It was the end of April, and Paris rustled gaily in her spring dress. Stefan and Adolph, clad in disreputable baggy trousers topped in one case by a painter's blouse and in the other by an infinitely aged alpaca jacket, strolled homeward in the early evening from their favorite café.
Adolph was in the highest spirits, as he had been ever since Stefan's arrival three weeks before, but the other's face wore a rather moody frown. He had begun to weary a little of his good friend's ecstatic pleasure in their reunion.
He was in Paris again, in his old attic; it was spring, and his beloved city as beautiful as ever. He had expected a return of his old-time gaiety, but somehow the charm lacked potency. He wanted to paint, but his ideas were turgid and fragmentary. He wanted excitement, but the city only seemed to offer memories. The lapse of a short eighteen months had scattered his friends surprisingly. Adolph remained, but Nanette was married. Louise had left Paris, and Giddens, the English painter, had gone back to London. Perhaps it was the spring, perhaps it was merely the law which decrees that the past can never be recaptured—whatever the cause, Stefan's flight had not wholly assuaged his restlessness. Of adventures in the hackneyed sense he had not thought. He was too fastidious for the vulgar sort, and had hitherto met no women who stirred his imagination. Moreover, he harbored the delusion that the failure of his great romance had killed his capacity for love. “I am done with women,” he said to himself.
Mary seemed very distant. He thought of her with gratitude for her generosity, with regret, but without longing.
“Never marry,” he said to Adolph for the twentieth time, as they turned into the rue des Trois Ermites; “the wings of an artist must remain unbound.”
“Ah, Stefan,” Adolph replied, sighing over his friend's disillusionment, “I am not like you. I should be grateful for a home, and children. I am only a cricket scraping out my little music, not an eagle.”
Stefan snorted. “You are a great violinist, but you won't realize it. Look here, Adolph, chuck your job, and go on a walking tour with me. Let's travel through France and along the Riviera to Italy. I'm sick of cities. There's lots of money for us both, and if we run short, why, bring your fiddle along and play it—why not?”
At their door the concierge handed Adolph some letters.
“My friend,” said he, holding up a couple of bills, “one cannot slip away from life so easily. How should I pay my way when we returned?”
“Hang it,” said Stefan impatiently, “don't you begin to talk obligations. I came to France to get away from all that. Have a little imagination, Adolph. It would be the best thing that could happen to you to get shaken out of that groove at the Opera—be the making of you.”
They had reached the attic, and Adolph lit a lamp.
“We'll talk of it to-morrow, my infant, now I must dress—see, here is a letter for you.”
He handed Stefan a tinted envelope, and began leisurely to don his conventional black. Holding the note under the lamp, Stefan saw with a start that it was from Felicity, and had been left by hand. Excited, he tore it open. It was written in ordinary ink, upon pale pink paper, agreeably scented.
“My dear friend,” he read in French, “I am in Paris, andchancing to remember your old address—(“I swear I never toldher the number,” he thought)—send this in search of you.How pleasant it would be to see you, and to have a little conversein the sweet French tongue. You did not know that itwas my own, did you? But yes, I have French-Creole blood.One is happy here among one's own kind. This evening I shallbe alone. Felicity.”
So, she was a Creole—of the race of Josephine! His pulses beat. Cramming the note into his pocket he whirled excitedly upon his friend.
“Adolph,” he cried, “I'm going out—where are my clothes?” and began hastily to rummage for his Gladstone amidst a pile of their joint belongings. Throwing it open, he dragged out his dress suit—folded still as Mary had packed it—and strewed a table with collars, ties, shirts, and other accessories.
“Hot water, Adolph! Throw some sticks into the stove—I must shave,” he called, and Adolph, amazed at this sudden transformation, hastily obeyed.
“Where do you go?” he asked, as he filled the kettle.
“I'm going to see a very attractive young woman,” Stefan grinned. “Wow, what a mercy I brought some decent clothes, eh?” He was already stripped, and shaking out a handful of silk socks. Something clicked to the floor, but he did not notice it. The dressing proceeded in a whirl, Adolph much impressed by the splendors of his friend's toilet. A fine shirt of tucked linen, immaculate pumps, links of dull gold—his comrade in Bohemia had completely vanished.
