A day or two later the Byrds went together to the office of the Household Publishing Company and sent in their names to Mr. Farraday. This time they had to wait their turn for admittance for over half an hour, sharing the benches of the outer office with several men and women of types ranging from the extreme of aestheticism to the obviously commercial. The office was hung with original drawings of the covers of the firm's three publications—The Household Review, The Household Magazine, and The Child at Home. Stefan prowled around the room mentally demolishing the drawings, while Mary glanced through the copies of the magazines that covered the large central table. She was impressed by the high level of makeup and illustration in all three periodicals, contrasting them with the obvious and often inane contents of similar English publications. At a glance the sheets appeared wholesome, but not narrow; dignified, but not dull. She wondered how much of their general tone they owed to Mr. Farraday, and determined to ask McEwan more about his friend when next she saw him. Her speculations were interrupted by Stefan, who somewhat excitedly pulled her sleeve, pointing to a colored drawing of a woman's head on the wall behind her.
“Look, Mary!” he ejaculated. “Rotten bourgeois art, but an interesting face, eh? I wonder if it's a good portrait. It says in the corner, 'Study of Miss Felicity Berber.' An actress, I expect. Look at the eyes; subtle, aren't they? And the heavy little mouth. I've never seen a face quite like it.” He was visibly intrigued.
Mary thought the face provocative, but somewhat unpleasant.
“It's certainly interesting—the predatory type, I should think,” she replied. “I'll bet it's true to life—the artist is too much of a fool to have created that expression,” Stefan went on. “Jove, I should like to meet her, shouldn't you?” he asked naïvely.
“Not particularly,” said Mary, smiling at him. “She'll have to be your friend; she's too feline for me.”
“The very word, observant one,” he agreed.
At this point their summons came. Mary was very anxious that her husband should make a good impression. “I hope you'll like him, dearest,” she whispered as for the second time the editor's door opened to her.
Farraday shook hands with them pleasantly, but turned his level glance rather fixedly on her husband, Mary thought, before breaking into his kindly smile. Stefan returned the smile with interest, plainly delighted at the evidences of taste that surrounded him.
“I'm sorry you should have had to wait so long,” said Farraday. “I'm rarely so fortunately unoccupied as on your first visit, Mrs. Byrd. You've brought the verses to show me? Good! And Mr. Byrd has his drawings?” He turned to Stefan. “America owes you a debt for the new citizen you have given her, Mr. Byrd. May I offer my congratulations?”
“Thanks,” beamed Stefan, “but you couldn't, adequately, you know.”
“Obviously not,” assented the other with a glance at Mary. “Our mutual friend, McEwan, was here again yesterday, with a most glowing account of your work, Mr. Byrd; he seems to have adopted the rôle of press agent for the family.”
“He's the soul of kindness,” said Mary.
“Yes, a thoroughly good sort,” Stefan conceded. “Here are the New York sketches,” he went on, opening his portfolio on Farraday's desk. “Half a dozen of them.”
“Thank you, just a moment,” interposed the editor, who had opened Mary's manuscript. “Your wife's work takes precedence. She is an established contributor, you see,” he smiled, running his eyes over the pages.
Stefan sat down. “Of course,” he said, rather absently.
Farraday gave an exclamation of pleasure.
“Mrs. Byrd, these are good; unusually so. They have the Stevenson flavor without being imitations. A little condensation, perhaps—I'll pencil a few suggestions—but I must have them all. I would not let another magazine get them for the world! Let me see, how many are there! Eight. We might bring them out in a series, illustrated. What if I were to offer the illustrating to Mr. Byrd, eh?” He put down the sheets and glanced from wife to husband, evidently charmed with his idea. “What do you think, Mr. Byrd? Is your style suited to her work?” he asked.
Stefan looked thoroughly taken aback. He laughed shortly. “I'm a painter, Mr. Farraday, not an illustrator. I haven't time to undertake that kind of thing. Even these drawings,” he indicated the portfolio, “were done in spare moments as an amusement. My wife suggested placing them with you—I shouldn't have thought of it.”
To Mary his tone sounded needlessly ungracious, but the editor appeared not to notice it.
