The next morning Stefan started immediately after his premier déjeuner of rolls and coffee in quest of the less important dealers, taking with him only his smaller canvases. “I'll stay away till five o'clock, not a minute longer,” he admonished. Mary, still seated in the dining-room over her English bacon and eggs—she had smilingly declined to adopt his French method of breakfasting—glowed acquiescence, and offered him a parting suggestion.
“Be sure to show them the baby in the wood.”
“Why that one?” he questioned. “You admit it isn't the best.”
“Perhaps, but neither are they the best connoisseurs. You'll see.” She nodded wisely at him.
“The oracle has spoken—I will obey,” he called from the door, kissing his fingers to her. She ventured an answering gesture, knowing the room empty save for waiters. She was almost as unselfconscious as he, but had her nation's shrinking from any public expression of emotion.
Hardly had he gone when the faithful Miss Mason arrived, her mild eyes almost youthful with enthusiasm. Prom a black satin reticule of dimensions beyond all proportion to her meager self she drew a list of names on which she discoursed volubly while Mary finished her breakfast.
“You'll get most everything at this first place,” she said. “It's pretty near the biggest department store in the city, and only two blocks from here—ain't that convenient? You can deal there right along for everything in the way of dry goods.”
Mary had no conception of what either a department store or dry goods might be, but determined not to confound her mentor by a display of such ignorance.
“Seemed to me, though, you might get some things second hand, so I got a list of likely places from my sister, who's lived in New York longer'n I have. I thought mebbe—” her tone was tactful—“you didn't want to waste your money any?”
Mary was impressed again, as she had been before her wedding, by the natural good manners of this simple and half educated woman. “Why is it,” she wondered to herself, “that one would not dream of knowing people of her class at home, but rather likes them here?” She did not realize as yet that for Miss Mason no classes existed, and that consequently she was as much at ease with Mary, whose mother had been “county,” as she would be with her own colored “help.”
“You guessed quite rightly, Miss Mason,” Mary smiled. “I want to spend as little as possible, and shall depend on you to prevent my making mistakes.”
“I reckon I know all there is t' know 'bout economy,” nodded Miss Mason, and, as if by way of illustration, drew from her bag a pair of cotton gloves, for which she exchanged her kid ones, rolling these carefully away. “They get real mussed shopping,” she explained.
Within half an hour, Mary realized that she would have been lost indeed without her guide. First they inspected the studio. Mary had had a vague idea of cleaning it herself, but Miss Mason demanded to see the janitress, and ascended, after a ten minutes' emersion in the noisome gloom of the basement, in high satisfaction. “She's a dago,” she reported, “but not so dirty as some, and looks a husky worker. It's her business to clean the flats for new tenants, but I promised her fifty cents to get the place done by noon, windows and all. She seemed real pleased. She says her husband will carry your coal up from the cellar for a quarter a week; I guess it will be worth it to you. You don't want to give the money to him though,” she admonished, “the woman runs everything. I shouldn't calc'late,” she sniffed, “he does more'n a couple of real days' work a month. They mostly don't.”
So the first problem was solved, and it was the same with all the rest. Many dollars did Miss Mason save the Byrds that day. Mary would have bought a bedstead and screened it, but her companion pointed out the extravagance and inconvenience of such a course, and initiated her forthwith into the main secret of New York's apartment life.
“You'll want your divan new,” she said, and led her in the great department store to a hideous object of gilded iron which opened into a double bed, and closed into a divan. At first Mary rejected this Janus-faced machine unequivocally, but became a convert when Miss Mason showed her how cretonne (she pronounced it “creeton”) or rugs would soften its nakedness to dignity, and how bed-clothes and pillows were swallowed in its maw by day to be released when the studio became a sleeping room at night.
These trappings they purchased at first hand, and obliging salesmen promised Miss Mason with their lips, but Mary with their eyes, that they should go out on the noon delivery. For other things, however, the two searched the second-hand stores which stand in that district like logs in a stream, staying abandoned particles of the city's ever moving current. Here they bought a high, roomy chest of drawers of painted pine, a Morris chair, three single chairs, and a sturdy folding table in cherry, quite old, which Mary felt to be a “find,” and which she destined for Stefan's paints. Miss Mason recommended a “rocker,” and Mary, who had had visions of stuffed English easy chairs, acquiesced on finding in the rocker and Morris types the only available combinations of cheapness and comfort. A second smaller table of good design, two brass candlesticks, and a little looking-glass in faded greenish gilt, rejoiced Mary's heart, without unreasonably lightening her pocket. During these purchases Miss Mason's authority paled, but she reasserted herself on the question of iceboxes. One dealer's showroom was half full of them, and Miss Mason pounced on a small one, little used, marked six dollars. “That's real cheap—you couldn't do better—it's a good make, too.” Mary had never seen an ice-box in her life, and said so, striking Miss Mason almost dumb.
“I'm sure we shouldn't need such a thing,” she demurred.
Recovering speech, Miss Mason launched into the creed of the ice-box—its ubiquity, values and economies. Mary understood she was receiving her second initiation into flat life, and mentally bracketed this new cult with that of the divan.
