The Nest Builder Part 34

Mary's heart sank like a stone. It was too obvious that he had stayed at home, not to be with her, but merely because his sitter was un.o.btainable.

"Cheers, Mary; back to work to-morrow," he exclaimed, attacking his dessert with vigor. "I've been slacking shamefully, but Felicity is so wrapped up in that store of hers I can't get her half the time. Now she's contrite, and is going to sit to-morrow."

Mary, remembering his remark about McEwan, longed to say, "Why do you call that little vulgarian by her first name?" but retaliatory methods were impossible to her. She contented herself with asking if he would be home the next evening.

"Why, yes, I expect so," he answered, looking vague, "but don't absolutely count on me, Mary. I've been very good this week."

She saw that he was gone again. His return had been more in the body than the spirit, after all. If that had been wooed a little back to her it had winged away again at the first sound of the telephone. She told herself that it was only his work calling him, that he would have been equally eager over any other sitter. But she was not sure.

"Brace up, Mary," he called across at her, "you're not being deserted.

Good heavens, I must work!" His impatient frown was gathering. She collected herself, smiled cheerfully, and rose, telling Lily they would have coffee in the sitting room.

He spent the evening before the fire, smoking, and making thumbnail sketches on a piece of notepaper. She sang for some time, but without eliciting any comment from him. When they went up to bed he stopped at his own door.

"I think I'll sleep alone to-night, dear. I want to be fresh to-morrow.

Good night," and he kissed her cheek.

When she came down in the morning he had already gone. Lying on the sitting room table, where it had been placed by the careful Lily, lay the sc.r.a.p of notepaper he had been scribbling on the night before. It was covered with tiny heads, and figures of mermaids, dancing nymphs, and dryads. All in face or figure suggested Felicity Berber.

She laid it back on the table, dropping a heavy book over it. A little later, while she was giving Elliston his bath, it suddenly occurred to Mary that her husband had never once during his stay alluded to her ma.n.u.script, and never looked at the baby except when she had asked him to. She excused him to herself with the plea of his temperament, and his absorption in his art, but nevertheless her heart was sore.

For the next few weeks Stefan came and went fitfully, announcing at one point that Miss Berber had ceased to pose for his fantastic study of her, called "The Nixie," but had consented to sit for a portrait.

"She's slippery--comes and goes, keeps me waiting interminably," he complained. "I can never be sure of her, but she's a wonderful model."

"What do you do while you're waiting for her?" asked Mary, who could not imagine Stefan enduring with equanimity such a tax upon his patience.

"Oh, there's tremendous work to be done on the Nixie still," he answered. "It's only her part in it that is finished."

One evening he came home with a grievance.

"That fool McEwan came to the studio to-day," he complained. "It was all I could do not to shut the door in his face. Of all the chuckleheads!

What do you think he called the Nixie? 'A tricky piece of work!'

Tricky!" Stefan kicked the fire disgustedly. "And it's the best thing I've done!"

"As for the portrait, he said it was 'fine and dandy,' the idiot. And the maddening thing was," he went on, turning to Mary, and uncovering the real source of his offense, "that Felicity positively encouraged him! Why, the man must have sat there talking with her for an hour.

I could not paint a stroke, and he didn't go till I had said so three times!" completed Stefan, looking positively ferocious. "What in the fiend's name, Mary, did she do it for?" He collapsed on the sofa beside her, like a child bereft of a toy. Mary could not help laughing at his tragic air.

"I suppose she did it to annoy, because she knew it teased," she suggested.

"How I loathe fooling and play-acting!" he exclaimed disgustedly. "Thank G.o.d, Mary, you are sincere. One knows where one is with you!"

He seemed thoroughly upset. Miss Berber's pin-p.r.i.c.k must have been severe, Mary thought, if it resulted in a compliment for her.

The next evening, Mary being alone, Wallace dropped in. For some time they talked of Jamie and Elliston, and of Mary's book.

He was Scotch to-night, as he usually was now when they were alone together. Cheerful as ever, his cheer was yet slow and solid--the comedian was not in evidence.

"Hae ye been up yet to see the new pictures?" he asked presently. She shook her head.

"Ye should go, bairn, they're a fine key. Clever as the devil, but naething true about them. After the Danae-piff!" and he snapped his fingers. "Ye hae no call to worry, you're the hub, Mary--let the wheel spin a wee while!"