“I beg your pardon,” he replied suavely. “Of course, if you don't illustrate—I'm sorry. The collaboration of husband and wife would have been an attraction, even though the names were unknown here. I'll get Ledward to do them.”
Stefan sat up. “You don't mean Metcalf Ledward, the painter, do you?” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” replied Farraday quietly; “he often does things for us—our policy is to popularize the best American artists.”
Stefan was nonplused. Ledward illustrating Mary's rhymes! He felt uncomfortable.
“Don't you think he would get the right atmosphere better perhaps than anyone?” queried Farraday, who seemed courteously anxious to elicit Stefan's opinion. Mary interposed hastily.
“Mr. Farraday, he can't answer you. I'm afraid I've been stupid, but I was so pessimistic about these verses that I wouldn't show them to him. I thought I would get an outside criticism first, just to save my face,” she hurried on, anxious in reality to save her husband's.
“I pleaded, but she was obdurate,” contributed Stefan, looking at her with reproach.
Farraday smiled enlightenment. “I see. Well, I shall hope you will change your mind about the illustrations when you have read the poems—that is, if your style would adapt itself. Now may I see the sketches?” and he held out his hand for them.
Stefan rose with relief. Much as he adored Mary, he could not comprehend the seriousness with which this man was taking the rhymes which she herself had described as “just little songs for children.” He was the more baffled as he could not dismiss Farraday's critical pretensions with contempt, the editor being too obviously a man of cultivation. Now, however, that attention had been turned to his own work, Stefan was at his ease. Here, he felt, was no room for doubts.
“They are small chalk and charcoal studies of the spirit of the city—mere impressions,” he explained, putting the drawings in Farraday's hands with a gesture which belied the carelessness of his words.
Farraday glanced at them, looked again, rose, and carried them to the window, where he examined them carefully, one by one. Mary watched him breathlessly, Stefan with unconcealed triumph. Presently he turned again and placed them in a row on the bare expanse of his desk. He stood looking silently at them for a moment more before he spoke.
“Mr. Byrd,” he said at last, “this is very remarkable work.” Mary exhaled an audible breath of relief, and turned a glowing face to Stefan. “It is the most remarkable work,” went on the editor, “that has come into this office for some time past. Frankly, however, I can't use it.”
Mary caught her breath—Stefan stared. The other went on without looking at them:
“This company publishes strictly for the household. Our policy is to send into the average American home the best that America produces, but it must be a best that the home can comprehend. These drawings interpret New York as you see it, but they do not interpret the New York in which our readers live, or one which they would be willing to admit existed.”
“They interpret the real New York, though,” interposed Stefan.
“Obviously so, to you,” replied the editor, looking at him for the first time. “For me, they do not. These drawings are an arraignment, Mr. Byrd, and—if you will pardon my saying so—a rather bitter and inhuman one. You are not very patriotic, are you?” His keen eyes probed the artist.
“Emphatically no,” Stefan rejoined. “I'm only half American by birth, and wholly French by adoption.”
“That explains it,” nodded Farraday gravely. “Well, Mr. Byrd, there are undoubtedly publications in which these drawings could find a place, and I am only sorry that mine are not amongst them. May I, however, venture to offer you a suggestion?”
Stefan was beginning to look bored, but Mary interposed with a quick “Oh, please do!” Farraday turned to her.
“Mrs. Byrd, you will bear me out in this, I think. Your husband has genius—that is beyond question—but he is unknown here as yet. Would it not be a pity for him to be introduced to the American public through these rather sinister drawings? We are not fond of the too frank critic here, you know,” he smiled, whimsically. “You may think me a Philistine, Mr. Byrd,” he continued, “but I have your welfare in mind. Win your public first with smiles, and later they may perhaps accept chastisement from you. If you have any drawings in a different vein I shall feel honored in publishing them”—his tone was courteous—“if not, I should suggest that you seek your first opening through the galleries rather than the press. Whichever way you decide, if I can assist you at all by furnishing introductions, I do hope you will call on me. Both for your wife's sake and for your own, it would be a pleasure. And now”—gathering up the drawings—“I must ask you both to excuse me, as I have a long string of appointments. Mrs. Byrd, I will write you our offer for the verses. I don't know about the illustrations; you must consult your husband.” They found themselves at the door bidding him goodbye: Mary with a sense of disappointment mingled with comprehension; Stefan not knowing whether the more to deplore what he considered Farraday's Philistinism, or to admire his critical acumen.
