It is not too easy to appropriate a pretty girl on board ship. There are always young men who expect the voyage to offer a flirtation, and who spend much ingenuity in heading each other off from the companionship of the most attractive damsels. But the “English girl” was not in the “pretty” class. She was a beauty, of the grave and pure type which implies character. All the children knew her; all the women and men watched her; but few of the latter had ventured to speak to her, even before Stefan claimed her as his monopoly. For this he did, from the moment of their first encounter. To him nobody on the ship existed but her, and he assumed the right to show it.
He had trouble from only two people. One was the Scotchman, McEwan, whose hide seemed impervious to rebuffs, and who would charge into a conversation with the weight of a battering ram, planting himself implacably in a chair beside Miss Elliston, and occasionally reducing even Stefan to silence. The other was Miss Elliston herself. She was kind, she was friendly, she was boyishly frank. But occasionally she would withdraw into herself, and sometimes would disappear altogether into her cabin, to be found again, after long search, telling stories to some of the children. On such occasions Stefan roamed the decks and saloons very like a hungry wolf, snapping with intolerable rudeness at any one who spoke to him. This, however, few troubled to do, for he was cordially disliked, both for his own sake and because of his success with Miss Elliston. That success the ship could not doubt. Though she was invariably polite to every one, she walked and talked only with him or the children. She was, of course, above the social level of the second-class; but this the English did not resent, because they understood it, nor the Americans, because they were unaware of it. On the other hand, English and Americans alike resented Byrd, whom they could neither place nor understand. These two became the most conspicuous people in the cabin, and their every movement was eagerly watched and discussed, though both remained entirely oblivious to it. Stefan was absorbed in the girl, that was clear; but how far she might be in him the cabin could not be sure. She brightened when he appeared. She liked him, smiled at him, and listened to him. She allowed him to monopolize her. But she never sought him out, never snubbed McEwan for his intrusions into their tête-à-têtes, seemed not to be “managing” the affair in any way. Used to more obvious methods, most of the company were puzzled. They did not understand that they were watching the romance of a woman who added perfect breeding to her racial self-control. Mary Elliston would never wear her feelings nakedly, nor allow them to ride her out of hand.
Not so Stefan, who was, as yet unknowingly, experiencing romantic love for the first time. This girl was the most glorious creature he had ever known, and the most womanly. Her sex was the very essence of her; she had no need to wear it like a furbelow. She was utterly different from the feminine, adroit women he had known; there was something cool and deep about her like a pool, and withal winged, like the birds that fly over it. She was marvelous—marvelous! he thought. What a find!
His spirit flung itself, kneeling, to drink at the pool—his imagination reached out to touch the wings. For the first time in his life he was too deeply enthralled to question himself or her. He gloried in her openly, conspicuously.
On the morning of the fifth day they had their first dispute. They were sitting on the boat deck, aft, watching the wake of the ship as it twisted like an uncertain white serpent. Stefan was sketching her, as he had done already several times when he could get her apart from hovering children—he could not endure being overlooked as he worked. “They chew gum in my ear, and breathe down my neck,” he would explain.
He had almost completed an impression of her head against the sky, with a flying veil lifting above it, when a shadow fell across the canvas, and the voice of McEwan blared out a pleased greeting.
“Weel, here ye are!” exclaimed that mountain of tweed, lowering himself onto a huge iron cleat between which and the bulwarks the two were sitting cross-legged. “I was speerin' where ye'd both be.”
“Good Lord, McEwan, can't you speak English?” exclaimed Byrd, with quick exasperation.
“I hae to speak the New York lingo when I get back there, ye ken,” replied the Scot with imperturbable good humor, “so I like to use a wee bit o' the guid Scotch while I hae the chance.”
“A wee bit!” snorted Stefan, and “Good morning, Mr. McEwan, isn't it beautiful up here?” interposed Miss Elliston, pleasantly.
“It's grand,” replied the Scotchman, “and ye look bonnie i' the sun,” he added simply.
“So Mr. Byrd thinks. You see he has just been painting me,” she answered smilingly, indicating, with a touch of mischief, the drawing that Stefan had hastily slipped between them.
The Scotchman stooped, and, before Stefan could stop him, had the sketch in his hand.
“It's a guid likeness,” he pronounced, “though I dinna care mesel' for yon new-fangled way o' slappin' on the color. I'll mak'ye a suggestion—” But he got no further, for Stefan, incoherent with irritation, snatched the sketch from his hands and broke out at him in a stammering torrent of French of the Quarter, which neither of his listeners, he was aware, could understand. Having safely consigned all the McEwans of the universe to pig-sties and perdition, he walked off to cool himself, the sketch under his arm, leaving both his hearers incontinently dumb.
McEwan recovered first. “The puir young mon suffers wi' his temper, there's nae dooting,” said he, addressing himself to the task of entertaining his rather absent-minded companion.
His advantage lasted but a few moments, however. Byrd, repenting his strategic error, returned, and in despair of other methods succeeded in summoning a candid smile.
“Look here, McEwan,” said he, with the charm of manner he knew so well how to assume, “don't mind my irritability; I'm always like that when I'm painting and any one interrupts—it sends me crazy. The light's just right, and it won't be for long. I can't possibly paint with anybody round. Won't you, like a good fellow, get out and let me finish?”