“O là, là!” cried he, beaming, “now I see it is true about all your riches!”
“I'm going to take a taxi,” Stefan announced as he slipped into his coat; “can I drop you?”
He stood ready, having overtaken Adolph's sketchy but leisured dressing.
“What speed, my child! One moment!” Adolph shook on his coat, found his glasses, and was crossing to put out the lamp when his foot struck a small object.
“What is this, something of yours?” He stooped and picked up a framed snapshot of a girl playing with a baby. “How beautiful!” he exclaimed, holding it under the lamp.
“Oh, yes,” said Stefan with a slight frown, “that's Mary. I didn't know I had it with me. Come on, Adolph,” and he tossed the picture back into the open Gladstone.
While Adolph found a taxi, Stefan paused a moment to question the concierge. Yes, monsieur's note had been left that afternoon, Madame remembered, by une petite Chinoise, bien chic, who had asked if Monsieur lived here. Madame's aged eyes snapped with Gallic appreciation of a possible intrigue.
Stefan was glad when he had dropped Adolph. He stretched at ease along the cushions of his open taxi, breathing in the warm, audacious air of spring, and watched the faces of the crowds as they emerged under the lights to be lost again mysteriously in the dusk.
Paris, her day's work done, was turning lightly, with her entrancing smile, to the pursuit of friendship, adventure, and love. All through the scented streets eyes sought eyes, voices rose in happy laughter or drooped to soft allurement. Stefan thrilled to the magic in the air. He, too, was seeking his adventure.
The taxi drew up in the courtyard of an apartment house. Giving his name, Stefan entered a lift and was carried up one floor. A white door opened, and the small Yo San, with a salutation, took his hat, and lifted a curtain. He was in a long, low room, yellow with candlelight. Facing him, open French windows giving upon a balcony showed the purpling dusk above the river and the black shapes of trees. Lights trickled their reflection in the water, the first stars shone, the scent of flowers was heavy in the air.
All this he saw; then a curtain moved, and a slim form appeared from the balcony as silently as a moth fluttering to the light.
“Ah, Stefan, welcome,” a voice murmured.
The setting was perfect. As Felicity moved toward him—her gown fluttering and swaying in folds of golden pink as delicately tinted as the petals of a rose—Stefan realized he had never seen her so alluring. Her strange eyes shone, her lips curved soft and inviting, her cheeks and throat were like warm, white velvet.
He took her outstretched hand—of the texture of a camelia—and it pulsed as if a heart beat in it.
“Felicity,” he half whispered, holding her hand, “how wonderful you are!”
“Am I?” she breathed, sighingly. “I have been asleep so long, Stefan. perhaps I am awake a little now.”
Her eyes, wide and gleaming as he had never seen them, held him. A mysterious perfume, subtle and poignant, hung about her. Her gauzy dress fluttered as she breathed; she seemed barely poised on her slim feet. He put out his arm as if to stay her from mothlike flight, and it fell about her waist. He pressed her to him. Her lips met his—they were incredibly soft and warm—they seemed to blossom under his kisses.
Adolph, returning from the opera at midnight, donned his old jacket and a pair of slippers and, lighting his pipe, settled himself with a paper to await Stefan's coming. Presently first the paper, then the burnt-out pipe, fell from his hands—he dozed, started awake, and dozed again.
At last he roused himself and stretched stiffly. The lamp was burning low—he looked at his watch—it was four o'clock. Stefan's Gladstone bag still yawned on a chair beside the table. In it, the dull glow of the lamp was reflected from a small silver object lying among a litter of ties and socks. Adolph picked it up, and looked for some moments at the face of Mary, smiling above her little son. He shook his head.
“Tch, tch! Quel dommage-what a pity!” he sighed, and putting down the picture undressed slowly, blew out the lamp, and went to bed.
