The Nest Builder Part 41

"By the by," she said next morning at breakfast, "don't worry about my being alone after you've gone. I thought it might be triste for the first few days, so I've rung up the Sparrow, and she's coming to occupy your room for a couple of weeks. She's off for her yearly trip abroad at the end of the month. Says she can't abide the Dutch, but means to see what there is to their old Rhine, and come back by way of Tuscany and France." Mary gurgled. "Can't you see her in Paris, poor dear, 'doing'

the Louvre, with her nose in a guidebook. Why! Perhaps you may!"

"The G.o.ds forbid," said Stefan devoutly.

He had brought his paints and brushes home the night before, and after breakfast Mary helped him stow them away in the Gladstone, showing him smilingly how well she had done his packing. While he admired, she remembered to ask him if he had obtained a letter of credit. He burst out laughing.

"Mary, you wonder! I have about fifty dollars in my pocket, and should have entirely forgotten to take more if you hadn't spoken of it. What a bore! Can't I get it to-morrow?"

"You might not have time before sailing. I think you'd better go up to-day, and then you could call on Constance to say good-bye."

"I don't like to leave you on our last day," he said uneasily,

"Oh, that will be all right, dear," she smiled, patting his hand. "I have oceans to do, and I think you ought to see Constance. Get your letter of credit for a thousand dollars, then you'll be sure to have enough."

"A thousand! Great Scott, Adolph would think I'd robbed a bank if I had all that."

"You don't need to spend it, silly, but you ought to have it behind you.

You never know what might happen."

"Would there be plenty left for you?"

"Bless me, yes," she laughed; "we're quite rich."

While he was gone Mary arranged an impromptu farewell party for him, so that instead of spending a rather depressing evening alone with her, as he had expected, he found himself surrounded by cheerful friends--McEwan, the Farradays, their next neighbors, the Havens, and one or two others. McEwan was the last to leave, at nearly midnight, and pleading fatigue, Mary kissed Stefan good night at the door of her room.

She dared not linger with him lest the stifled pain at her heart should clamor for expression too urgently to be denied. But by this time he himself began to feel the impending separation. Ready for bed, he slipped into her room and found her lying wide-eyed in a swathe of moonlight. Without a word he lay down beside her and drew her close.

Like children lost in the dark, they slept all night in each other's arms.

Next day Mary saw him off. New York ended at the gangway. Across it, they were in France. French decorations, French faces, French gaiety, the beloved French tongue, were everywhere.

"Listen to it, Mary," he cried exultingly, and she smiled a cheerful response.

When the warning bell sounded he suddenly became grave.

"Say good-bye again to Elliston for me, dear," he said, holding her hand close. "I hope he grows up like you."

Her eyes were swimming now, in spite of herself. "Mary," he went on, "this separation makes or mars us. I hope, dear, I believe, it will make us. G.o.d bless you." He kissed her, pressed her to him. Suddenly they were both trembling.

"Why are we parting?" he cried, in a revulsion of feeling.

She smiled at him, wiping away her tears. "It's better, dearest," she whispered; "let me go now." They kissed again; she turned hurriedly away. He watched her cross the gangway--she waved to him from the dock--then the crowd swallowed her.

For a moment he felt bitterly bereaved. "How ironic life is," he thought. Then a s.n.a.t.c.h of French chatter and a gay laugh reached him.

The gangway lifted, water widened between the bulwarks and the dock.

As the s.h.i.+p swung out he caught the sea breeze--a flight of gulls swept by--he was outbound!

With a deep breath Stefan turned a brilliant smile upon the deck ...

Freedom!

Mary, hurrying home with aching heart and throat, let the slow tears run unheeded down her cheeks. From the train she watched the city's outskirts stream by, formless and ugly. She was very desolate. But when, tired out, she entered her house, peace enfolded her. Here were her child, the things she loved, her birds, her pleasant, smiling servant.

Here were white walls and gracious calm. Her mate had flown, but the nest remained. Her heart ached still, but it was no longer torn.

X

The day after Stefan sailed Felicity Berber returned from Louisiana. The South had bored her, without curing her weariness of New York. She drove from the Pennsylvania Station to her studio, looked through the books, overhauled the stock, and realized with indifference that her business had suffered heavily through her absence. She listened lazily while her lieutenants, emphasizing this fact, implored her to take up the work again.

"What does it matter," she murmured through her smoke. "The place still pays. Your salaries are all secure, and I have plenty of money. I may come back, I may not. In any event, I am bored." She rippled out to her landaulette, and drove home. At her apartment, her Chinese maid was already unpacking her trunks.

"Don't unpack any more, Yo San. I may decide to go away again--abroad perhaps. I am still very bored--give me a white kirtle and telephone Mr.