“All right, Miss Mason. In Rome, et cetera,” she capitulated, and paid for the ice-box.
Thanks to her friend, their shopping had been so expeditious that the day was still young. Mary was fired by the determination to have some sort of nest for her tired and probably disheartened husband to return to that evening, and Miss Mason entered whole-heartedly into the scheme. The transportation of their scattered purchases was the main difficulty, but it yielded to the little spinster's inspiration. A list of their performances between noon and five o'clock would read like the description of a Presidential candidate's day. They dashed back to the studio and reassured themselves as to the labors of the janitress. Miss Mason unearthed the lurking husband, and demanded of him a friend and a hand-cart. These she galvanized him into producing on the spot, and sent the pair off armed with a list of goods to be retrieved. In the midst of this maneuver the department store's great van faithfully disgorged their bed and bedding. Hardly waiting to see these deposited, the two hurried out in quest of sandwiches and milk.
“I guess we're the lightning home-makers, all right,” was Miss Mason's comment as they lunched.
Returning to the department store they bought and brought away with them a kettle, a china teapot (“Fifteen cents in the basement,” Miss Mason instructed), three cups and saucers, six plates, a tin of floor-polish and a few knives, forks, and spoons. Meanwhile they had telephoned the hotel to send over the baggage. When the street car dropped them near the studio they found the two Italians seated on the steps, the furniture and baggage in the room, and Mrs. Corriani wiping her last window pane. “I shall want your husband again for this floor,” commanded the indefatigable Miss Mason, opening her tin of polish, “and his friend for errands.” They fell upon their task.
An hour later the spinster dropped into the rocking chair. “Well, we've done it,” she said, “and I don't mind telling you I'm tuckered out.”
Mary's voice answered from the sink, where she was sluicing her face and arms.
“You've been a marvel—the whole thing has been Napoleonic—and I simply don't know how to thank you.” She appeared at the door of the closet, which was to serve as kitchenette and bathroom, drying her hands.
“My, your face is like a rose!Youdon't look tired any!” exclaimed the spinster. “As for thanks, why, it's been a treat to me. I've felt like I was a girl again. But we're through now, and I've got to go.” She rose. “I guess I'll enjoy my sleep to-night.”
“Oh, don't go, Miss Mason, stay for tea and let my husband thank you too.”
But the little New Englander again showed her simple tact. “No, no, my dear, it's time I went, and you and Mr. Byrd will want to be alone together your first evening,” and she pulled on her cotton gloves.
At the door Mary impulsively put her arms round Miss Mason and kissed her.
“You have been good to me—I shall never forget it,” she whispered, almost loath to let this first woman friend of her new life go.
Alone, Mary turned to survey the room.
The floor, of wide uneven planks, was bare, but it carried a dark stain, and this had been waxed until it shone. The walls, painted gray, had yielded a clean surface to the mop. The grate was blackened. On either side of it stood the two large chairs, and Mary had thrown a strip of bright stuff over the cushions of the Morris. Beside this chair stood the smaller table, polished, and upon it blue and white tea things. Near the large window stood the other table, with Stefan's palette, paint tubes, and brushes in orderly array, and a plain chair beside it, while centered at that end was the model-throne. Opposite the fireplace the divan fronted the wall, obscured by Mary's steamer rug and green deck cushion. At the end of the room the heavy chest of drawers, with its dark walnut paint, faced the window, bearing the gilded mirror and a strip of embroidery. On the mantlepiece stood Mary's traveling clock and the two brass candlesticks, and above it Stefan's pastoral of the stream and the dancing faun was tacked upon the wall. She could hear the kettle singing from the closet, through the open door of which a shaft of sunlight fell from the tiny window to the floor.
Suddenly Mary opened her arms. “Home,” she whispered, “home.” Tears started to her eyes. With a caressing movement she leant her face against the wall, as to the cheek of her lover.
But emotion lay deep in Mary—she was ashamed that it should rise to facile tears. “Silly girl,” she thought, and drying her eyes proceeded more calmly to her final task, which was to change her dress for one fitted to honor Stefan's homecoming.
Hardly was she ready when she heard his feet upon the stair. Her heart leapt with a double joy, for he was springing up two steps at a time, triumph in every bound. The door burst open; she was enveloped in a whirlwind embrace. “Mary,” he gasped between kisses, “I've sold the boy—sold him for a hundred! At the very last place—just as I'd given up. You beloved oracle!”
Then he held her away from him, devouring with his eyes her glowing face, her hair, and her soft blue dress. “Oh, you beauty! The day has been a thousand years long without you!” He caught her to him again.
Mary's heart was almost bursting with happiness as she clung to him. Here, in the home she had prepared, he had brought her his success, and their love glorified both. Her emotion left her wordless. Another moment, and his eyes swept the room.
“Why, Mary!” It was a shout of joy. “You magician, you miracle-worker! It's beautiful! Don't tell me how you did it—” hastily—“I couldn't understand. It's enough that you waved your hand and beauty sprang up! Look at my little faun dancing—we must dance too!” He lilted a swaying air, and whirled her round the room with gipsy glee. His face looked like the faun's, elfin, mischievous, happy as the springtime.