On a Saturday morning at the end of June, Mary stood by the gate of the Byrdsnest, looking down the lane. McEwan, who was taking a whole holiday from the office, had offered to fetch her mail from the village. Any moment he might be back. It was quite likely, she told herself, that there would be a letter from France this morning—a steamer had docked on Thursday, another yesterday. Surely this time there would be something for her. Mary's eyes, as they strained down the lane, had lost some of their radiant youth. A stranger might have guessed her older than the twenty-six years she had just completed—she seemed grave and matronly—her face had a bleak look. Mary's last letter from France had come more than a month ago, and a face can change much in a month of waiting. She knew that last letter—a mere scrap—by heart.
“Thank you for your sweet letters, dear,” it read. “I amwell, and having a wonderful time. Not much painting yet;that is to come. Adolph admires your picture prodigiously.I have found some old friends in Paris, very agreeably. I maymove about a bit, so don't expect many letters. Take care ofyourself. Stefan.”
No word of love, nothing about Elliston, or the child to come; just a hasty word or two dashed off in answer to the long letters which she had tried so hard to make amusing. Even this note had come after a two weeks' silence. “Don't expect many letters—” she had not, but a month was a long time.
There came Wallace! He had turned the corner—he had waved to her—but it was a quiet wave. Somehow, if there had been a letter from France, Mary thought he would have waved his hat round his head. She had never spoken of her month-long wait, but Wallace always knew things without being told. No, she was sure there was no letter. “It's too hot here in the sun,” she thought, and walked slowly into the house.
“Here we are,” called McEwan cheerily as he entered the sitting room. “It's a light mail to-day. Nothing but 'Kindly remit' for me, and one letter for you—looks like the fist of a Yankee schoolma'am.”
He handed her the letter, holding it with a big thumb over the right-hand corner, so that she recognized Miss Mason's hand before she saw the French stamp.
“Mind if I hang round on the stoop and smoke a pipe?” queried McEwan, pulling a newspaper from his pocket.
“Do,” said Mary, opening her letter. It was a long, newsy sheet written from Paris and filled with the Sparrow's opinions on continental hotels, manners, and morals. She read it listlessly, but at the fourth page suddenly sat upright.
“I thought as long as I was here I'd better see what there isto see,” Miss Mason's pen chatted; “so I've been doing a playor the opera every night, and I can say that not understandingthe language don't make the plays seem any less immoral.However, that's what people go abroad to get, so I guess wecan't complain. The night before last who was sitting in theorchestra but your husband with that queer Miss Berber? Isaw them as plain as daylight, but they couldn't see me away upin the circle. When I was looking for a bus at the end Isaw them getting into an elegant electric. I must say shelooked cute, all in old rose color with a pearl comb in her hair.I think your husband looked real well too—I suppose theywere going to some party together. It's about time that youngman was home again with you, it seems to me, and so I shouldhave told him if I could have got anywhere near him in thecrowd. All I can say is,I'vehad enough of Europe. I'm thinkingof going through to London for a week, and then sailing.”
At the end of the letter Mary turned the last page back, and slowly read this paragraph again. There was a dull drumming in her ears—a hand seemed to be remorselessly pressing the blood from her heart. She sat staring straight before her, afraid to think lest she should think too much. At last she went to the window.
“Wallace,” she called. He jumped in, paper in hand, and saw her standing dead white by her chair.
“Ye've no had ill news, Mary?” he asked with a burr.
She shook her head. “No, Wallace; no, of course not. But I feel rather rotten this morning. Talk to me a little, will you?”
Obediently he sat down, and shook out the paper. “Hae ye been watching the European news much lately, Mary?” he began.
“I always try to, but it's difficult to find much in the American papers.”
“It's there, if ye know where to look. What would ye think o' this assassination o' the Grand Duke now?” He cocked his head on one side, as if eagerly waiting for her opinion. She began to rally.
“Why, it's awful, of course, but somehow I can't feel much sympathy for the Austrians since they took Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
“What would ye think might come of it?”
“I don't know, Wallace—what would you!”
“Weel,” he said gravely, “I think something's brewing down yonder—there'll be trouble yet.”
“Those poor Balkans, always fighting,” she sighed.