His frankness was wonderfully disarming, but in any case, the Scot was always good nature's self.
“Aye, I ken your nairves trouble ye,” he replied, lumbering to his feet, “and I'll no disobleege ye, if the leddy will excuse me?” turning to her.
Miss Elliston, who had not looked at Stefan since his outburst, murmured her consent, and the Scot departed.
Stefan exploded into a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven! Isn't he maddening?” he exclaimed, reassembling his brushes. “Isn't he the most fatuous idiot that ever escaped from his native menagerie? Did you hear him commence to criticize my work? The oaf! I'm afraid—” glancing at her face—“that I swore at him, but he deserved it for butting in like that, and he couldn't understand what I said.” His tone was slightly, very slightly, apologetic.
“I don't think that's the point, is it?” asked the girl, in a very cool voice. She was experiencing her first shock of disappointment in him, and felt unhappy; but she only appeared critical.
“What do you mean?” he asked, dashed.
“Whether he understood or not.” She was still looking away from him. “It was so unkind and unnecessary to break out at the poor man like that—and,” her voice dropped, “so horribly rude.”
“Well,” Stefan answered uncomfortably, “I can't be polite to people like that. I don't even try.”
“No, I know you don't. That's what I don't like,” Mary replied, even more coldly. She meant that it hurt her, obscured the ideal she was constructing of him, but she could not have expressed that.
He painted for a few minutes in a silence that grew more and more constrained. Then he threw down his brush. “Well, I can't paint,” he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, “I'm absolutely out of tune. You'll have to realize I'm made like that. I can't change, can't hide my real self.” As she still did not speak, he added, with an edge to his voice, “I may as well go away; there's nothing I can do here.” He stood up.
“Perhaps you had better,” she replied, very quietly. Her throat was aching with hurt, so that she could hardly speak, but to him she appeared indifferent.
“Good-bye,” he exclaimed shortly, and strode off.
For some time she remained where he had left her, motionless. She felt very tired, without knowing why. Presently she went to her cabin and lay down.
Mary did not see Stefan again until after the midday meal, though by the time she appeared on deck he had been waiting and searching for her for an hour. When he found her it was in an alcove of the lounge, screened from the observation of the greater part of the room. She was reading, but as he came toward her she looked up and closed her book. Before he spoke both knew that their relation to each other had subtly changed. They were self-conscious; the hearts of both beat. In a word, their quarrel had taught them their need of each other.
He took her hand and spoke rather breathlessly.
“I've been looking for you for hours. Thank God you're here. I was abominable to you this morning. Can you possibly forgive me? I'm so horribly lonely without you.” He was extraordinarily handsome as he stood before her, looking distressed, but with his eyes shining.
“Of course I can,” she murmured, while a weight seemed to roll off her heart—and she blushed, a wonderful pink, up to the eyes.
He sat beside her, still holding her hand. “I must say it. You are the most beautiful thing in the world. The—most—beautiful!” They looked at each other.
“Oh!” he exclaimed with a long breath, jumping up again and half pulling her after him in a revulsion of relief, “come on deck and let's walk—and talk—or,” he laughed excitedly, “I don't know what I shall do next!”
She obeyed, and they almost sped round the deck, he looking spiritually intoxicated, and she, calm by contrast, but with an inward glow as though behind her face a rose was on fire. The deck watched them and nodded its head. There was no doubt about it now, every one agreed. Bets began to circulate on the engagement. A fat salesman offered two to one it was declared before they picked up the Nantucket light. The pursy little passenger snapped an acceptance. “I'll take you. Here's a dollar says the lady is too particular.” The high-bosomed matron confided her fears for the happiness of the girl, “who has been real kind to Johnnie,” to the spinster who had admired Stefan the first day out. Gossip was universal, but through it all the two moved radiant and oblivious.
McEwan had succeeded in his fell design of getting up a concert, and the event was to take place that night. Miss Elliston, who had promised to sing, went below a little earlier than usual to dress for dinner. Byrd had tried to dissuade her from taking part, but she was firm.
“It's a frightful bother,” she said, “but I can't get out of it. I promised Mr. McEwan, you know.”
“I won't say any further what I think of McEwan,” replied Stefan, laughing. “Instead, I'll heap coals of fire on him by not trying any longer to persuade you to turn him down.”
As she left, Stefan waved her a gay “Grand succès!” but he was already prey to an agony of nervousness. Suppose she didn't make a success, or—worse still—suppose shedidmake a success—by singing bad music! Suppose she lacked art in what she did!Shewas perfection; he was terrified lest her singing should not be. His fastidious brain tortured him, for it told him he would love her less completely if she failed.
Like most artists, Stefan adored music, and, more than most, understood it. Suppose—just suppose—she were to sing Tosti's “Good-bye!” He shuddered. Yet, if she did not sing something of that sort, it would fall flat, and she would be disappointed. So he tortured himself all through dinner, at which he did not see her, for he had been unable to get his place changed to the first sitting with hers. He longed to keep away from the concert, yet knew that he could not. At last, leaving his dessert untouched, he sought refuge in his cabin.