At last he dropped into a chair. Then Mary fetched her teakettle. They quenched their thirst, she shared his cigarette, they prattled like children. It was late before they remembered to go out in search of dinner, hours later before they dropped asleep upon the gilded Janus-faced couch that had become for Mary the altar of a sacrament.
Mary's original furnishings had cost her less than a hundred dollars. In the first days of their housekeeping she made several additions, and Stefan contributed a large second-hand easel, a stool, and a piece of strangely colored drapery for the divan. This he discovered during a walk with Mary, in the window of an old furniture dealer, and instantly fell a victim to. He was so delighted with it that Mary had not the heart to veto its purchase, though it was a sad extravagance, costing them more than a week's living expenses. The stuff was of oriental silk, shot with a changing sheen, of colors like a fire burning over water, which made it seem a living thing in their hands. The night they took it home Stefan lit six candles in its honor.
In spite of these expenses Mary banked four hundred dollars, leaving herself enough in hand for a fortnight to come, for she found that they could live on twenty-five dollars a week. She calculated that they must make, as an absolute minimum, to be safe, one hundred dollars a month, for she was determined, if possible, not to draw further upon their hoard. This was destined for a future use, the hope of which trembled constantly in her heart. All her plans centered about this hope, but she still forebore to speak of it to Stefan, even as she had done before their marriage. Perhaps she instinctively feared a possible lack of response in him. Meanwhile, she must safeguard her nest.
In spite of Stefan's initial success, Mary wondered if his art would at first yield the necessary monthly income, and cast about for some means by which she could increase his earnings. She had come to America to attain independence, and there was nothing in her code to make dependence a necessary element of marriage.
“Stefan,” she said one morning, as she sat covering a cushion, while he worked at one of the unfinished pastorals, “you know I sold several short stories for children when I was in London. I think I ought to try my luck here, don't you?”
“You don't need to, sweetheart,” he replied. “Wait till I've finished this little thing. You see if the man I sold the boy to won't jump at it for another hundred.” And he whistled cheerily.
“I'm sure he will,” she smiled. “Still, I should like to help.”
“Do it if you want to, Beautiful, only I can't associate you with pens and typewriters. I'm sure if you were just to open your mouth, and sing, out there in the square—” he waved a brush—“people would come running from all over the city and throw yellow and green bills at you like leaves, till you had to be dug out with long shovels by those funny street-cleaners who go about looking dirty in white clothes. You would be a nymph in a shower of gold—only the gold would be paper! How like America!” He whistled again absently, touching the canvas with delicate strokes.
“You are quite the most ridiculous person in the world,” she laughed at him. “You know perfectly well that my voice is much too small to be of practical value.”
“But I'm not being practical, and you mustn't be literal, darling—goddesses never should.”
“Be practical just for a moment then,” she urged, “and think about my chances of selling stories.”
“I couldn't,” he said absently, holding his brush suspended. “Wait a minute, I've got an idea! That about the shower of gold—I know—Danaë!” he shouted suddenly, throwing down his palette. “That's how I'll paint you. I've been puzzling over it for days. Darling, it will be my chef d'oeuvre!” He seized her hands. “Think of it! You standing under a great shaft of sun, nude, exalted, your hands and eyes lifted. About you gold, pouring down in cataracts, indistinguishable from the sunlight—a background of prismatic fire—and your hair lifting into it like wings!” He was irradiated.
She had blushed to the eyes. “You want me to sit to you—like that!” Her voice trembled.
He gazed at her in frank amazement. “Should you mind?” he asked, amazed. “Why, you rose, you're blushing. I believe you're shy!” He put his arms around her, smiling into her face. “You wouldn't mind, darling, for me!” he urged, his cheek to hers. “You are so glorious. I've always wanted to paint your glory since the first day I saw you. Youcan'tmind!”
He saw she still hesitated, and his tone became not only surprised but hurt. He could not conceive of shame in connection with beauty. Seeing this she mastered her shrinking. He was right, she felt—she had given him her beauty, and a denial of it in the service of his art would rebuff the God in him—the creator. She yielded, but she could not express the deeper reason for her emotion. As he was so oblivious, she could not bring herself to tell him why in particular she shrank from sitting as Danaë. He had not thought of the meaning of the myth in connection with her all-absorbing hope.
“Promise me one thing,” she pleaded. “Don't make the face too like me—just a little different, dearest, please!”
This a trifle fretted him.
“I don't really see why; your face is just the right type,” he puzzled. “I shan't sell the picture, you know. It will be for us—our marriage present to each other.”
“Nevertheless, I ask it, dearest.” With that he had to be content.
Stefan obtained that afternoon a full-length canvas, and the sittings began next morning. He was at his most inspiring, laughed away Mary's stage fright, posed her with a delight which, inspired her, too, so that she stood readily as he suggested, and made half a dozen lightning sketches to determine the most perfect position, exclaiming enthusiastically meanwhile.