“I'm feered it'll be more than the Balkans this time. Watch the papers, Mary—I dinna' like the looks o' it mesel'.”
They talked on, he expounding his views on the menace of Austria's near-east aspirations as opposed to Russia's friendship for the Slavic races. Mary tried to listen intelligently—the effort brought a little color to her face.
“Wallace,” she said presently, “do you happen to know where Miss Berber is this summer?”
“I do not,” he said, his blue eyes steadily watching her. “But Mrs. Elliot would ken maybe—ye might ask her.”
“Oh, it doesn't matter,” said Mary. “I just wondered.”
When McEwan had gone Mary read Miss Mason's letter for the third time, and again the cold touch of fear assailed her. She took a camp stool and sat by the edge of the bluff for a long time, watching the water. Then she went indoors again to her desk.
“Dear Stefan,” she wrote, “I have only had one note fromyou in six weeks, and am naturally anxious to know how youare getting on. I am very well, and expect our baby aboutthe tenth of October. Elliston is beautiful; imagine, he is ayear old now! I think he will have your eyes. I am sorryyou are not getting on well with your work, but perhaps thathas changed by now. Dear, I had a letter from Miss Masonthis morning, and she writes of having seen you and MissBerber together at the opera. You didn't tell me she was inParis, and I can't help feeling it strange that you should nothave done so, and should leave me without news for so long.I trust you, dear Stefan, and believe in our love in spite of thedifficulties we have had. And I think you did rightly to takea holiday abroad. But you have been gone three months, andI have heard so little. Am I wrong still to believe in our love?Only six months ago we were so happy together. Do you wishour marriage to come to an end? Please write me, dear, andtell me what you really think, for, Stefan, I don't know howI shall bear the suspense much longer. I'm trying to be brave,dear—and Idobelieve still.“Your“Mary.”
Her hand was trembling as she finished writing. She longed to cry out, “For God's sake, come back to me, Stefan”—she longed to write of the wild ache at her heart—but she could not. She could not plead with him. If he did not feel the pain in her halting sentences it would be true that he no longer loved her. She sealed and stamped the letter. “I must still believe,” she kept repeating to herself. There was nothing to do but wait.
In the weeks that followed it seemed to Mary that her friends were more than ever kind to her. Not only did James Farraday continually send his car to take her driving, and Mrs. Farraday appear in the pony carriage, but not a day passed without McEwan, Jamie, the Havens, or other neighbors dropping in for a chat, or planning a walk, a luncheon, or a sail. Constance, too, immersed in work though she was, ran out several times in her car and spent the night. Mary was grateful—it made her waiting so much less hard—while her friends were with her the constant ache at her heart was drugged asleep. Knowing Wallace, she suspected his hand in this widespread activity, nor was she mistaken.
The day after the arrival of Miss Mason's letter McEwan had dropped in upon Constance in the evening, when he knew she would be resting after her strenuous day's work at headquarters. By way of a compliment on her gown he led the conversation round to Felicity Berber, and elicited the information that she was abroad.
“In Paris, perhaps?” he suggested.
“Now you mention it, I think they did say Paris when I was last in the shop.”
“Byrd is in Paris, you know,” said McEwan, meeting her eyes.
“Ah!” said Constance, and she stared at him, her lids narrowing. “I hadn't thought of that possibility.” She fingered her jade beads.
“I wonder if you ever write her?” he asked.
“I never write any one, my dear man, and, besides, what could I say?”
“Well,” said he, “I had a hunch you might need a new rig for the summer Votes campaign, or something. I thought maybe you'd want the very latest Berber styles, and would ask her to send a tip over. Then I thought you'd string her the local gossip, how Mrs. Byrd's baby will be born in October, and you don't think her looking as fit as she might. You want a cute rattle for it from Paris, or something. Get the idea?”
“You think she doesn't know?”
“I think the kid's about as harmless as a short-circuited wire, but I think she's a sport at bottom. My dope is,ifthere's anything to this proposition, then she doesn't know.” He rose to go.