The interval that must be dragged through while the stewards cleared the saloon Stefan occupied in routing from Adolph's huge old Gladstone his one evening suit. He had not at first dreamed of dressing, but many of the other men had done so, and he determined that for her sake he must play the game at least to that extent. Byrd added the scorn of the artist to the constitutional dislike of the average American for conventional evening dress. His, however, was as little conventional as possible, and while he nervously adjusted it he could not help recognizing that it was exceedingly becoming. He tore a tie and destroyed two collars, however, before the result satisfied him, and his nerves were at leaping pitch when staccato chords upon the piano announced that the concert had begun. He found a seat in the farthest corner of the saloon, and waited, penciling feverish circles upon the green-topped table to keep his hands steady.
Mary Elliston's name was fourth on the program, and came immediately after McEwan's, who was down for a “recitation.” Stefan managed to sit through the piano-solo and a song by a seedy little English baritone about “the rolling deep.” But when the Scot began to blare out, with tremendous vehemence, what purported to be a poem by Sir Walter Scott, Stefan, his forehead and hands damp with horror, could endure no more, and fled, pushing his way through the crowd at the door. He climbed to the deck and waited there, listening apprehensively. When the scattered applause warned him that the time for Mary's song had come, he found himself utterly unable to face the saloon again. Fortunately the main companionway gave on a well opening directly over the saloon; and it was from the railing of this well that Stefan saw Mary, just as the piano sounded the opening bars.
She stood full under the brilliant lights in a gown of white chiffon, low in the neck, which drooped and swayed about her in flowing lines of grace. Her hair gleamed; her arms showed slim, white, but strong. And “Oh, my golden girl!” his heart cried to her, leaping. Her lips parted, and quite easily, in full, clear tones that struck the very center of the notes, she began to sing. “Good girl,good girl!”he thought. For what she sang was neither sophisticated nor obvious—was indeed the only thing that could at once have satisfied him and pleased her audience. “Under the greenwood tree—” the notes came gay and sweet. Then, “Fear no more the heat o' the sun—” and the tones darkened. Again, “Oh, mistress mine—” they pulsed with happy love. Three times Mary sang—the immortal ballads of Shakespeare—simply, but with sure art and feeling. As the last notes ceased, “Love's a stuff will not endure,” and the applause broke out, absolute peace flooded Stefan's heart.
In a dream he waited for her at the saloon door, held her coat, and mounted beside her to the boat deck. Not until they stood side by side at the rail, and she turned questioningly toward him, did he speak.
“You were perfect, without flaw. I can't tell you—” he broke off, wordless.
“I'm so glad—glad that you were pleased,” she whispered.
They leant side by side over the bulwarks. They were quite alone, and the moon was rising. There are always liberating moments at sea when the spirit seems to grow—to expand to the limits of sky and water, to become one with them. Such a moment was theirs, the perfect hour of moonrise on a calm and empty sea. The horizon was undefined. They seemed suspended in limitless ether, which the riding moon pierced with a swale of living brightness, like quicksilver. They heard nothing save the hidden throb and creak of the ship, mysterious yet familiar, as the night itself. It was the perfect time. Stefan turned to her. Her face and hair shone silver, glorified. They looked at each other, their eyes strange in the moonlight. They seemed to melt together. His arms were round her, and they kissed.
A little later he began to talk, and it was of his young mother, dead years ago in Michigan, that he spoke. “You are the only woman who has ever reminded me of her, Mary. The only one whose beauty has been so divinely kind. All my life has been lonely between losing her and finding you.”
This thrilled her with an ache of mother-pity. She saw him misunderstood, unhappy, and instantly her heart wrapped him about with protection. In that moment his faults were all condoned—she saw them only as the fruits of his loneliness.
Later, “Mary,” he said, “yours is the most beautiful of all names. Poets and painters have glorified it in every age, but none as I shall do”; and he kissed her adoringly.
Again, he held his cheek to hers. “Beloved,” he whispered, “when we are married” (even as he spoke he marveled at himself that the word should come so naturally) “I want to paint you as you really are—a goddess of beauty and love.”
She thrilled in response to him, half fearful, yet exalted. She was his, utterly.
As they clung together he saw her winged, a white flame of love, a goddess elusive even in yielding. He aspired, and saw her, Cytheria-like, shining above yet toward him. But her vision, leaning on his heart, was of those two still and close together, nestling beneath Love's protecting wings, while between their hands she felt the fingers of a little child.
That night Mary and Stefan spoke only of love, but the morning brought plans. Before breakfast they were together, pacing the sun-swept deck.
Mary took it for granted that their engagement would continue till Stefan's pictures were sold, till they had found work, till their future was in some way arranged. Stefan, who was enormously under her influence, and a trifle, in spite of his rapture, in awe of her sweet reasonableness, listened at first without demur. After breakfast, however, which they ate together, he occupying the place of a late comer at her table after negotiation with the steward, his impatient temperament asserted itself in a burst.
“Dearest one,” he cried, when they were comfortably settled in their favorite corner of the boat deck, “listen! I'm sure we're all wrong. I know we are. Why should you and I—” and he took her hand—“wait and plan and sour ourselves as little people do? We've both got to live, haven't we? And we are going to live; you don't expect we shall starve, do you?”
She shook her head, smiling.