When absorbed, Stefan was a sure and rapid worker. Mary posed for him every morning, and at the end of a week the picture had advanced to a thing of wonderful promise and beauty. Mary would stand before it almost awed. Was this she, she pondered, this aspiring woman of flame? It troubled her a little that his ideal of her should rise to such splendor; this apotheosis left no place for the pitying tenderness of love, only for its glory. The color of this picture was like the sound of silver trumpets; the heart-throb of the strings was missing. Mary was neither morbid nor introspective, but at this time her whole being was keyed to more than normal comprehension. Watching the picture, seeing that it was a portrayal not of her but of his love for her, she wondered if any woman could long endure the arduousness of such deification, or if a man who had visioned a goddess could long content himself with a mortal.
The face, too, vaguely troubled her. True to his promise, Stefan had not made it a portrait, but its unlikeness lay rather in the meaning and expression than in the features. These differed only in detail from her own. A slight lengthening of the corners of the eyes, a fuller and wider mouth were the only changes. But the expression amidst its exaltation held a quality she did not understand. Translated into music, it was the call of the wood-wind, something wild and unhuman flowing across the silver triumph of the horns.
Of these half questionings, however, Mary said nothing, telling Stefan only what she was sure of, that the picture would be a masterpiece.
The days were shortening. Stefan found the light poor in the afternoons, and had to take part of the mornings for work on his pastoral. This he would have neglected in his enthusiasm for the Danaë, but for Mary's urgings. He obeyed her mandates on practical issues with the unquestioning acceptance of a child. His attitude suggested that he was willing to be worldly from time to time if his Mary—not too often—told him to.
The weather had turned cool, and Mr. Corriani brought them up their first scuttle of coal. They were glad to drink their morning coffee and eat their lunch before the fire, and Mary's little sable neck-piece, relic of former opulence, appeared in the evenings when they sought their dinner. This they took in restaurants near by—quaint basements, or back parlors of once fine houses, where they were served nutritious meals on bare boards, in china half an inch thick. Autumn, New York's most beautiful season, was in the air with its heart-lightening tang; energy seemed to flow into them as they breathed. They took long walks in the afternoons to the Park, which Stefan voted hopelessly banal; to the Metropolitan Museum, where they paid homage to the Sorollas and the Rodins; to the Battery, the docks, and the whole downtown district. This they found oppressive at first, till they saw it after dark from a ferry boat, when Stefan became fired by the towerlike skyscrapers sketched in patterns of light against the void.
Immediately he developed a cult for these buildings. “America's one creation,” he called them, “monstrous, rooted repellently in the earth's bowels, growing rank like weeds, but art for all that.” He made several sketches of them, in which the buildings seemed to sway in a drunken abandonment of power. “Wicked things,” he named them, and saw them menacing but fascinating, titanic engines that would overwhelm their makers. He and Mary had quite an argument about this, for she thought the skyscrapers beautiful.
“They reach sunward, Stefan, they do not menace, they aspire,” she objected.
“The aspiration is yours, Goddess. They are only fit symbols of a super-materialism. Their strength is evil, but it lures.”
He was delighted with his drawings. Mary, who was beginning to develop civic pride, told him they were goblinesque.
“Clever girl, that's why I like them,” he replied.
Late in October Stefan sold his pastoral, though only for seventy-five dollars. This disappointed him greatly. He was anxious to repay his debt to Adolph, but would not accept the loan of it from his wife. Mary renewed her determination to be helpful, and sent one of her old stories to a magazine, but without success. She had no one to advise her as to likely markets, and posted her manuscript to two more unsuitable publications, receiving it back with a printed rejection slip.
Her fourth attempt, however, was rewarded by a note from the editor which gave her much encouragement. Children's stories, he explained, were outside the scope of his magazine, but he thought highly of Mrs. Byrd's manuscript, and advised her to submit it to one of the women's papers—he named several—where it might be acceptable. Mary was delighted by this note, and read it to Stefan.
“Splendid!” he cried, “I had no idea you had brought any stories over with you. Guarded oracle!” he added, teasingly.
“Oracles don't tell secrets unless they are asked,” she rejoined.
“True. And now I do ask. Give me the whole secret—read me the story,” he exclaimed, promptly putting away his brushes, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself, eagerly attentive, into the Morris chair.
Mary prepared to comply, gladly, if a little nervously. She had been somewhat hurt at his complete lack of interest in her writing; now she was anxious for his approbation. Seated in the rocking chair she read aloud the little story in her clear low voice. When she had finished she found Stefan regarding her with an expression affectionate but somewhat quizzical.
“Mary, you have almost a maternal air, sitting there reading so lovingly about a baby. It's a new aspect—the rocker helps. I've never quite liked that chair—it reminds me of Michigan.”
Mary had flushed painfully, but he did not notice it in the half light of the fire. It had grown dark as she read.
“But the story, Stefan?” she asked, her tone obviously hurt. He jumped up and kissed her, all contrition.
“Darling, it sounded beautiful in your voice, and I'm sure it is. In fact I know it is. But I simply don't understand that type of fiction; I have no key to it. So my mind wandered a little. I listened to the lovely sounds your voice made, and watched the firelight on your hair. You were like a Dutch interior—quite a new aspect, as I said—and I got interested in that.”