“His papers and his policy are piffling,” he summed up at last, as they walked down the Avenue, “but I must say I like the man himself—he is the first person of distinction I have seen since I left France.”
“Oh! Oh! The first?” queried Mary.
“Darling,” he seized her hand and pressed it, “I said the first person, not the first immortal!” He had a way of bestowing little endearments in public, which Mary found very attractive, even while her training obliged her to class them as solecisms.
“I felt sure you would like him. He seems to me charming,” she said, withdrawing the hand with a smile.
“Grundy!” he teased at this. “Yes, the man is all right, but if that is a sample of their attitude toward original work over here we have a pretty prospect of success. 'Genius, get thee behind me!' would sum it up. Imbeciles!” He strode on, his face mutinous.
Mary was thinking. She knew that Farraday's criticism of her husband's work was just. The word “sinister” had struck home to her. It could be applied, she felt, with equal truth to all his large paintings but one—the Danaë.
“Stefan,” she asked, “what did you think of his advice to win the public first by smiles?”
“Tennysonian!” pronounced Stefan, using what she knew to be his final adjective of condemnation.
“A little Victorian, perhaps,” she admitted, smiling at this succinct repudiation. “Nevertheless, I'm inclined to think he was right. There is a sort of Pan-inspired terror in your work, you know.”
He appeared struck. “Mary, I believe you've hit it!” he exclaimed, suddenly standing still. “I've never thought of it like that before—the thing that makes my work unique, I mean. Like the music of Pan, it's outside humanity, because I am.”
“Don't say that, dear,” she interrupted, shocked.
“Yes, I am. I hate my kind—all except a handful. I love beauty. It is not my fault that humanity is ugly.”
Mary was deeply disturbed. Led on by a chance phrase of hers, he was actually boasting of just that lack which was becoming her secret fear for him. She touched his arm, pleadingly.
“Stefan, don't speak like that; it hurts me dreadfully. It is awful for any one to build up a barrier between himself and the world. It means much unhappiness, both for himself and others.”
He laughed affectionately at her. “Why, sweet, what do we care? I love you enough to make the balance true. You are on my side of the barrier, shutting me in with beauty.”
“Is that your only reason for loving me?” she asked, still distressed.
“I love you because you have a beautiful body and a beautiful mind—because you are like a winged goddess of inspiration. Could there be a more perfect reason?”
Mary was silent. Again the burden of his ideal oppressed her. There was no comfort in it. It might be above humanity, she felt, but it was not of it. Again her mind returned to the pictures and Farraday's criticism. “Sinister!” So he would have summed up all the others, except the Danaë. To that at least the word could not apply. Her heart lifted at the realization of how truly she had helped Stefan. In his tribute to her there was only beauty. She knew now that her gift must be without reservation.
Home again, she stood long before the picture, searching its strange face. Was she wrong, or did there linger even here the sinister, half-human note?
“Stefan,” she said, calling him to her, “I was wrong to ask you not to make the face like me. It was stupid—'Tennysonian,' I'm afraid.” She smiled bravely. “Itisme—your ideal of me, at least—and I want you to make the face, too, express me as I seem to you.” She leant against him. “Then I want you to exhibit it. I want you to be known first by our gift to each other, this—which is our love's triumph.” She was trembling; her face quivered—he had never seen her so moved. She fired him.
“How glorious of you, darling!” he exclaimed, “and oh, how beautiful you look! You have never been so wonderful. If I could paint that rapt face! Quick, I believe I can get it. Stand there, on the throne.” He seized his pallette and brushes and worked furiously while Mary stood, still flaming with her renunciation. In a few minutes it was done. He ran to her and covered her face with kisses. “Come and look!” he cried exultingly, holding her before the canvas.
The strange face with its too-wide eyes and exotic mouth was gone. Instead, she saw her own purely cut features, but fired by such exultant adoration as lifted them to the likeness of a deity. The picture now was incredibly pure and passionate—the very flaming essence of love. Tears started to her eyes and dropped unheeded. She turned to him worshiping.