“Well, then,” triumphantly, “why shouldn't we live together? Why, it would be absurd not to, even from the base and practical point of view. Think of the saving! One rent instead of two—one everything instead of two!” His arm gave her a quick pressure.
“Yes, but—” she demurred.
He turned on her suddenly. “You don't want to wait for trimmings—clothes, orange blossoms, all that stuff—do you?” he expostulated.
“No, of course not, foolish one,” she laughed.
“Well, then, where's the difficulty?” exultingly.
She could not answer—could hardly formulate the answer to herself. Deep in her being she seemed to feel an urge toward waiting, toward preparation, toward the collection of she knew not what small household gods. It was as if she wished to make fair a place to receive her sacrament of love. But this she could not express, could not speak to him of the vision of the tiny hand.
“You're brave, Mary. Your courage was one of the things I most loved in you. Let's be brave together!” His smile was irresistibly happy.
She could not bear that he should doubt her courage, and she wanted passionately not to take that smile from his face. She began to weaken.
“Mary,” he cried, fired by the instinct to make the courage of their mating artistically perfect. “I've told you about my pictures. I know they are good—I know I can sell them in New York. But let's not wait for that. Let's bind ourselves together before we put our fortunes to the touch! Then we shall be one, whatever happens. We shall have that.” He kissed her, seeing her half won.
“You've got five hundred dollars, I've only got fifty, but the pictures are worth thousands,” he went on rapidly. “We can have a wonderful week in the country somewhere, and have plenty left to live on while I'm negotiating the sale. Even at the worst,” he exulted, “I'm strong. I can work at anything—with you! I don't mind asking you to spend your money, sweetheart, because Iknowmy things are worth it five times over.”
She was rather breathless by this time. He pressed his advantage, holding her close.
“Beloved, I've found you. Suppose I lost you! Suppose, when you were somewhere in the city without me, you got run over or something.” Even as she was, strained to him, she saw the horror that the thought conjured in his eyes, and touched his cheek with her hand, protectingly.
“No,” he pleaded, “don't let us run any risks with our wonderful happiness, don't let us ever leave each other!” He looked imploringly at her.
She saw that for Stefan what he urged was right. Her love drew her to him, and upon its altar she laid her own retarding instinct in happy sacrifice. She drew his head to hers, and holding his face in the cup of her hands, kissed him with an almost solemn tenderness. This was her surrender. She took upon herself the burden of his happiness, even as she yielded to her own. It was a sacrament. He saw it only as a response.
Later in the day Stefan sought out the New England spinster, Miss Mason, who sat opposite to him at table. He had entirely ignored her hitherto, but he remembered hearing her talk familiarly about New York, and his male instinct told him that in her he would find a ready confidante. Such she proved, and a most flattered and delighted one. Moreover she proffered all the information and assistance he desired. She had moved from Boston five years ago, she said, and shared a flat with a widowed sister uptown. If they docked that night Miss Elliston could spend it with them. The best and cheapest places to go to near the city, she assured him, were on Long Island. She mentioned one where she had spent a month, a tiny village of summer bungalows on the Sound, with one small but comfortable inn. Questioned further, she was sure this inn would be nearly empty, but not closed, now in mid-September. She was evidently practical, and pathetically eager to help.
Unwilling to stay his plans, however, on such a feeble prop, Byrd hunted up the minister, whom he took to be a trifle less plebeian than most of the men, and obtained from him an endorsement of Miss Mason's views. The man of God, though stiff, was too conscientious to be unforgiving, and on receiving Stefan's explanation congratulated him sincerely, if with restraint. He did not know Shadeham personally, he explained, but he knew similar places, and doubted if Byrd could do better.
Mary, all enthusiasm now that her mind was made up, was enchanted at the prospect of a tiny seaside village for their honeymoon. In gratitude she made herself charming to Miss Mason until Stefan, impatient every moment that he was not with her, bore her away.
They docked at eight o'clock that night. Stefan saw Mary and Miss Mason to the door of their flat, and would have lingered with them, but they were both tired with the long process of customs inspection. Moreover, Mary said that she wanted to sleep well so as to look “very nice” for him to-morrow.
“Imperturbable divinity!” admired Stefan, in mock amazement. “I shall not sleep at all. I am far too happy; but to you, what is a mere marriage?”
The jest hurt her a little, and seeing it, he was quick with loverlike recompense. They parted on a note of deep tenderness. He lay sleepless, as he had prophesied, at the nearest cheap hotel, companioned by visions at once eagerly masculine and poetically exalted. Mary slept fitfully, but sweetly.
The next morning they were married. Stefan's first idea had been the City Hall, as offering the most expeditious method, but Mary had been firm for a church. A sight of the municipal authorities from whom they obtained their license made of Stefan an enthusiastic convert to her view. “All the ugliness and none of the dignity of democracy,” he snorted as they left the building. They found a not unlovely church, half stifled between tall buildings, and were married by a curate whose reading of the service was sufficiently reverent. For a wedding ring Mary had that of Stefan's mother, drawn from his little finger.
By late afternoon they were in Shadeham, ensconced in a small wooden hotel facing a silent beach and low cliffs shaded with scrub-oak. The house was clean, and empty of other guests, and they were given a pleasant room overlooking the water. From its windows they watched the moon rise over the sea as they had watched her two nights before on deck. She was the silver witness to their nuptials.