Mary was abashed and disappointed. For the first time she questioned Stefan's generosity, contrasting his indifference with her own absorbed interest in his work. She knew her muse trivial by comparison with his, but she loved it, and ached for the stimulus his praise would bring.
Beneath the wound to her craftsmanship lay another, in which the knife was turning, but she would not face its implication. Nevertheless it oppressed her throughout the evening, so that Stefan commented on her silence. That night as she lay awake listening to his easy breathing, for the first time since her marriage her pillow was dampened by tears.
In the nest morning's sun Mary's premonitions appeared absurd. Stefan waked in high spirits, and planned a morning's work on his drawings of the city, while Mary, off duty as a model, decided to take her story in person to the office of one of the women's papers. As she crossed the Square and walked up lower Fifth Avenue she had never felt more buoyant. The sun was brilliant, and a cool breeze whipped color into her cheeks.
The office to which she was bound was on the north side of Union Square. Crossing Broadway, she was held up half way over by the traffic. As she waited for an opening her attention was attracted by the singular antics of a large man, who seemed to be performing some kind of a ponderous fling upon the curbstone opposite. A moment more and she grasped that the dance was a signal to her, and that the man was none other than McEwan, sprucely tailored and trimmed in the American fashion, but unmistakable for all that. She crossed the street and shook hands with him warmly, delighted to see any one connected with the romantic days of her voyage. McEwan's smile seemed to buttress his whole face with teeth, but to her amazement he greeted her without a trace of Scotch accent.
“Well,” said he, pumping both her hands up and down in his enormous fist, “here's Mrs. Byrd! That's simply great. I've been wondering where I could locate you both. Ought to have nosed you out before now, but my job keeps me busy. I'm with a magazine house, you know—advertising manager.”
“I didn't know,” answered Mary, whose head was whirling.
“Ah,” he grinned at her, “you're surprised at my metamorphosis. I allow myself a month every year of my native heath, heather-mixture, and burr—I like to do the thing up brown. The rest of the time I'm a Gothamite, of necessity. Some time, when I've made my pile, I shall revert for keeps, and settle down into a kilt and a castle.”
Much amused by this unsuspected histrionic gift, Mary walked on beside McEwan. He was full of interest in her affairs, and she soon confided to him the object of her expedition.
“You're just the man to advise me, being on a paper,” she said, and added laughing, “I should have been terrified of you if I'd known that on the ship.”
“Then I'm glad I kept it dark. You say your stuff is for children? Where were you going to?”
She told him.
“A woman's the boss of that shop. She's O.K. and so's her paper, but her prices aren't high.” He considered. “Better come to our shop. We run two monthlies and a weekly, one critical, one household, one entirely for children. The boss is a great pal of mine. Name of Farraday—an American. Come on!” And he wheeled her abruptly back the way they had come. She followed unresistingly, intensely amused at his quick, jerky sentences and crisp manner—the very antithesis of his former Scottish heaviness.
“Mr. McEwan, what an actor you would have made!”
She smiled up at him as she hurried at his side. He looked about with pretended caution, then stooped to her ear.
“Hoots, lassie!” he whispered, with a solemn wink.
“Stefan will never believe this!” she said, bubbling with laughter.
At the door of a building close to the corner where they had met he stopped, and for a moment his manner, though not his voice, assumed its erstwhile weightiness.
“Never mind!” he held up an admonishing forefinger. “I do the talking. What do you know about business? Nothing!” His hand swept away possible objections. “I know your work.” She gasped, but the finger was up again, solemnly wagging. “And I say it's good. How many words?” he half snapped.
“Three thousand five hundred,” she answered.
“Then I say, two hundred dollars—not a cent less—and what I saygoes, see?” The finger shot out at her, menacing.
“I leave it to you, Mr. McEwan,” she answered meekly, and followed him to the lift, dazed. “This,” she said to herself, “simply is not happening!” She felt like Alice in Wonderland.
They shot up many stories, and emerged into a large office furnished with a switch-board, benches, tables, desks, pictures, and office boys. A ceaseless stenographic click resounded from behind an eight-foot partition; the telephone girl seemed to be engaged conjointly on a novel and a dozen plugs; the office boys were diligent with their chewing gum; all was activity. Mary felt at a loss, but the great McEwan, towering over the switchboard like a Juggernaut, instantly compelled the operator's eyes from their multiple distractions. “Good morning, Mr. McEwan—Spring one-O-two-four,” she greeted him.
“'Morning. T'see Mr. Farraday,” he economized.
“M'st Farraday—M'st McEwan an' lady t'see you. Yes. M'st Farraday'll see you right away. 'Sthis three-one hundred? Hold th' line, please,” said the operator in one breath, connecting two calls and waving McEwan forward simultaneously. Mary followed him down a long corridor of doors to one which he opened, throwing back a second door within it.
They entered a sunny room, quiet, and with an air of spacious order. Facing them was a large mahogany table, almost bare, save for a vase which held yellow roses. Flowers grew in a window box and another vase of white roses stood on a book shelf. Mary's eyes flew to the flowers even before she observed the man who rose to greet them from beyond the table. He was very tall, with the lean New England build. His long, bony face was unhandsome save for the eyes and mouth, which held an expression of great sweetness. He shook hands with a kindly smile, and Mary took an instant liking to him, feeling In his presence the ease that comes of class-fellowship. He looked, she thought, something under forty years old.