“Beloved,” she cried, “you are great, great. I adore you,” and she kissed him passionately.
He had painted love's apotheosis, and his genius had raised her love to its level. At that moment Mary's actually was the soul of flame he had depicted it.
That day, illumined by the inspiration each had given each, was destined to mark a turning point in their common life. The next morning the understanding which Mary had for long instinctively feared, and against which she had raised a barrier of silence, came at last.
She was standing for some final work on the Danaë, but she had awakened feeling rather unwell, and her pose was listless. Stefan noticed it, and she braced herself by an effort, only to droop again. To his surprise, she had to ask for her rest much sooner than usual; he had hitherto found her tireless. But hardly had she again taken the pose than she felt herself turning giddy. She tottered, and sat down limply on the throne. He ran to her, all concern.
“Why, darling, what's the matter, aren't you well?” She shook her head. “What can be wrong?” She looked at him speechless.
“What is it, dearest, has anything upset you?” he went on with—it seemed to her—incredible blindness.
“I can't stand in that pose any longer, Stefan; this must be the last time,” she said at length, slowly.
He looked at her as she sat, pale-faced, drooping on the edge of the throne. Suddenly, in a flash, realization came to him. He strode across the room, looked again, and came back to her.
“Why, Mary, are you going to have a baby?” he asked, quite baldly, with a surprised and almost rueful expression.
Mary flushed crimson, tears of emotion in her eyes. “Oh, Stefan, yes. I've known it for weeks; haven't you guessed?” Her arms reached to him blindly.
He stood rooted for a minute, looking as dumfounded as if an earthquake had rolled under him. Then with a quick turn he picked up her wrap, folded it round her, and took her into his arms. But it was a moment too late. He had hesitated, had not been there at the instant of her greatest need. Her midnight fears were fulfilled, just as her instinct had foretold. He was not glad. There in his arms her heart turned cold.
He soon rallied; kissed her, comforted her, told her what a fool he had been; but all he said only confirmed her knowledge. “He is not glad. He is not glad,” her heart beat out over and over, as he talked.
“Why did you not tell me sooner, darling? Why did you let me tire you like this?” he asked.
Impossible to reply. “Why didn't you know?” her heart cried out, and, “I wasn't tired until to-day,” her lips answered.
“But why didn't you tell me?” he urged. “I never even guessed. It was idiotic of me, but I was so absorbed in our love and my work that this never came to my mind.”
“But at first, Stefan?” she questioned, probing for the answer she already knew, but still clinging to the hope of being wrong. “I never talked about it because you didn't seem to care. But in the beginning, when you proposed to me—the day we were married—at Shadeham—did you never think of it then?” Her tone craved reassurance.
“Why, no,” he half laughed. “You'll think me childish, but I never did. I suppose I vaguely faced the possibility, but I put it from me. We had each other and our love—that seemed enough.”
She raised her head and gazed at him in wide-eyed pain. “But, Stefan, what's marriagefor?” she exclaimed.
He puckered his brows, puzzled. “Why, my dear, it's for love—companionship—inspiration. Nothing more so far as I am concerned.” They stared nakedly at each other. For the first time the veils were stripped away. They had felt themselves one, and behold! here was a barrier, impenetrable as marble, dividing each from the comprehension of the other. To Stefan it was inconceivable that a marriage should be based on anything but mutual desire. To Mary the thought of marriage apart from children was an impossibility. They had come to their first spiritual deadlock.
Love, feeling its fusion threatened, ever makes a supreme effort for reunity. In the days that followed, Stefan enthusiastically sought to rebuild his image of Mary round the central fact of her maternity. He became inspired with the idea of painting her as a Madonna, and recalled all the famous artists of the past who had so glorified their hearts' mistresses.
“You are named for the greatest of all mothers, dearest, and my picture shall be worthy of the name,” he would cry. Or he would call her Aphrodite, the mother of Love. “How beautiful our son will be—another Eros,” he exclaimed.