Mary found Stefan an ideal lover. Their marriage, entered into with such, headlong adventurousness, seemed to unfold daily into more perfect bloom. The difficulties of his temperament, which had been thrown into sharp relief by the crowded life of shipboard, smoothed themselves away at the touch of happiness and peace. No woman, Mary realized, could wish for a fuller cup of joy than Stefan offered her in these first days of their mating. She was amazed at herself, at the suddenness with which love had transmuted her, at the ease with which she adjusted herself to this new world. She found it difficult to remember what kind of life she had led before her marriage—hardly could she believe that she had ever lived at all.
As for Stefan, he wasted no moments in backward glances. He neither remembered the past nor questioned the future, but immersed himself utterly in his present joy with an abandonment he had never experienced save in painting. Questioned, he would have scoffed at the idea that life for him could ever hold more than his work, and Mary.
Thus absorbed, Stefan would have allowed the days to slip into weeks uncounted. But on the ninth day Mary, incapable of a wholly carefree attitude, reminded him that they had planned only a week of holiday.
“Let's stay a month,” he replied promptly.
But Mary had been questioning her landlord about New York.
“It appears,” she explained, “that every one moves on the first of October, and that if one hasn't found a studio by then, it is almost impossible to get one. He says he has heard all the artists live round about Washington Square, but that even there rents are fearfully high. It's at the foot of Fifth Avenue, he says, which sounds very fashionable to me, but he explains it is too far 'down town.'”
“Yes, Fifth Avenue is the great street, I understand,” said Stefan, “and my dealer's address is on Fourth, so he's in a very good neighborhood. I don't know that I should like Washington Square—it sounds so patriotic.”
“Fanatic!” laughed Mary. “Well, whether we go there or not, it's evident we must get back before October the first, and it's now September the twenty-fourth.”
“Angel, don't let's be mathematical,” he replied, pinching the lobe of her ear, which he had proclaimed to be entrancingly pretty. “I can't add; tell me the day we have to leave, and on that day we will go.”
“Three days from now, then,” and she sighed.
“Oh, no! Not only three more days of heaven, Mary?”
“It will hurt dreadfully to leave,” she agreed, “but,” and she nestled to him, “it won't be any less heaven there, will it, dearest?”
This spurred him to reassurance. “Of course not,” he responded, quickly summoning new possibilities of delight. “Imagine it, you haven't even seen my pictures yet.” They had left them, rolled, at Miss Mason's. “And I want to paint you—really paint you—not just silly little sketches and heads, but a big thing that I can only do in a studio. Oh, darling, think of a studio with you to sit to me! How I shall work!” His imagination was fired; instantly he was ready to pack and leave.
But they had their three days more, in the golden light of the Indian summer. Three more swims, in which Stefan could barely join for joy of watching her long lines cutting the water in her close English bathing dress. Three more evening walks along the shimmering sands. Three more nights in their moon-haunted room within sound of the slow splash of the waves. And, poignant with the sadness of a nearing change, these days were to Mary the most exquisite of all.
Their journey to the city, on the little, gritty, perpetually stopping train was made jocund by the lively anticipations of Stefan, who was in a mood of high confidence.
They had decided from the first to try their fortunes in New York that winter; not to return to Paris till they had established a sure market for Stefan's work. He had halcyon plans. Masterpieces were to be painted under the inspiration of Mary's presence. His success in the Beaux Arts would be an Open Sesame to the dealers, and they would at once become prosperous,—for he had the exaggerated continental idea of American prices. In the spring they would return to Paris, so that Mary should see it first at its most beautiful. There they would have a studio, making it their center, but they would also travel.
“Spain, Italy, Greece, Mary—we will see all the world's masterpieces together,” he jubilated. “You shall be my wander-bride.” And he sang her little snatches of gay song, in French and Italian, thrumming an imaginary guitar or making castanets of his fingers.
“I will paint you on the Acropolis, Mary, a new Pallas to guard the Parthenon.” His imagination leapt from vista to vista of the future, each opening to new delights. Mary's followed, lured, dazzled, a little hesitant. Her own visions, unformulated though they were, seemed of somewhat different stuff, but she saw he could not conceive them other than his, and yielded her doubts happily.
At the Pennsylvania Station they took a taxicab, telling the driver they wanted a hotel near Washington Square. The amount registered on the meter gave Mary an apprehensive chill, but Stefan paid it carelessly. A moment later he was in raptures, for, quite unexpectedly, they found themselves in a French hotel.
“What wonderful luck—what a good omen!” he cried. “Mary, it's almost like Paris!” and he broke into rapid gesticulating talk with the desk clerk. Soon they were installed in a bright little room with French prints on the walls, a gay old-fashioned wall paper and patterned curtains. Stefan assured her it was extraordinarily cheap for New York. While she freshened her face and hair he dashed downstairs, ignoring the elevator—which seemed to exist there only as an American afterthought—in search of a packet of French cigarettes. Finding them, he was completely in his element, and leant over the desk puffing luxuriously, to engage the clerk in further talk. From him he obtained advice as to the possibilities of the neighborhood in respect of studios, and armed with this, bounded up the stairs again to Mary. Presently, fortified by a pot of tea and delicious French rolls, they sallied out on their quest.
