby, a pair of links for Stefan, books for Mrs. Farraday and Jamie, and trifles for Constance and Miss Mason, but the holly and mistletoe, the tree, the new frock and the Christmas fare which normally she would have planned with so much joy, were missing. Stefan's gift to her--a fur-lined coat--was so extravagant that she could derive no pleasure from it, and she had the impression that he had chosen it hurriedly, without much thought of what would best please her. From Constance she received a white sweater of very beautiful heavy silk, with a cap and scarf to match, but she thought bitterly that pretty things to wear were of little use to her now.

It was obvious that Stefan's conscience p.r.i.c.ked him. He spent the morning hanging about her, and even played a little with his son, who now sat up, bounced, crowed with laughter, clutched every article within reach, and had two teeth. Mary's heart reached out achingly to Stefan, but he seemed to her a strange man. The contrast between this and their last Christmas smote her intolerably.

In the afternoon they walked over to the Farradays', where there was a tree for Jamie and a few friends, including the chauffeur's and gardener's children. Here Stefan prowled into the picture gallery, while Mary, surrounded by children, was in her element. Returning to the drawing room, Stefan watched her playing with them as he had watched her on the Lusitania fifteen months before. She was less radiant now, and her figure was fuller, but as she smiled and laughed with the children, her cheeks pink and her hair all a-glitter under the lights, she looked very lovely, he thought. Why did the sight of her no longer thrill him?

Why did he enjoy more the society of Felicity Berber, whom he knew to be affected and egotistic, and suspected of being insincere, than that of this beautiful, golden woman of whose truth he could never conceive a doubt?

A feeling of deep sadness, of unutterable regret, swept through him.

Better never to have married than to have outlived so soon the magic of romance. Which of them had lost the key? When Mary had furled her wings to brood over her nest he had thought it was she; now he was not so sure.

Walking home through the dark woods he stopped suddenly, and drew her to him.

"Mary, my Beautiful, I'm drifting, hold me close," he whispered. Her breath caught, she clung to him, he felt her face wet with tears. No more words were spoken, but they walked on comforted, groping their way under the damp fingers of the trees. Stefan felt no pa.s.sion, but his tenderness for his wife had reawakened. For her part, tears had thawed her bitterness, without was.h.i.+ng it away.

The next morning Constance drove over.

"Children," she said, hurrying in from the cold air, "what a delicious scene! I invite myself to lunch."

Mary was playing with Elliston on a blanket by the fire, Stefan sketching them, the room full of sun and firelight. The two greeted her delightedly.

"Now," she said, settling herself on the couch, "let me tell you why I came," and she proceeded to unfold her plans for a house-party at Burlington. "You've never seen our winter sports, Mary, they're glorious, and you need a change from so much domesticity. As for you, Mr. Byrd, it will give you a chance to learn that America can be attractive even outside New York."

Both the Byrds were looking interested, Stefan unreservedly, Mary with a pucker of doubt.

"Now, don't begin about Elliston," exclaimed Constance, forestalling objections. "We've heaps of room, but it would spoil your fun to bring him. I want you to get a trained nurse for the week--finest thing in the world to take a holiday from maternity once in a while." She turned to Stefan as a sure ally. "Don't you agree, Mr. Byrd?"

"Emphatically," beamed he, seizing her hand and kissing it. "A glorious idea! Away with domesticity! A real breath of freedom, eh, Mary?"

Constance again forestalled difficulties.

"We are all going to travel up by night, ten of us, and Theodore is engaging a compartment car with rooms for every one, so there won't be any expense about that part of it, Mary, my dear. Does it seem too extravagant to ask you to get a trained nurse? I've set my heart on having you free to be the life of the party. All your admirers are coming, that gorgeous Gunther, my beloved James, and Wallace McEwan.

I baited my hooks with you, so you simply _can't_ disappoint me!" she concluded triumphantly.

Stefan p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. Here was Mary in a new guise; he had not thought of her for some time as having "admirers." Yet he had always known Farraday for one; and certainly Gunther, who modeled her, and McEwan, who dogged her footsteps, could admire her no less than the editor. The thought that his wife was sought after, that he was probably envied by other men, warmed Stefan's heart pleasantly, just as Constance intended it should.

"It sounds fascinating, and I certainly think we must come," Mary was saying, "though I don't know how I shall bring myself to part with Elliston," and she hugged the baby close.

"You born Mother!" said Constance. "I adored my boys, but I was always enchanted to escape from them." She laughed like a girl. "Now you grasp the inwardness of my Christmas present--it is a coasting outfit. Won't she look lovely in it, Mr. Byrd?"

"Glorious!" said Stefan, boyishly aglow; and "I don't believe two and two do make four, after all," thought Constance.

All through luncheon they discussed the plan with animation, Constance enlisting Mary's help at the Suffrage Fete the first week in January in advance payment, as she said, for the house-party. "Why not get your nurse a few days earlier to break her in, and be free to give me as much time as possible?" she urged.

"Good idea, Mary," Stefan chimed in. "I'll stay in town that week and lunch with you at the bazaar, and you could sleep a night or two at the studio."

"We'll see," said Mary, a little non-committal. She knew she should enjoy the Fete immensely, but somehow, she did not feel she could bring herself to sleep in the little studio, with Felicity the Nixie sneering down at her from one wall, and Felicity the Dancer challenging from the other.

But it was a much cheered couple that Constance left behind, and Stefan came home every afternoon during the week that remained till the opening of the bazaar.

Being in the city for this event, Mary, in addition to engaging a nurse, indulged in some rather extravagant shopping. She had made up her mind to look her best at Burlington, and though Mary was slow to move, when she did take action her methods were thorough. She realized with grat.i.tude that Constance, whom she suspected of knowing more than she indicated, had given her a wonderful opportunity of renewing her appeal to her husband, and she was determined to use it to the full.

Incapable--as are all women of her type--of coquetry, Mary yet knew the value of her beauty, and was too intelligent not to see that both it and she had been at a grave disadvantage of late. She understood dimly that she was confronted by one of the fundamental problems of marriage, the difficulty of making an equal success of love and motherhood. She could not put her husband permanently before her child, as Constance had done, and as she knew most Englishwomen did, but she meant to do it completely for this one week of holiday, at least.

Meanwhile, amidst the color and music of the great drill-hall where the suffragists held their yearly Fete, Mary, dispensing tea and cakes in a flower-garlanded tent, enjoyed herself with simple whole-heartedness.

All Constance's waitresses were dressed as daffodils, and the high cap, representing the inverted cup of the flower, with the tight-sheathed yellow and green of the gown, was particularly becoming to Mary. She knew again the pleasure, which no one is too modest to enjoy, of being a center of admiration. Stefan dropped in once or twice, and waxed enthusiastic over Constance's arrangements and Mary's looks.