Mary rejoiced in his new enthusiasm, and persuaded herself that his indifference to children was merely the result of his lonely bachelorhood, and would disappear forever at the sight of his own child. Now that her great secret was shared she became happier, and openly commenced those preparations which she had long been cherishing in thought. Miss Mason was sent for, and the great news confided to her. They undertook several shopping expeditions, as a result of which Mary would sit with a pile of sewing on her knee while Stefan worked to complete his picture. Miss Mason took to dropping in occasionally with a pattern or some trifle of wool or silk. Mary was always glad to see her, and even Stefan found himself laughing sometimes at her shrewd New England wit. For the most part, however, he ignored her, while he painted away in silence behind the great canvas.
Mary had received twelve dollars for each of her verses—ninety-six dollars in all. Before Christmas Stefan sold his pastoral of the dancing faun for one hundred and twenty-five, and Mary felt that financially they were in smooth water, and ventured to discuss the possibility of larger quarters. For these they were both eager, having begun to feel the confinement of their single room; but Mary urged that they postpone moving until spring.
“We are warm and snug here for the winter, and by spring we shall have saved something substantial, and really be able to spread out,” she argued.
“Very well, wise one, we will hold in our wings a little longer,” he agreed, “but when we do fly, it must be high.” His brush soared in illustration.
She had discussed with him the matter of the illustrations for her verses as soon as she received her cheque from Farraday. They had agreed that it would be a pity for him to take time for them from his masterpiece.
“Besides, sweetheart,” he had said, “I honestly think Ledward will do them better. His stuff is very graceful, without being sentimental, and he understands children, which I'm afraid I don't.” He shrugged regretfully. “Didn't you paint that adorable lost baby?” she reminded him. “I've always grieved that we had to sell it.”
“I'll buy it back for you, or paint you another better one,” he offered promptly.
So the verses went to Ledward, and the first three appeared in the Christmas number of The Child at Home, illustrated—as even Stefan had to admit—with great beauty.
Mary would have given infinitely much for his collaboration, but she had not urged it, feeling he was right in his refusal.
As Christmas approached they began to make acquaintances among the polyglot population of the neighborhood. Their old hotel, the culinary aristocrat of the district, possessed a cafe in which, with true French hospitality, patrons were permitted to occupy tables indefinitely on the strength of the slenderest orders. Here for the sake of the French atmosphere Stefan would have dined nightly had Mary's frugality permitted. As it was, they began to eat there two or three nights a week, and dropped in after dinner on many other nights. They would sit at a bare round table smoking their cigarettes, Mary with a cup of coffee, Stefan with the liqueur he could never induce her to share, and watching the groups that dotted the other tables. Or they would linger at the cheapest of their restaurants and listen to the conversation of the young people, aggressively revolutionary, who formed its clientele. These last were always noisy, and assumed as a pose manners even worse than those they naturally possessed. Every one talked to every one else, regardless of introductions, and Stefan had to summon his most crushing manner to prevent Mary from being monopolized by various very youthful and visionary men who openly admired her. He was inclined to abandon the place, but Mary was amused by it for a time, bohemianism being a completely unknown quantity to her.
“Don't think this is the real thing,” he explained; “I've had seven years of that in Paris. This is merely a very crass imitation.”
“Imitation or not, it's most delightfully absurd and amusing,” said she, watching the group nearest her. This consisted of a very short and rotund man with hair a la Paderewski and a frilled evening shirt, a thin man of incredible stature and lank black locks, and a pretty young girl in a tunic, a tam o' shanter, enormous green hairpins, and tiny patent-leather shoes decorated with three inch heels. To her the lank man, who wore a red velvet shirt and a khaki-colored suit reminiscent of Mr. Bernard Shaw, was explaining the difference between syndicalism and trade-unionism in the same conversational tone which men in Lindum had used in describing to Mary the varying excellences of the two local hunts. “I.W.W.” and “A.F. of L.” fell from his lips as “M.F.H.” and “J.P.” used to from theirs. The contrast between the two worlds entertained her not a little. She thought all these young people looked clever, though singularly vulgar, and that her old friends would have appeared by comparison refreshingly clean and cultivated, but quite stupid.
“Why, Stefan, are dull, correct people always so clean, and clever and original ones usually so unwashed?” she wondered.