“Wallace, you are certainly a bright boy,” said Constance, holding out her hand. “The missive shall be despatched.”
“Moreover,” said Mac, turning at the door, “Mary's worried—a little cheering up won't hurt her any.”
“I'll come out,” said Constance'. “What a shame it is—I'm so fond of them both.”
“Yes, it's a mean world—but we have to keep right on smiling. Good night,” said he.
“Good night,” called Constance. “You dear, good soul,” she added to herself.
Adolph was practising some new Futurist music of Ravel's. Its dissonances fatigued and irritated him, but he was lured by its horrible fascination, and grated away with an enraged persistence. Paris was hot, the attic hotter, for it was July. Adolph wondered as he played how long it would be before he could get away to the sea. He was out of love with the city, and thought longingly of a possible trip to Sweden. His reflections were interrupted by Stefan, who pushed the door open listlessly, and instantly implored him to stop making a din.
“What awful stuff—it's like the Cubist horrors,” said he, petulantly.
“Yes, my friend, yet I play the one, and you go to see the other,” said Adolph, laying down his fiddle and mopping his head and hands.
“Not I,” contradicted Stefan, wandering over to his easel. On it was an unfinished sketch of Felicity dancing—several other impressions of her stood about the room.
“Rotten work,” he said, surveying them moodily. “All I have to show for over three months here. Adolph,” he flung himself into a chair, and rumpled his hair angrily, “I'm sick of my way of life. My marriage was a mistake, but it was better than this. I did better work with Mary than I do with Felicity, and I didn't hate myself.”
“Well, my infant,” said Adolph, with a relieved sigh, “I'm glad to hear you say it. You've told me nothing, but I am sure your marriage was a better thing than you think. As for this little lady—” he shrugged his shoulders—“I make nothing of this affair.”
Stefan's frown was moodier still.
“Felicity is the most alluring woman I have ever known, and I believe she is fond of me. But she is affected, capricious, and a perfect mass of egotism.”
“For egotism you are not the man to blame her,” smiled his friend.
“I know that,” shrugged Stefan. “I've always believed in egotism, but I confess Felicity is a little extreme.”
“Where is she?”
“Oh, she's gone to Biarritz for a week with a party of Americans. I wouldn't go. I loathe mobs of dressed-up spendthrifts. We had planned to go to Brittany, but she said she needed a change of companionship—that her soul must change the color of its raiment, or some such piffle.” He laughed shortly. “Here I am hanging about in the heat, most of my money gone, and not able to do a stroke of work. It's hell, Adolph.”
“My boy,” said his friend, “why don't you go home?”
“I haven't the face, and that's a fact. Besides, hang it, I still want Felicity. Oh, what a mess!” he growled, sinking lower into his chair. Suddenly Adolph jumped up.
“I had forgotten; there is a letter for you,” and he tossed one into his lap. “It's from America.”
Stefan flushed, and Adolph watched him as he opened the letter. The flush increased—he gave an exclamation, and, jumping up, began walking feverishly about the room.
“My God, Adolph, she's heard about Felicity!” Adolph exclaimed in his turn. “She asks me about it—what am I to do?”
“What does she say; can you tell me?” enquired the Swede, distressed.
“Tiens, I'll read it to you,” and Stefan opened the letter and hastily translated it aloud. “She's so generous, poor dear,” he groaned as he finished. Adolph's face had assumed a deeply shocked expression. He was red to the roots of his blonde hair.
“Is your wife then enceinte, Stefan!”
“Yes, of course she is—she cares for nothing but having children.”
“But, Stefan!” Adolph's hands waved helplessly—he stammered. “It cannot be—it is impossible,impossiblethat you desert a beautiful and good wife who expects your child. I cannot believe it.”
“Ihaven'tdeserted her,” Stefan retorted angrily. “I only came away for a holiday, and the rest just happened. I should have been home by now if I hadn't met Felicity. Oh, you don't understand,” he groaned, watching his friend's grieved, embarrassed face. “I'm fond of Mary—devoted to her—but you don't know what the monotony of marriage does to a man of my sort.”