“I am fortunate. You find me in a breathing spell,” he was saying.
“He's the busiest man in New York, but he always has time,” McEwan explained, and, indeed, nothing could have been more unhurried than the whole atmosphere of both man and room. Mary said so.
“Yes, I must have quiet or I can't work,” Farraday replied. “My windows face the back, you see, and my walls are double; I doubt if there's a quieter office in New York.”
“Nor a more charming, I should think,” added Mary, looking about at the restful tones of the room, with its landscapes, its beautifully chosen old furniture, and its flowers.
“The owner thanks you,” he acknowledged, with his kindly smile.
“Business, business,” interjected McEwan, who, Mary was amused to observe, approximated much more to the popular idea of an American than did his friend. “I've brought you a find, Farraday. This lady writes for children—she's printed stuff in England. I haven't read it, but I know it's good because I've seen her telling stories to the kids by the hour aboard ship, and you couldn't budge them. You can see,” he waved his hand at her, “that her copy would be out of the ordinary run.”
This absurdity would have embarrassed Mary but that Mr. Farraday turned on her a smile which seemed to make them allies in their joint comprehension of McEwan's advocacy.
“She's got a story with her for you to see,” went on that enthusiast. “I've told her if it's good enough for our magazine it's two hundred dollars good enough. There's the script.” He took it from her, and flattened it out on Farraday's table. “Look it over and write her.”
“What's your address?” he shot at Mary. She produced it.
“I'll remember that,” McEwan nodded; “coming round to see you. There you are, James. We won't keep you. You have no time and I have less. Come on, Mrs. Byrd.” He made for the door, but Farraday lifted his hand.
“Too fast, Mac,” he smiled. “I haven't had a chance yet. A mere American can't keep pace with the dynamic energy you store in Scotland. Where does it come from? Do you do nothing but sleep there?”
“Much more than that. He practises the art of being a Scotchman,” laughed Mary.
“He has no need to practise. You should have heard him when he first came over,” said Farraday.
“Well, if you two are going to discuss me, I'll leave you at it; I'm not a highbrow editor; I'm the poor ad man—my time means money to me.” McEwan opened the door, and Mary rose to accompany him.
“Won't you sit down again, Mrs. Byrd? I'd like to ask you a few questions,” interposed Farraday, who had been turning the pages of Mary's manuscript. “Mac, you be off. I can't focus my mind in the presence of a human gyroscope.”
“I've got to beat it,” agreed the other, shaking hands warmly with Mary. “But don't you be taken in by him; he likes to pretend he's slow, but he's really as quick as a buzz-saw. See you soon,” and with a final wave of the hand he was gone.
“Now tell me a little about your work,” said Farraday, turning on Mary his kind but penetrating glance. She told him she had published three or four stories, and in what magazines.
“I only began to write fiction a year ago,” she explained. “Before that I'd done nothing except scribble a little verse at home.”
“What kind of verse?”
“Oh, just silly little children's rhymes.”
“Have you sold any of them?”
“No, I never tried.”
“I should like to see them,” he said, to her surprise. “I could use them perhaps if they were good. As for this story,” he turned the pages, “I see you have an original idea. A child bird-tamer, dumb, whose power no one can explain. Before they talk babies can understand the birds, but as soon as they learn to speak they forget bird language. This child is dumb, so he remembers, but can't tell any one. Very pretty.”
Mary gasped at his accurate summary of her idea. He seemed to have photographed the pages in his mind at a glance.
“I had tried to make it a little mysterious,” she said rather ruefully. His smile reassured her.
“You have,” he nodded, “but we editors learn to get impressions quickly. Yes,” he was reading as he spoke, “I think it likely I can use this. The style is good, and individual.” He touched a bell, and handed the manuscript to an answering office boy. “Ask Miss Haviland to read this, and report to me to-day,” he ordered.
“I rarely have time to read manuscripts myself,” he went on, “but Miss Haviland is my assistant for our children's magazine. If her judgment confirms mine, as I feel sure it will, we will mail you a cheque to-night, Mrs. Byrd—according to our friend McEwan's instructions—” and he smiled.
Mary blushed with pleasure, and again rose to go, with an attempt at thanks. The telephone bell had twice, with a mere thread of sound, announced a summons. The editor took up the receiver. “Yes, in five minutes,” he answered, hanging up and turning again to Mary.
“Don't go yet, Mrs. Byrd; allow me the luxury of postponing other business for a moment. We do not meet a new contributor and a new citizen every day.” He leant back with an air of complete leisure, turning to her his kindly, open smile. She felt wonderfully at her ease, as though this man and she were old acquaintances. He asked more about her work and that of her husband.
“We like to have some personal knowledge of our authors; it helps us in criticism and suggestion,” he explained.
Mary described Stefan's success in Paris, and mentioned his sketches of downtown New York. Farraday looked interested.
“I should like to see those,” he said. “We have an illustrated review in which we sometimes use such things. If you are bringing me your verses, your husband might care to come too, and show me the drawings.”