“Oh, the unwashed stage is like the measles,” he replied; “you are bound to catch it in early life.”
“I suppose that's true. I know even at Oxford the Freshmen go through an utterly ragged and disreputable phase, in which they like to pretend they have no laundry bill.”
“Yes, it advertises their emancipation. I went through it in Paris, but mine was a light case.”
“And brief, I should think,” smiled Mary, to whom Stefan's feline perfection of neatness was one of his charms.
At the hotel, on the other hand, the groups, though equally individual, lacked this harum-scarum quality, and, if occasionally noisy, were clean and orderly.
“Is it because they can afford to dress better?” Mary asked on their next evening there, noting the contrast.
“No,” said Stefan. “That velvet shirt cost as much probably as half a dozen cotton ones. These people have more, certainly, or they wouldn't be here—but the real reason is that they are a little older. The other crowd is raw with youth. These have begun to find themselves; they don't need to advertise their opinions on their persons.” He was looking about him with quite a friendly eye.
“You don't seem to hate humanity this evening, Stefan,” Mary commented.
“No,” he grinned. “I confess these people are less objectionable than most.” He spoke in rapid French to the waiter, ordering another drink.
“And the language,” he continued. “If you knew what it means to me to hear French!”
Mary nodded rather ruefully. Her French was of the British school-girl variety, grammatically precise, but with a hopeless, insular accent. After a few attempts Stefan had ceased trying to speak it with her. “Darling,” he had begged, “don't let us—it is the only ugly sound you make.”
One by one they came to know the habitués of these places. In the restaurant Stefan was detested, but tolerated for the sake of his wife. “Beauty and the Beast” they were dubbed. But in the hotel café he made himself more agreeable, and was liked for his charming appearance, his fluent French, and his quick mentality. The “Villagers,” as these people called themselves, owing to their proximity to New York's old Greenwich Village, admired Mary with ardor, and liked her, but for a time were baffled by her innate English reserve. Mentally they stood round her like a litter of yearling pups about a stranger, sniffing and wagging friendly but uncertain tails, doubtful whether to advance with affectionate fawnings or to withdraw to safety. This was particularly true of the men—the women, finding Mary a stanch Feminist, and feeling for her the sympathy a bride always commands from her sex, took to her at once. The revolutionary group on the other hand would have broken through her pleasant aloofness with the force—and twice the speed—of a McEwan, had Stefan not, with them, adopted the role of snarling watchdog.
One of Mary's first after dinner friendships was made at the hotel with a certain Mrs. Elliott, who turned out to be the President of the local Suffrage Club. Scenting a new recruit, this lady early engaged the Byrds in conversation and, finding Mary a believer, at once enveloped her in the camaraderie which has been this cause's gift to women all the world over. They exchanged calls, and soon became firm friends.
Mrs. Elliot was an attractive woman in middle life, of slim, graceful figure and vivacious manner. She had one son out in the world, and one in college, and lived in a charming house just off the Avenue, with an adored but generally invisible husband, who was engaged in business downtown. As a girl Constance Elliot had been on the stage, and had played smaller Shakespearean parts in the old Daly Company, but, bowing to the code of her generation, had abandoned her profession at marriage. Now, in middle life, too old to take up her calling again with any hope of success, yet with her mental activity unimpaired, she found in the Suffrage movement her one serious vocation.
“I am nearly fifty, Mrs. Byrd,” she said to Mary, “and have twenty good years before me. I like my friends, and am interested in philanthropy, but I am not a Jack-of-all-trades by temperament. I need work—a real job such as I had when the boys were little, or when I was a girl. We are all working hard enough to win the vote, but what we shall fill the hole in our time with when we have it, I don't know. It will be easy for the younger ones—but I suppose women like myself will simply have to pay the price of having been born of our generation. Some will find solace as grandmothers—I hope I shall. But my elder son, who married a pretty society girl, is childless, and my younger such a light-hearted young rascal that I doubt if he marries for years to come.”
Mary was much interested in this problem, which seemed more salient here than in her own class in England, in which social life was a vocation for both sexes.