“No, I don't understand,” echoed his friend. “But now, Stefan,” and he brought his fist down on the table, “now you will go home, will you not, and try to make her happy?”
“I don't think she will forgive this,” muttered Stefan.
“This!” Adolph almost shouted. “This you will explain away, deny, so that it troubles her no more!”
“Oh, rot, Adolph, I can't lie to Mary,” and Stefan began to pace the room once more.
“For her sake, it seems to me you must,” his friend urged.
“Stop talking, Adolph; I want to think!” Stefan exclaimed. He walked in silence for a minute.
“No,” he said at last, “if my marriage is to go on, it must be on a basis of truth. I can't go back to Mary and act and live a lie. If she will have me back, she must know I've made some sacrifice to come, I'll go, if she says so, because I care for her, but Ican'tgo as a faithful, loving husband—it would be too grotesque.”
“Consider her health, my friend,” implored Adolph, still with his bewildered, shocked air; “it might kill her!”
“Can't! She's as strong as a horse—she can face the truth like a man.”
“Then think of the other woman; you must protect her.”
“Pshaw! she doesn't need protection! You don't know Felicity; she'd be just as likely as not to tell Mary herself.”
“I always thought you so honorable, so generous,” Adolph murmured, dejectedly.
“Oh, cut it, Adolph. I'm being as honorable and generous as I know how. I'll write to Mary now, and offer to come back if she says the word, and never see Felicity again. I can't do more.”
He flung himself down at the desk, and snatched a pen.
“My dearest girl:” he wrote rapidly, “your brave letter hascome to me, and I can answer it only with the truth. All thatyou feared when you heard of F.'s being with me is true. Ifound her here two months ago, and we have been togethermost of the time since. It was not planned, Mary; it came tome wholly unexpectedly, when I thought myself cured of love.I care for you, my dear, I believe you the noblest and mostbeautiful of women, but from F. I have had something whicha woman of your kind could never give, and in spite of thepain I feel for your grief, I cannot say with truth that I regretit. There are things—in life and love of which you, mybeautiful and clear-eyed Goddess, can know nothing—there isa wild grape, the juice of which you will never drink, but whichonce tasted, must ever be desired. Because this draught is sodifferent from your own milk and honey, because it leaves mytenderness for you all untouched, because drinking it has assuageda thirst of which you can have no knowledge, I ask younot to judge it with high Olympian judgment. I ask youto forgive me, Mary, for I love you still—better now than whenI left you—and I hold you above all women. The cup is stillat my lips, but if you will grant me forgiveness I will drinkno more. I agonize over your grief—if you will let me I willreturn and try to assuage it. Write me, Mary, and if the wordis forgive, for your sake I will bid my friend farewell now andforever. I am still your husband if you will have me—thereis no woman I would serve but you.“Stefan.”
He signed his name in a dashing scrawl, blotted and folded the letter without rereading it, addressed and stamped it, and sprang hatless down the stairs to post it.
An enormous weight seemed lifted from him. He had shifted his dilemma to the shoulders of his wife, and had no conception that in so doing he was guilty of an act of moral cowardice. Returning to the studio, he pulled out a clean canvas and began a vigorous drawing of two fauns chasing each other round a tree. Presently, as he drew, he began to hum.
It was the fourth of August.
Stefan and Felicity sat at premier déjeuner on the balcony of her apartment. About them flowers grew in boxes, a green awning hung over them, their meal of purple fruit, coffee, and hot brioches was served from fantastic green china over which blue dragons sprawled. Felicity's negligée was of the clear green of a wave's concavity—a butterfly of blue enamel pinned her hair. A breeze, cool from the river, fluttered under the awning.
It was an attractive scene, but Felicity's face drooped listlessly, and Stefan, hands deep in the pockets of his white trousers, lay back in his wicker chair with an expression of nervous irritability. It was early, for the night had been too hot for late sleeping, and Yo San had not yet brought in the newspapers and letters. Paris was tense. Germany and Russia had declared war. France was mobilizing. Perhaps already the axe had fallen.