Again the insistent telephone purred, and this time he let Mary go, shaking her hand and holding the door for her.
“Bring the verses whenever you like, Mrs. Byrd,” was his farewell.
When she had gone, James Farraday returned to his desk, lit a cigar, and smoked absently for a few moments, staring out of the window. Then he pulled his chair forward, and unhooked the receiver.
Mary hurried home vibrant with happiness, and ran into the studio to find Stefan disconsolately gazing out of the window. He whirled at her approach, and caught her in his arms.
“Wicked one! I thought, like Persephone, you had been carried off by Dis and his wagon,” he chided. “I could not work when I realized you had been gone so long. Where have you been?” He looked quite woebegone.
“Ah, I'm so glad you missed me,” she cried from his arms. Then, unable to contain her delight, she danced to the center of the room, and, throwing back her head, burst into song. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” chanted Mary full-throated, her chest expanded, pouring out her gratitude as whole-heartedly as a lark.
“Mary, I can see your wings,” interrupted Stefan excitedly. “You're soaring!” He seized a stick of charcoal and dashed for paper, only to throw down his tools again in mock despair. “Pouf, you're beyond sketching at this moment—you need a cathedral organ to express you. What has happened? Have you been sojourning with the immortals?”
But Mary had stopped singing, and dropped on the divan as if suddenly tired. She held out her arms to Stefan, and he sat beside her, lover-like.
“Oh, dearest,” she said, her voice vibrating with tenderness, “I've wanted so to help, and now I think I've sold a story, and I've found a chance for your New York drawings. I'm so happy.”
“Why, you mysterious creature, your eyes have tears in them—and all because you've helped me! I've never seen your tears, Mary; they make your eyes like stars lost in a pool.” He kissed her passionately, and she responded, but waited eagerly to hear him praise her success. After a moment, however, he got up and wandered to his drawing board.
“You say you found a chance for these,” indicating the sketches. “How splendid of you! Tell me all about it.” He was eagerly attentive, but she might never have mentioned her story. Apparently, that part of her report simply had not registered in his brain.
Mary's spirits suddenly dropped. She had come from an interview in which she was treated as a serious artist, and her husband could not even hear the account of her success. She rose and began to prepare their luncheon, recounting her adventures meanwhile in a rather flat voice. Stefan listened to her description of McEwan's metamorphosis only half credulously.
“Don't tell me,” he commented, “that the cloven hoof will not out. Do you mean to say it's to him that you owe this chance?”
She nodded.
“I don't see how we can take favors from that brute,” he said, running his hands moodily into his pockets.
Mary looked at him in frank astonishment.
“I don't understand you, Stefan,” she said. “Mr. McEwan was kindness itself, and I am grateful to him, but there can be no question of receiving favors on your part. He introduced me to Mr. Farraday as a writer, and it was only through me that your work was mentioned at all.” She was hurt by his narrow intolerance, and he saw it.
“Very well, goddess, don't flash your lightnings at me.” He laughed gaily, and sat down to his luncheon. Throughout it Mary listened to a detailed account of his morning's work.
Next day she received by the first post a cheque for two hundred dollars, with a formal typewritten note from Farraday, expressing pleasure, and a hope that the Household Publishing Company might receive other manuscripts from her for its consideration. Stefan was setting his pallette for a morning's work on the Danaë. She called to him rather constrainedly from the door where she had opened the letter.
“Stefan, I've received a cheque for two hundred dollars for my story.”
“That's splendid,” he answered cheerfully. “If I sell these sketches we shall be quite rich. We must move from this absurd place to a proper studio flat. Mary shall have a white bathroom, and a beautiful blue and gold bed. Also minions to set food before her. Tra-la-la,” and he hummed gaily. “I'm ready to begin, beloved,” he added.
As Mary prepared for her sitting she could not subdue a slight feeling of irritation. Apparently she might never, even for a moment, enjoy the luxury of being a human being with ambitions like Stefan's own, but must remain ever pedestaled as his inspiration. She was irked, too, by his hopelessly unpractical attitude toward affairs. She would have enjoyed the friendly status of a partner as a wholesome complement to the ardors of marriage. She knew that her husband differed from the legendary bohemian in having a strictly upright code in money matters, but she wished it could be less visionary. He mentally oscillated between pauperism and riches. Let him fail to sell a picture and he offered to pawn his coat; but the picture sold, he aspired to hire a mansion. In a word, she began to see that he was incapable either of foresight or moderation. Could she alone, she wondered, supply the deficiency?
That evening when they returned from dinner, which as a rare treat they had eaten in the café of their old hotel, they found McEwan waiting their arrival from a seat on the stairs.
“Here you are,” his hearty voice called to them as they labored up the last flight. “I was determined not to miss you. I wanted to pay my respects to the couple, and see how the paint-slinging was getting on.”
