The Nest Builder Part 46

"Who fights for France?" a voice yelled hoa.r.s.ely, and among cheers a score of hands went up.

"Who fights for France?" Stefan stood stock still, then hurried past the crowd, and up the stairs to his attic.

There, in the midst of gaping drawers and fast emptying shelves, stood Adolph in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, methodically packing his possessions into a hair trunk. He looked up as his friend entered; his mild face was alight; tears of excitement stood in his eyes.

"Ah, my infant," he exclaimed, "it has arrived! The Germans are across the frontier. I go to fight for France."

"Adolph!" cried Stefan, seizing and wringing his friend's hand. "Thank G.o.d there's something great to be done in the world after all! I go with you."

"But your wife, Stefan?"

Stefan drew out Mary's letter. For the first time his eyes were wet.

"Listen," he said, and translated the brief words.

Hearing them, the good Adolph sat down on his trunk, and quite frankly cried. "Ah, quel dommage! quel dommage!" he exclaimed, over and over.

"So you see, mon cher, we go together," said Stefan, and lifted his Gladstone bag to a chair. As he fumbled among its forgotten contents, a tiny box met his hand. He drew out the signet ring Mary had given him, with the winged head.

"Ah, Mary," he whispered with a half sob, "after all, you gave me wings!" and he put the ring on. He was only twenty-seven.

Later in the day Stefan went to the bank and had Mary's draft endorsed back to New York. He enclosed it in a letter to James Farraday, in which he asked him to give it to his wife, with his love and blessing, and to tell her that he was enlisting with Adolph Jensen in the Foreign Legion.

That night they both went to a vaudeville theatre. It was packed to the doors--an opera star was to sing the Ma.r.s.eillaise. Stefan and Adolph stood at the back. No one regarded the performance at all till the singer appeared, clad in white, the French liberty cap upon her head, a great tricolor draped in her arms. Then the house rose in a storm of applause; every one in the vast audience was on his feet.

"'_Allons, enfants de la patrie_,'" began the singer in a magnificent contralto, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng. The house hung breathless.

"'_Aux armes, citoyens!_'" Her hands swept the audience. "'_Marchons!

Marchons!_'" She pointed at the crowd. Each man felt her fiery glance pierce to him--France called--she was holding out her arms to her sons to die for her--

"'_Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!_'"

The singer gathered the great flag to her heart. The tears rolled down her cheeks; she kissed it with the pa.s.sion of a mistress. The house broke into wild cheers. Men fell upon each other's shoulders; women sobbed. The singer was dumb, but the drums rolled on--they were calling, calling. The folds of the flag dazzled Stefan's eyes. He burst into tears.

The next morning Stefan Byrd and Adolph Jensen were enrolled in the Foreign Legion of France.

PART V

THE BUILDER

I

It was spring once more. In the garden of the Byrdsnest flowering shrubs were in bloom; the beds were studded with daffodils; the scent of lilac filled the air. Birds flashed and sang, for it was May, high May, and the nests were built. Mary, warm-cheeked in the sun, and wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a pair of gardening gloves, was thinning out a clump of cornflowers. At one corner of the lawn, shaded by a flowering dog-wood, was a small sand-pit, and in this a yellow-haired two-year-old boy diligently poured sand through a wire sieve. In a white perambulator lay a pink, brown-haired, baby girl, soundly sleeping, a tiny thumb held comfortably in her mouth. Now and then Mary straightened from her task and tiptoed over to the baby, to see that she was still in the shade, or that no flies disturbed her.

Mary's face was not that of a happy woman, but it was the face of one who has found peace. It was graver than of old, but lightened whenever she looked at her children with an expression of proud tenderness. She was dressed in the simplest of white cotton gowns, beneath which the lines of her figure showed a little fuller, but strong and graceful as ever. She looked very womanly, very desirable, as she bent over the baby's carriage.

Lily emerged from the front door, and set a tea-tray upon the low porch table. She lingered for a moment, glancing with pride at the verandah with its green rocking chairs, hammock, and white creeping-rug.

"My, Mrs. Byrd, don't our new porch look nice, now it's all done?" she exclaimed, beaming.

"Yes," said Mary, dropping into a rocking-chair to drink her tea, and throwing off her hat to loosen the warm waves of hair about her forehead, "isn't it awfully pretty? I don't know how we should have managed without it on damp mornings, now that Baby wants to crawl all the time. Ah, here is Miss Mason!" she exclaimed, smiling as that spinster, in white s.h.i.+rtwaist and alpaca skirt, dismounted from a smart bicycle at the gate.

"Any letters, Sparrow?"

Miss Mason, extracting several parcels from her carrier, flopped gratefully into a rocker, and drew off her gloves.

"One or two," she said. "Here, Lily; here's your marmalade, and here's the soap, and a letter for you. There are a few bills, Mary, and a couple of notes--" she pa.s.sed them across--"and here's an afternoon paper one of the Haven youngsters handed me as I pa.s.sed him on the road.

He called out something about another atrocity. I haven't looked at it.

I hate to open the things these days."

"I know," nodded Mary, busy with her letters, "so do I. This is from Mr.

Gunther, from California. He's been there all the winter, you know.

Oh, how nice; he's coming back! Says we are to expect a visit from him soon," Mary exclaimed, with a pleased smile. "Here's a line from Constance," she went on. "Everything is doing splendidly in her garden, she says. She wants us all to go up in June, before she begins her auto speaking trip. Don't you think it would be nice!"

"Perfectly elegant," said the Sparrow. "I'm glad she's taking a little rest. I thought she looked real tired this spring."

"She works so frightfully hard."

"Land sakes, work agrees with _you_, Mary! You look simply great.

If your new book does as well as the old one I suppose porches won't satisfy you--you'll be wanting to build an ell on the house?"

"That's just what I do want," said Mary, smiling. "I want to have a spare room, and proper place for the babies. We're awfully crowded. Did I tell you Mr. Farraday had some lovely plans that he had made years ago, for a wing?"

"You don't say!"

"Yes, but I'm afraid we'll have to wait another year for that, till I can increase my short story output."

"My, it seems to me you write them like a streak."

Mary shook her head. "No, after Baby is weaned I expect to work faster, and ever so much better."

"Well, if you do any better than you are doing, Frances Hodgson Burnett won't be in it; that's all I can say."

"Oh, Sparrow!" smiled Mary, "she writes real grown-up novels, too, and I can only do silly little children's things."

"They're not silly, Mary Byrd, I can tell you that," sniffed Miss Mason, shaking out her paper.

"My gracious!" She turned a shocked face to Mary. "What do you suppose those Germans have done now? Sunk the Lusitania!"

"The Lusitania?" exclaimed Mary, incredulously.