Held by the universal anxiety, Stefan and Felicity had lingered on in Paris after her return from Biarritz, instead of traveling to Brittany as they had planned.
Stefan had another reason for remaining, which he had not imparted to Felicity. He was waiting for Mary's letter. It was already overdue, and now that any hour might bring it he was wretchedly nervous as to the result. He did not yet wish to break with Felicity, but still less did he wish to lose Mary. Without having analyzed it to himself, he would have liked to keep the Byrdsnest and all that it contained as a warm and safe haven to return to after his stormy flights. He neither wished to be anchored nor free; he desired both advantages, and the knowledge that he would be called upon to forego one frayed his nerves. Life was various—why sacrifice its fluid beauty to frozen forms?
“Stefan,” murmured Felicity, from behind her drooping mask, “we have had three golden months, but I think they are now over.”
“What do you mean?” he asked crossly.
“Disharmony”—she waved a white hand—“is in the air. Beauty—the arts—are to give place to barbarity. In a world of war, how can we taste life delicately? We cannot. Already, my friend, the blight has fallen upon you. Your nerves are harsh and jangled. I think”—she folded her hands and sank back on her green cushions—“I shall make a pilgrimage to China.”
“All of which,” said Stefan with a short laugh, “is an elaborate way of saying you are tired of me.”
Her eyebrows raised themselves a fraction.
“You are wonderfully attractive, Stefan; you fascinate me as a panther fascinates by its lithe grace, and your mind has the light and shade of running brooks.”
Stefan looked pleased.
“But,” she went on, her lids still drooping, “I must have harmony. In an atmosphere of discords I cannot live. Of your present discordant mood, my friend, Iamtired, and I could not permit myself to continue to feel bored. When I am bored, I change my milieu.”
“You are no more bored than I am, I assure you,” he snapped rudely.
“It is such remarks as those,” breathed Felicity, “which make love impossible.” Her eyes closed.
He pushed back his chair. “Oh, my dear girl, do have some sense of humor,” he said, fumbling for a cigarette.
Yo San entered with a folded newspaper, and a plate of letters for Felicity. She handed one to Stefan. “Monsieur Adolph leave this,” she said.
Disregarding the paper, Felicity glanced through her mail, and abstracted a thick envelope addressed in Constance's sprightly hand. Stefan's letter was from Mary; he moved to the end of the balcony and tore it open. A banker's draft fell from it.
“Good-bye, Stefan,” he read, “I can't forgive you. What youhave done shames me to the earth. You have broken our marriage.It was a sacred thing to me—now it is profaned. I asknothing from you, and enclose you the balance of your ownmoney. I can make my living and care for the children, whomyou never wanted.”
The last three words scrawled slantingly down the page; they were in large and heavier writing—they looked like a cry. The letter was unsigned, and smudged. It might have been written by a dying person. The sight of it struck him with unbearable pain. He stood, staring at it stupidly.
Felicity called him three times before he noticed her—the last time she had to raise her voice quite loudly. He turned then, and saw her sitting with unwonted straightness at the table. Her eyes were wide open, and fixed.
“I have a letter from Connie.” She spoke almost crisply. “Why did you not tell me that your wife was enceinte?”
“Why should I tell you?” he asked, staring at her with indifference.
“Had I known it I should not have lived with you. I thought she had let you come here alone through phlegmatic British coldness. If she lost you, it was her affair. This is different. You have not played fair with us.”
“Mary was never cold,” said Stefan dully, ignoring her accusation.
“That makes it worse.” She sat like a ramrod; her face might have been ivory; her hands lay folded across the open letter.
“What do you know—or care—about Mary?” he said heavily; “you never even liked her.”
“Your wife bored me, but I admired her. Women nearly always bore me, but I believe in them far more than men, and wish to uphold them.”
“You chose a funny way of doing so this time,” he said, dropping into his chair with a hopeless sigh.
She looked at him with distaste. “True, I mistook the situation. Conventions are nothing to me. But I have a spiritual code to which I adhere. This affair no longer harmonizes with it. I trust—” Felicity relaxed into her cushions—“you will return to your wife immediately.”