Mary, knowing now that the Scotchman was not the slow-witted blunderer he had appeared on board ship, looked at him with sudden suspicion. Was she deceived, or did there lurk a teasing gleam in those blue eyes? Had McEwan used the outrageous phrase “paint-slinging” with malice aforethought? She could not be sure. But if his object was to get a rise from Stefan, he was only partly successful. True, her husband snorted with disgust, but, at a touch from her and a whispered “Be nice to him,” restrained himself sufficiently to invite McEwan in with a frigid show of politeness. But once inside, and the candles lighted, Stefan leant glumly against the mantelpiece with his hands in his pockets, evidently determined to leave their visitor entirely on Mary's hands.
McEwan was nothing loath. He helped himself to a cigarette, and proceeded to survey the walls of the room with interest.
“Nifty work, Mrs. Byrd. You must be proud of him,” and again Mary seemed to catch a glint in his eye. “These sketches now,” he approached the table on which lay the skyscraper studies. “Very harsh—cruel, you might say—but clever, yes,sir, mighty clever.” Mary saw Stefan writhe with irritation at the other's air of connoisseur. She shot him a glance at once amused and pleading, but he ignored it with a shrug, as if to indicate that Mary was responsible for this intrusion, and must expect no aid from him.
McEwan now faced the easel which held the great Danaë, shrouded by a cloth.
“Is this the latest masterpiece—can it be seen?” he asked, turning to his host, his hand half stretched to the cover.
Mary made an exclamation of denial, and started forward to intercept the hand. But even as she moved, dismay visible on her face, the perverse devil which had been mounting in Stefan's brain attained the mastery. She had asked him to be nice to this jackass—very well, he would.
“Yes, that's the best thing I've done, McEwan. As you're a friend of both of us, you ought to see it,” he exclaimed, and before Mary could utter a protest had wheeled the easel round to the light and thrown back the drapery. He massed the candles on the mantelpiece. “Here,” he called, “stand here where you can see properly. Mythological, you see, Danaë. What do you think of it?” There were mischief and triumph in his tone, and a shadow of spite.
Mary had blushed crimson and stood, incapable of speech, in the darkest corner of the room. McEwan had not noticed her protest, it had all happened so instantaneously. He followed Stefan's direction, and faced the canvas expectantly. There was a long silence. Mary, watching, saw the spruce veneer of metropolitanism fall from their guest like a discarded mask—the grave, steady Highlander emerged. Stefan's moment of malice had flashed and died—he stood biting his nails, already too ashamed to glance in Mary's direction. At last McEwan turned. There was homage in his eyes, and gravity.
“Mr. Byrd,” he said, and his deep voice carried somewhat of its old Scottish burr, “I owe ye an apology. I took ye for a tricky young mon, clever, but better pleased with yersel' than ye had a right to be. I see ye are a great artist, and as such, ye hae the right even to the love of that lady. Now I will congratulate her.” He strode over to Mary's corner and took her hand. “Dear leddy,” he said, his native speech still more apparent, “I confess I didna think the young mon worthy, and in me blunderin' way, I would hae kept the two o' ye apart could I hae done it. But I was wrong. Ye've married a genius, and ye can be proud o' the way ye're helping him. Now I'll bid ye good night, and I hope ye'll baith count me yer friend in all things.” He offered his hand to Stefan, who took it, touched. Gravely he picked up his hat, and opened the door, turning for a half bow before closing it behind him.
Stefan knew that he had behaved unpardonably, that he had been betrayed into a piece of caddishness, but McEwan had given him the cue for his defense. He hastened to Mary and seized her hand.
“Darling, forgive me. I knew you didn't want the picture shown, but it's got to be done some day, hasn't it? It seemed a shame for McEwan not to see what you have inspired. I ought not to have shown it without asking you, but his appreciation justified me, don't you think?” His tone coaxed.
Mary was choking back her tears. Explanations, excuses, were to her trivial, nor was she capable of them. Wounded, she was always dumb, and to discuss a hurt seemed to her to aggravate it.
“Don't let's talk about it, Stefan,” she murmured. “It seemed to me you showed the picture because I did not wish it—that's what I don't understand.” She spoke lifelessly.
“No, no, you mustn't think that,” he urged. “I was irritated, and I'm horribly sorry, but I do think it should be shown.”
But Mary was not deceived. If only for a moment, he had been disloyal to her. The urge of her love made it easy to forgive him, but she knew she could not so readily forget.
Though she put a good face on the incident, though Stefan was his most charming self throughout the evening, even though she refused to recognize the loss, one veil of illusion had been stripped from her heart's image of him.
In his contrite mood, determined to please her, Stefan recalled the matter of her stories, and for the first time spoke of her success with enthusiasm. He asked her about the editor, and offered to go with her the next morning to show Mr. Farraday his sketches.
“Have you anything else to take him?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Mary. “I am to show him some verses I wrote at home in Lindum. Just little songs for children.”
“Verses,” he exclaimed; “how wonderful! I knew you were a goddess and a song-bird, but not that you were a poet, too.”
“Nor am I; they are the most trifling things.”
“I expect they are delicious, like your singing. Read them to me, beloved,” he begged.
But Mary would not. He pressed her several times during the evening, but for the first time since their marriage he found he could not move her to compliance.
“Please don't bother about them, Stefan. They are for children; they would not interest you.”
He felt himself not wholly forgiven.