That afternoon they discovered two vacant studios. One was on a top floor on Washington Square South, a big room with bathroom and kitchenette attached and a small bedroom opening into it. The other was an attic just off the Square. It had water, but no bathroom, was heated only by an open fire, and consisted of one large room with sufficient light, and a large closet in which was a single pane of glass high up. The studio contained an abandoned model throne, the closet a gas ring and a sink. The rent of the first apartment was sixty dollars a month; of the second, twenty-five. Both were approached by a dark staircase, but in one case there was a carpet, in the other the stairs were bare, dirty, and creaking, while from depths below was wafted an unmistakable odor of onions and cats.
Mary, whose father's rambling sunny house in Lindum with its Elizabethan paneling and carvings had been considered dear at ninety pounds a year, was staggered at the price of these mean garrets, the better of which she felt to be quite beyond their reach. Even Stefan was a little dashed, but was confident that after his interview with Adolph's brother sixty dollars would appear less formidable.
“You should have seen my attic in Paris, Mary—absolutely falling to pieces—but then I didn't mind, not having a goddess to house,” and he pressed her arm. “For you there should be something spacious and bright enough to be a fitting background.” He glanced up a little ruefully at the squalid house they had just left.
But she was quick to reassure him, her courage mounting to sustain his. “We could manage perfectly well in the smaller place for a time, dearest, and how lucky we don't have to take a lease, as we should in England.” Her mind jumped to perceive any practical advantage. Already, mentally, she was arranging furniture in the cheaper place, planning for a screen, a tin tub, painting the dingy woodwork. They asked for the refusal of both studios till the next day, and for that evening left matters suspended.
In the morning, Stefan, retrieving his canvases from Miss Mason's flat, sought out the dealer, Jensen. Walking from Fifth Avenue, he was surprised at the cheap appearance of the houses on Fourth, only one block away. He had expected to find Adolph's brother in such a great stone building as those he had just passed, with their show windows empty save for one piece of tapestry or sculpture, or a fine painting brilliant against its background of dull velvet. Instead, the number on Fourth Avenue proved a tumbledown house of two stories, with tattered awnings flapping above its shop-window, which was almost too grimy to disclose the wares within. These were a jumble of bric-a-brac, old furniture of doubtful value, stained prints, and one or two blackened oil paintings in tarnished frames. With ominous misgivings, Stefan entered the half-opened door. The place was a confused medley of the flotsam and jetsam of dwelling houses, and appeared to him much more like a pawnbroker's than the business place of an art dealer. From its dusty shadows a stooped figure emerged, gray-haired and spectacled, which waited for Stefan to speak with an air of patient humbleness.
“This isn't Mr. Jensen's, is it?” Stefan asked, feeling he had mistaken the number.
“My name is Jensen. What can I do for you?” replied the man in a toneless voice.
“You are Adolph's brother?” incredulously.
At the name the gray face flushed pathetically. Jensen came forward, pressing his hands together, and peered into Stefan's face.
“Yes, I am,” he answered, “and you are Mr. Byrd that he wrote to me about. I'd hoped you weren't coming, after all. Well,” and he waved his hand, “you see how it is.”
Stefan was completely dismayed. “Why,” he stammered, “I thought you were so successful—”
“I'm sorry.” Jensen dropped his eyes, picking nervously at his coat. “You see, I am the eldest brother; a man does not like to admit failure. I may be sold up any time now. I wanted Adolph not to guess, so I—wrote—him—differently.” He flushed painfully again. Stefan was silent, too taken aback for speech.
“I tell you, Mr. Byrd,” Jensen stammered on, striking his hands together impotently, “for all its wealth, this is a city of dead hopes. It's been a long fight, but it's over now.... Yes, you are Adolph's friend, and I can't so much as buy a sketch from you. It's quite, quite over.” And suddenly he sank his head in his hands, while Stefan stood, infinitely embarrassed, clutching his roll of canvases. After a moment Jensen, mastering himself, lifted his head. His lined, prematurely old face showed an expression at once pleading and dignified.
“I didn't dream what I wrote would do any harm, Mr. Byrd, but now of course you will have to explain to Adolph—?”
Stefan, moved to sympathy, held out his hand.
“Look here, Jensen, you've put me in an awful hole, worse than you know. But why should I say anything? Let Adolph think we're both millionaires,” and he grinned ruefully.
Jensen straightened and took the proffered hand in one that trembled. “Thank you,” he said, and his eyes glistened. “I'm grateful. If there were only something I could do—”
“Well, give me the names of some dealers,” said Stefan, to whom scenes were exquisitely embarrassing, anxious to be gone.
Jensen wrote several names on a smudged half sheet of paper. “These are the best. Try them. My introduction wouldn't help, I'm afraid,” bitterly.
On that Stefan left him, hurrying with relief from the musty atmosphere of failure into the busy street. Though half dazed by the sudden subsidence of his plans, unable to face as yet the possible consequences, he had his pictures, and the names of the real dealers; confidence still buoyed him.
Three hours later Mary, anxiously waiting, heard Stefan's step approach their bedroom door. Instantly her heart dropped like lead. She did not need his voice to tell her what those dragging feet announced. She sprang to the door and had her arms round his neck before he could speak. She took the heavy roll of canvases from him and half pushed him into the room's one comfortable arm-chair. Kneeling beside him, she pressed her cheek to his, stroking back his heat-damped hair. “Darling,” she said, “you are tired to death. Don't tell me about your day till you've rested a little.”