“Thanks,” he said ironically. “But you're too late. Mary knows, and has thrown me over.”
There was silence for several minutes. Then Stefan rose, picked up the draft from the floor, looked at it idly, refolded it into Mary's letter, and put both carefully away in his inside pocket. His face was very pale.
“Adieu, Felicity,” he said quietly. “You are quite right about it.” And he held out his hand.
“Adieu, Stefan,” she answered, waving her hand toward his, but not touching it. “I am sorry about your wife.”
Turning, he went in through the French window.
Felicity waited until she heard the thud of the apartment door, then struck her hands together. Yo San appeared.
“A kirtle, Yo San. I must dance away a wound. Afterwards I will think. Be prepared for packing. We may leave Paris. It is time again for work.”
Stefan, walking listlessly toward his studio, found the streets filled with crowds. Newsboys shrieked; men stood in groups gesticulating; there were cries of “Vive la France!” and “A bas l'Allemagne!” Everywhere was seething but suppressed excitement. As he passed a great hotel he found the street, early as it was, blocked with departing cabs piled high with baggage.
“War is declared,” he thought, but the knowledge conveyed nothing to his senses. He crossed the Seine, and found himself in his own quarter. At the corner of the rue des Trois Ermites a hand-organ, surrounded by a cosmopolitan crowd of students, was shrilly grinding out the Marseillaise. The students sang to it, cheering wildly.
“Who fights for France?” a voice yelled hoarsely, and among cheers a score of hands went up.
“Who fights for France?” Stefan stood stock still, then hurried past the crowd, and up the stairs to his attic.
There, in the midst of gaping drawers and fast emptying shelves, stood Adolph in his shirt sleeves, methodically packing his possessions into a hair trunk. He looked up as his friend entered; his mild face was alight; tears of excitement stood in his eyes.
“Ah, my infant,” he exclaimed, “it has arrived! The Germans are across the frontier. I go to fight for France.”
“Adolph!” cried Stefan, seizing and wringing his friend's hand. “Thank God there's something great to be done in the world after all! I go with you.”
“But your wife, Stefan?”
Stefan drew out Mary's letter. For the first time his eyes were wet.
“Listen,” he said, and translated the brief words.
Hearing them, the good Adolph sat down on his trunk, and quite frankly cried. “Ah, quel dommage! quel dommage!” he exclaimed, over and over.
“So you see, mon cher, we go together,” said Stefan, and lifted his Gladstone bag to a chair. As he fumbled among its forgotten contents, a tiny box met his hand. He drew out the signet ring Mary had given him, with the winged head.
“Ah, Mary,” he whispered with a half sob, “after all, you gave me wings!” and he put the ring on. He was only twenty-seven.
Later in the day Stefan went to the bank and had Mary's draft endorsed back to New York. He enclosed it in a letter to James Farraday, in which he asked him to give it to his wife, with his love and blessing, and to tell her that he was enlisting with Adolph Jensen in the Foreign Legion.
That night they both went to a vaudeville theatre. It was packed to the doors—an opera star was to sing the Marseillaise. Stefan and Adolph stood at the back. No one regarded the performance at all till the singer appeared, clad in white, the French liberty cap upon her head, a great tricolor draped in her arms. Then the house rose in a storm of applause; every one in the vast audience was on his feet.
“'Allons, enfants de la patrie,'” began the singer in a magnificent contralto, her eyes flashing. The house hung breathless.
“'Aux armes, citoyens!'” Her hands swept the audience. “'Marchons! Marchons!'” She pointed at the crowd. Each man felt her fiery glance pierce to him—France called—she was holding out her arms to her sons to die for her—
“'Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!'”
The singer gathered the great flag to her heart. The tears rolled down her cheeks; she kissed it with the passion of a mistress. The house broke into wild cheers. Men fell upon each other's shoulders; women sobbed. The singer was dumb, but the drums rolled on—they were calling, calling. The folds of the flag dazzled Stefan's eyes. He burst into tears.
The next morning Stefan Byrd and Adolph Jensen were enrolled in the Foreign Legion of France.