At Mrs. Elliot's house she met many of the neighborhood's more conventional women, and began to have a great liking for these gently bred but broad-minded and democratic Americans. She also met a mixed collection of artists, actresses, writers, reformers and followers of various “isms”; for as president of a suffrage club it was Mrs. Elliot's policy to make her drawing rooms a center for the whole neighborhood. She was a charming hostess, combining discrimination with breadth of view; her Fridays were rallying days for the followers of many more cults than she would ever embrace, but for none toward which she could not feel tolerance.
At first Stefan, who, man-like, professed contempt for social functions, refused to accompany Mary to these at-homes. But after Mrs. Elliot's visit to the studio he conceived a great liking for her, and to Mary's delight volunteered to accompany her on the following Friday. Few misanthropes are proof against an atmosphere of adulation, and in this Mrs. Elliot enveloped Stefan from the moment of first seeing his Danaë. She introduced him as a genius—America's coming great painter, and he frankly enjoyed the novel sensation of being lionized by a group of clever and attractive women.
Mrs. Elliot affected house gowns of unusual texture and design, which flowed in adroitly veiling lines about her too slim form. These immediately attracted the attention of Stefan, who coveted something equally original for Mary. He remarked on them to his hostess on his second visit.
“Yes,” she said, “I love them. I am eclipsed by fashionable clothing. Felicity Berber designs all my things. She's ruinous,” with a sigh, “but I have to have her. I am a fool at dressing myself, but I have intelligence enough to know it,” she added, laughing.
“Felicity Berber,” questioned Stefan. “Is that a creature with Mongolian eyes and an O-shaped mouth?”
“What a good description! Yes—have you met her?”
“I haven't, but you will arrange it, won't you?” he asked cajolingly. “I saw a drawing of her—she's tremendously paintable. Do tell me about her. Wait a minute. I'll get my wife!”
He jumped up, pounced on Mary, who was in a group by the tea-table, and bore her off regardless of her interrupted conversation.
“Mary,” he explained, all excitement, “you remember that picture at the magazine office? Yes, you do, a girl with slanting black eyes—Felicity Berber. Well, she isn't an actress after all. Sit down here. Mrs. Elliot is going to tell us about her.” Mary complied, sharing their hostess' sofa, while Stefan wrapped himself round a stool. “Now begin at the beginning,” he demanded, beaming; “I'm thrilled about her.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Elliot, dropping a string of jade beads through her fingers, “so are most people. She's unique in her way. She came here from the Pacific coast, I believe, quite unknown, and trailing an impossible husband. That was five years ago—she couldn't have been more than twenty-three. She danced in the Duncan manner, but was too lazy to keep it up. Then she went into the movies, and her face became the rage; it was on all the picture postcards. She got royalties on every photograph sold, and made quite a lot of money, I believe. But she hates active work, and soon gave the movies up. About that time the appalling husband disappeared. I don't know if she divorced him or not, but he ceased to be, as it were. His name was Noaks.” She paused, “Does this bore you?” she asked Mary.
“On the contrary,” smiled she, “it's most amusing—like the penny novelettes they sell in England.”
“Olympian superiority!” teased Stefan. “Please go on, Mrs. Elliot. Did she attach another husband?”
“No, she says she hates the bother of them,” laughed their hostess. “Men are always falling in love with her, but-openly at least-she seems uninterested in them.”
“Hasn't found the right one, I suppose,” Stefan interjected.
“Perhaps that's it. At any rate her young men are always confiding their woes to me. My status as a potential grandmother makes me a suitable repository for such secrets.”
“Ridiculous,” Stefan commented.
“But true, alas!” she laughed. “Well, Felicity had always designed the gowns for her dancing and acting, and after the elimination of Mr. Noaks she set up a dressmaking establishment for artistic and individual gowns. She opened it with a thé dansant, at which she discoursed on the art of dress. Her showroom is like a sublimated hotel lobby—tea is served there for visitors every afternoon. Her prices are high, and she has made a huge success. She's wonderfully clever, directs everything herself. Felicity detests exertion, but she has the art of making others work for her.”
“That sounds as if she would get fat,” said Stefan, with a shudder.