He closed his eyes, leaning back. He looked exhausted; every line of his face drooped. In spite of his tan, it was pale, with hollows under the eyes. It was extraordinary that a few hours should make such a change, she thought, and held him close, comfortingly.
He did not speak for a long time, but at last, “Mary,” he said, in a flat voice, “I've had a complete failure. Nobody wants my things. This is what I've let you in for.” His tone had the indifferent quality of extreme fatigue, but Mary was not deceived. She knew that his whole being craved reassurance, rehabilitation in its own eyes.
“Why, you old foolish darling, you're too tired to know what you're talking about,” she cried, kissing him. “Wait till you've had something to eat.” She rang the bell—four times for the waiter, as the card over it instructed her. “Failure indeed!” she went on, clearing a small table, “there's no such word! One doesn't grow rich in a day, you know.” She moved silently and quickly about, hung up his hat, stood the canvases in a corner, ordered coffee, rolls and eggs, and finally unlaced Stefan's shoes in spite of his rather horrified if feeble protest.
Not until she had watched him drink two cups of coffee and devour the food—she guessed he had had no lunch—did she allow him to talk, first lighting his cigarette and finding a place for herself on the arm of his chair. By this time Stefan's extreme lassitude, and with it his despair, had vanished. He brightened perceptibly. “You wonder,” he exclaimed, catching her hand and kissing it, “now I can tell you about it.” With his arm about her he described all his experiences, the fiasco of the Jensen affair and his subsequent interviews with Fifth Avenue dealers. “They are all Jews, Mary. Some are decent enough fellows, I suppose, though I hate the Israelites!” (“Silly boy!” she interposed.) “Others are horrors. None of them want the work of an American. Old masters, or well known foreigners, they say. I explained my success at the Beaux Arts. Two of them had seen my name in the Paris papers, but said it would mean nothing to their clients. Hopeless Philistines, all of them! I do believe I should have had a better chance if I'd called myself Austrian, instead of American, and I only revived my American citizenship because I thought it would be an asset!” He laughed, ironically. “They advised me to have a one-man show, late in the winter, so as to get publicity.”
“So we will then,” interposed Mary confidently.
“Good Lord, child,” he exclaimed, half irritably, “you don't suppose I could have a gallery for nothing, do you? God knows what it would cost. Besides, I haven't enough pictures—and think of the frames!” He sat up, fretfully.
She saw his nerves were on edge, and quickly offered a diversion. “Stefan,” she cried, jumping to her feet and throwing her arms back with a gesture the grace of which did not escape him even in his impatient mood, “I haven't even seen the pictures yet, you know, and can't wait any longer. Let me look at them now, and then I'll tell you just how idiotic those dealers were!” and she gave her bell-like laugh. “I'll undo them.” Her fingers were busy at the knots.
“I hate the sight of that roll,” said Stefan, frowning. “Still—” and he jumped up, “I do immensely want you to see them. I knowyou'llunderstand them.” Suddenly he was all eagerness again. He took the canvases from her, undid them and, casting aside the smaller ones, spread the two largest against the wall, propping their corners adroitly with chairs, an umbrella, and a walking stick. “Don't look yet,” he called meanwhile. “Close your eyes.” He moved with agile speed, instinctively finding the best light and thrusting back the furniture to secure a clearer view. “There!” he cried. “Wait a minute—stand here.Nowlook!” triumphantly.
Mary opened her eyes. “Why, Stefan, they're wonderful!” she exclaimed. But even as she spoke, and amidst her sincere admiration, her heart, very slightly, sank. She knew enough of painting to see that here was genius. The two fantasies, one representing the spirits of a wind-storm, the other a mermaid fleeing a merman's grasp, were brilliant in color, line and conception. They were things of beauty, but it was a beauty strange, menacing, subhuman. The figures that tore through the clouds urged on the storm with a wicked and abandoned glee. The face of the merman almost frightened her; it was repellent in its likeness at once to a fish and a man. The mermaid's face was less inhuman, but it was stricken with a horrid terror. She was swimming straight out of the picture as if to fling herself, shrieking, into the safety of the spectator's arms. The pictures were imaginative, powerful, arresting, but they were not pleasing. Few people, she felt, would care to live with them. After a long scrutiny she turned to her husband, at once glorying in the strength of his talent and troubled by its quality.
“You are a genius, Stefan,” she said.
“You really like them?” he asked eagerly.
“I think they are wonderful!” He was satisfied, for it was her heart, not her voice, that held a reservation.
Stefan showed her the smaller canvases, some unfinished. Most were of nymphs and winged elves, but there were three landscapes. One of these, a stream reflecting a high spring sky between banks of young meadow grass, showed a little faun skipping merrily in the distance. The atmosphere was indescribably light-hearted. Mary smiled as she looked at it. The other two were empty of figures; they were delicately graceful and alluring, but there was something lacking in them—-what, she could not tell. She liked best a sketch of a baby boy, lost amid trees, behind which wood-nymphs and fauns peeped at him, roguish and inquisitive. The boy was seated on the ground, fat and solemn, with round, tear-wet eyes. He was so lonely that Mary wanted to hug him; instead, she kissed Stefan.