Marchmont to call in an hour."

With her maid's help she undressed, pinned her hair high, and slipped on a knee-high tunic of heavy chiffon. Barefooted, she entered a large room, walled in white and dull silver--the end opposite the windows filled by a single mirror. Between the windows stood a great tank of gold and silver fish swimming among water lilies.

Two enormous vases of dull gla.s.s, stacked with lilies against her homecoming, stood on marble pedestals. The floor was covered with a carpeting of dead black. A divan draped in yellow silk, a single ebony chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a low table in teakwood were the sole furniture. Here, quite alone, Felicity danced away the stiffness of her journey, danced away the drumming of the train from her ears, and its dust from her lungs. Then she bathed, and Yo San dressed her in a loose robe of silver mesh, and fastened her hair with an ivory comb carved and tinted to the model of a water lily. These rites complete, Felicity slowly partook of fruit, coffee and toast. Only then did she re-enter the dance room, where, on his ebony chair, the dangling Marchmont had been uncomfortably waiting for half an hour.

She gave him her hand dreamily, and sank full length on the divan.

"You are more marvelous than ever, Felicity," said he, with an adoring sigh.

She waved her hand. "For all that I am not in the mood. Tell me the news, my dear Marchmont--plays, pictures, scandals, which of my clients are richer, which are bankrupt, who has gone abroad, and all about my friends."

Marchmont leant forward, and prepared to light a cigarette, his thin mouth twisted to an eager smile, his loose hair wagging.

"Wait," she breathed, "I weary of smoke. Give me a lily, Marchmont." He fetched one of the great Easter lilies from its vase. Placing this on her bosom, she folded her supple hands over it, closed her eyes, and lay still, looking like a Bakst version of the Maid of Astolat. Felicity's hints were usually sufficient for her slaves. Marchmont put away his cigarette, and proceeded with relish to recount the gossip with which, to his long finger-tips, he was charged.

"Well," said he, after an hour's general survey of New York as they both knew it, "I think that about covers the ground. There is, as I said, no question that Einsbacher is still devoted. My own opinion is he will present you with the Nixie. I suppose you received the clippings I sent about the picture? Constance Elliot has only ordered two gowns from the studio since you left--but you will have seen that by the books. She says she is saving her money for the Cause." He snickered. "The fact is, she grows dowdy as she grows older. Gunther has gone to Frisco with his group. Polly Thayer tells me his adoration of the beautiful Byrd is pathetic. So much in love he nearly broke her neck showing off his driving for her benefit." Marchmont snickered again. "As for your friend Mr. Byrd--" he smiled with a touch of sly pleasure--"you won't see him, he sailed for France yesterday, alone. His name is in this morning's list of departures." And he drew a folded and marked newspaper from his pocket.

A shade of displeasure had crept over the immobile features of Miss Berber. She opened her eyes and regarded the lank Marchmont with distaste. Her finger pressed a b.u.t.ton on the divan. Slowly she raised herself to her elbow, while he watched, his pale eyes fixed on her with the expression of a ratting dog waiting its master's thanks after a catch.

"All that you have told me," said Felicity at last, a slight edge to her zephyr-like voice, "is interesting, but I wish you would remember that while you are free to ridicule my clients, you are not free as regards my friends. Your comment on Connie was in poor taste. I am not in the mood for more conversation this morning. I am fatigued. Good-day, Marchmont." She sank to her pillows again--her eyes closed.

"Oh, I say, Felicity, is that all the thanks I get?" whined her visitor.

"Good-day, Marchmont," she breathed again. The door opened, disclosing Yo San. Marchmont's aesthetic veneer cracked.

"Oh, shucks," he said, "how mean of you!" and trailed out, his cutaway seeming to hang limp like the dejected tail of a dog.

The door closed, Felicity bounded up and, running across the room, invoked her own loveliness in the mirror.

"Alone," she whispered to herself, "alone." She danced a few steps, swayingly. "You've never lived, lovely creature, you've never lived yet," she apostrophized the dancing vision in the gla.s.s.

Still swaying and posturing to some inward melody, she fluttered down the pa.s.sage to her bedroom. "Yo San," she called, her voice almost full, "we shall go to Europe." The stolid little maid nodded acquiescence.

For the next three days Felicity Berber, creator of raiment, shut in her pastoral fitting room and surrounded by her chief acolytes, sat at a table opposite Stefan's dancing faun, and designed spring gowns.

Felicity the idle, the somnolent, the alluring, gave place to Felicity the inventor, and again to Felicity the woman of business. Scissors clipped, typewriters clicked, colored chalks covered dozens of sheets with drawings.