“Doesn't it?” agreed Mrs. Elliot. “But she's as slim as a panther, and intensely alive nervously, for all her physical laziness.”
“Do you like her?” Mary asked.
“Yes, I really do, though she's terribly rude, and I tell her I'm convinced she's a dangerous person. She gives me a feeling that gunpowder is secreted somewhere in the room with her. I will get her here to meet you both—you would be interested. She's never free in the afternoon; we'll make it an evening.” With a confirming nod, Mrs. Elliot rose to greet some newcomers.
“Mary,” Stefan whispered, “we'll go and order you a dress from this person. Wouldn't that be fun?”
“How sweet of you, dearest, but we can't afford it,” replied Mary, surreptitiously patting his hand.
“Nonsense, of course we can. Aren't we going to be rich?” scoffed he.
“Look who's coming!” exclaimed Mary suddenly.
Farraday was shaking hands with their hostess, his tall frame looking more than ever distinguished in its correct cutaway. Almost instantly he caught sight of Mary and crossed the room to her with an expression of keen pleasure.
“How delightful,” he greeted them both. “So you have found the presiding genius of the district! Why did I not have the inspiration of introducing you myself?” He turned to Mrs. Elliot, who had rejoined them. “Two more lions for you, eh, Constance?” he said, with a twinkle which betokened old friendship.
“Yes, indeed,” she smiled, “they have no rivals for my Art and Beauty cages.”
“And what about the literary circus? I suppose you have been making Mrs. Byrd roar overtime?”
Their hostess looked puzzled.
“Don't tell me that you are in ignorance of her status as the Household Company's latest find?” he ejaculated in mock dismay.
Mrs. Elliot turned reproachful eyes on Mary. “She never told me, the unfriendly woman!”
“Just retribution, Constance, for poring over your propagandist sheets instead of reading our wholesome literature,” Farraday retorted. “Had you done your duty by the Household magazines you would have needed no telling.”
“A hit, a palpable hit,” she answered, laughing. “Which reminds me that I want another article from you, James, for our Woman Citizen.”
“Mrs. Byrd,” said Farraday, “behold in me a driven slave. Won't you come to my rescue and write something for this insatiable suffragist?”
Mary shook her head. “No, no, Mr. Farraday, I can't argue, either personally or on paper. You should hear me trying to make a speech! Pathetic.”
Stefan, who had ceased to follow the conversation, and was restlessly examining prints on the wall, turned at this. “Don't do it, dearest. Argument is so unbeautiful, and I couldn't stand your doing anything badly.” He drifted away to a group of women who were discussing the Italian Futurists.
“Tell me about this lion, James,” said Constance, settling herself on the sofa. “I believe she is too modest to tell me herself.” She looked at Mary affectionately.
“She has written a second 'Child's Garden,' almost rivaling the first, and we have a child's story of hers which will be as popular as some of Frances Hodgson Burnett's,” summed up Farraday.
Mary blushed with pleasure at this praise, but was about to deprecate it when Stefan signaled her away. “Mary,” he called, “I want you to hear this I am saying about the Cubists!” She left them with a little smile of excuse, and they watched her tall figure join her husband.
“James,” said Mrs. Elliot irrelevantly, “why in the world don't you marry?”
“Because, Constance,” he smiled, “all the women I most admire in the world are already married.”
“À propos, have you seen Mr. Byrd's work?” she asked.
“Only some drawings, from which I suspect him of genius. But she is as gifted in her way as he, only it's a smaller way.”
“Don't place him till you've seen his big picture, painted from her. It's tremendous. We've got to have it exhibited at Constantine's. I want you to help me arrange it for them. She's inexperienced, and he's helplessly unpractical. Oh!” she grasped his arm; “a splendid idea! Why shouldn't I have a private exhibition here first, for the benefit of the Cause?”
Farraday threw up his hands. “You are indefatigable, Constance. We'd better all leave it to you. The Byrds and Suffrage will benefit equally, I am sure.”
“I will arrange it,” she nodded smiling, her eyes narrowing, her slim hands dropping the jade beads from one to the other.
Farraday, knowing her for the moment lost to everything save her latest piece of stage management, left her, and joined the Byrds. He engaged himself to visit their studio the following week.