“What a duck of a baby, dearest!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, he was a nice kid—belonged to my concierge,” he answered carelessly. “The picture is sentimental, though. This is better,” and he pointed to another mermaid study.
“Yes, it's splendid,” she answered, instinctively suppressing a sigh. She began to realize a little what a strange being she had married. With an impulsive need of protection she held him close, hiding her face in his neck. The reality of his arms reassured her.
That day they decided, at Mary's urging, to take the smaller studio at once, abandoning the extravagance of hotel life. In practical manners she was already assuming a leadership which he was glad to follow. She suggested that in the morning he should take his smaller canvases, and try some of the less important dealers, while she made an expedition in search of necessary furniture. To this he eagerly agreed.
“It seems horrible to let you do it alone, but it would be sacrilegious to discuss the price of saucepans with a goddess,” he explained. “Are you sure you can face the tedium?”
“Why, I shall love it!” she cried, astonished at such an expression.
He regarded her whimsically. “Genius of efficiency, then I shall leave it to you. Such things appal me. In Paris, my garret was furnished only with pictures. I inherited the bed from the last occupant, and I think Adolph insisted on finding a pillow and a frying-pan. He used to come up and cook for us both sometimes, when he thought I had been eating too often at restaurants. He approved of economy, did Adolph.” Stefan was lounging on the bed, with his perpetual cigarette.
“He must be a dear,” said Mary. She had begun to make a shopping list. “Tell me, absurd creature, what you really need in the studio. There is a model throne, you will remember.”
“Oh, I'll get my own easel and stool,” he replied quickly. “There's nothing else, except of course a table for my paints. A good solid one,” he added with emphasis. “I'll tell you what,” and he sat up. “I go out early to-morrow on my dealer hunt. I force myself to stay out until late afternoon. When I return, behold! The goddess has waved her hand, and invisible minions—” he circled the air with his cigarette—“have transported her temple across the square. There she sits enthroned, waiting for her acolyte. How will that do?” He turned his radiant smile on her.
“Splendid,” she answered, amused. “I only hope the goddess won't get chipped in the passage.”
She thought of the dusty studio, of brooms and scrubbing brushes, but she was already wise enough in wife-lore not to mention them. Mary came of a race whose women had always served their men. It did not seem strange to her, as it might have to an American, that the whole labor of their installation should devolve on her.
With her back turned to him, she counted over their resources, calculating what would be available when their hotel bill was paid. Except for a dollar or two, Stefan had turned his small hoard over to her. “It's all yours anyway, dearest,” he had said, “and I don't want to spend a cent till I have made something.” They had spent very little so far; she was relieved to realize that the five hundred dollars remained almost intact. While Stefan continued to smoke luxuriously on the bed, she jotted down figures, apportioning one hundred and fifty dollars for six months' rent, and trying to calculate a weekly basis for their living expenses. She knew that they were both equally ignorant of prices in New York, and determined to call in the assistance of Miss Mason.
“Stefan,” she said, taking up the telephone, “I'm going to summon a minion.” She explained to Miss Mason over the wire. “We are starting housekeeping to-morrow, and I know absolutely nothing about where to shop, or what things ought to cost. Would it be making too great demands on your kindness if I asked you to meet me here to-morrow morning and join me in a shopping expedition?”
The request, delivered in her civil English voice, enchanted Miss Mason, who had to obtain all her romance vicariously. “I should just love to!” she exclaimed, and it was arranged.
Mary then telephoned that they would take the studio—a technicality which she knew Stefan had entirely forgotten—and notified the hotel office that their room would be given up next morning.
“O thou above rubies and precious pearls!” chanted Stefan from the bed.
After dinner they sat in Washington Square. Their marriage moon was waning, but still shone high and bright. Under her the trees appeared etherealized, and her light mingled in magic contest with the white beams of the arc lamps near the arch. Above each of these, a myriad tiny moths fluttered their desirous wings. Under the trees Italian couples wandered, the men with dark amorous glances, the girls laughing, their necks gay with colored shawls. Brightly ribboned children, black-haired, played about the benches where their mothers gossiped. There was enchantment in the tired but cooling air.
Stefan was enthusiastic. “Look at the types, Mary! The whole place is utterly foreign, full of ardor and color. I have cursed America without cause—here I can feel at home.” To her it was all alien, but her heart responded to his happiness.
On the bench next them sat a group of Italian women. From this a tiny boy detached himself, plump and serious, and, urged by curiosity, gradually approached Mary, his velvet eyes fixed on her face. She lifted him, resistless, to her knee, and he sat there contentedly, sucking a colored stick of candy.
“Look, Stefan!” she cried; “isn't he a lamb?”
Stefan cast a critical glance at the baby. “He's paintable, but horribly sticky,” he said. “Let's move on before he begins to yell. I want to see the effect from the roadway of these shifting groups under the trees. It might be worth doing, don't you think?” and he stood up.
His manner slightly rebuffed Mary, who would gladly have nursed the little boy longer. However, she gently lowered him and, rising, moved off in silence with Stefan, who was ignorant of any offense. The rest of their outing passed sweetly enough, as they wandered, arm in arm, about the square.