She blushed. "Wallace, I believe you're a wizard--or a detective."

"The Scottish Sherlock, eh?" he grinned. "Weel, it's as I tell ye--tak my word for't. Hae ye seen Mrs. Elliot lately?"

"No, Constance went up to their place in Vermont in June, you know. She came down purposely for Elliston's christening, the dear. She writes me she'll be back in a few days now, but says she's sick of New York, and would stay where she is if it weren't for suffrage."

"But she would na'," said McEwan emphatically.

"No, I don't think so, either. But she sees more of Theodore while she stays away, because he feels it his duty to run up every few days and protect her against savage New England, whereas when she's in town she could drive her car into the subway excavations and he'd never know it.

I'm quoting verbatim," Mary laughed.

McEwan nodded appreciatively. "She's a grand card."

"She pretends to be flippant about husbands," Mary went on, "but as a matter of fact she cares much more for hers than for her sons, or anything in the world, except perhaps the Cause."

"That's as it should be," the other nodded.

"I don't know." There was a puzzled note in Mary's voice. "I can't understand the son's taking such a distinctly second place."

McEwan's face expanded into one of his huge smiles. "It's true, ye could not. That's the way G.o.d made ye, and I'll tell ye about that, too, some day," he said, rising to go.

"Good-bye, Mr. Holmes," she smiled, as she saw him out.

Before going to bed that night Mary examined her conscience. Why had she not been to town to see Stefan's work? She knew that the baby--whose feeding times now came less frequently--was no longer an adequate excuse. She had blamed Stefan in her heart for his indifference to her work--was she not becoming guilty of the same neglect? Was she not in danger of a worse fault, the mean and vulgar fault of jealousy? She felt herself flus.h.i.+ng at the thought.

Two days later Mary put on her last year's suit, now a little shabby, kissed the baby, importuned the beaming Lily to be careful of him, and drove to the train in one of the village livery stable's inconceivably decrepit coupes.

It was about twelve o 'clock when she arrived at the studio, and, ringing the bell, mounted the well-known stairs with a heart which, in spite of herself, beat anxiously. Stefan opened the door irritably, but his frown changed to a look of astonishment, followed by an exuberant smile, as he saw who it was.

"Here comes Demeter," he cried, calling into the room behind him. "Why, Mary, I'm honored. Has Elliston actually released his prisoner at last?"

He drew her into the studio, and kissed her almost with ostentation.

"Let's suspend the sitting, Felicity," he cried, "and show our work."

Mary looked about her. Her old home was almost unchanged. There was the painted bureau, the divan, the big easel, the model throne where she had posed as Danae. It was unchanged, yet how different. From the throne stepped down a small svelt figure-it rippled toward her, its gown s.h.i.+mmering like a fire seen through water. It was Felicity, and her dress was made from the great piece of oriental silk Stefan had bought when they were first married, and which they had used as a cover for their couch.

Mary recognized it instantly--there could be no mistake. She stared stupidly, unable to find speech, while Miss Berber's tones were wafted to her like an echo from cooing doves.

"Ah, Mrs. Byrd," she was saying, "how lovely you look as a matron. We are having a short sitting in my luncheon hour. This studio calms me after the ba.n.a.l cackling of my clients. I almost think of ceasing to create raiment, I weary so of the stupidities of New York's four hundred. Corsets, heels"--her hands fluttered in repudiation. She sank full length upon the divan, lighting a cigarette from a case of mother-of-pearl. "Your husband is the only artist, Mrs. Byrd, who has succeeded in painting me as an individual instead of a beauty. It's relieving"--her voice fainted--"very"--it failed--her lids drooped, she was still.

Stefan looked bored. "Why, Felicity, what's the matter? I haven't seen you so completely lethargic for a long time. I thought you kept that manner for the store."

Mary could not help feeling pleased by this remark, which drew no response from Felicity save a shadowy but somewhat forced smile.

"Turn round, Mary," went on Stefan; "the Nixie is behind you."

Mary faced the canvas, another of his favorite underwater pictures. The Nixie sat on a rock, in the green light of a river-bed. Green river-weed swayed and clung about her, and her hair, green too, streamed out to mingle with it. In the ooze at her feet lay a drowned girl, holding a tiny baby to her breast. This part of the picture was unfinished, but the Nixie stood out clearly, looking down at the dead woman with an expression compounded of wonder and sly scorn. "Lord, what fools these mortals be," she might have been saying.