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The Nest Builder

B >> Beatrice Forbes Robertson Hale >> The Nest Builder




"Thank you for your sweet letters, dear," it read. "I am
well, 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 may
move about a bit, so don't expect many letters. Take care of
yourself. 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 is
to see," Miss Mason's pen chatted; "so I've been doing a play
or the opera every night, and I can say that not understanding
the language don't make the plays seem any less immoral.
However, that's what people go abroad to get, so I guess we
can't complain. The night before last who was sitting in the
orchestra but your husband with that queer Miss Berber? I
saw them as plain as daylight, but they couldn't see me away up
in the circle. When I was looking for a bus at the end I
saw them getting into an elegant electric. I must say she
looked cute, all in old rose color with a pearl comb in her hair.
I think your husband looked real well too--I suppose they
were going to some party together. It's about time that young
man was home again with you, it seems to me, and so I should
have told him if I could have got anywhere near him in the
crowd. All I can say is, _I've_ had enough of Europe. I'm thinking
of 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 from
you in six weeks, and am naturally anxious to know how you
are getting on. I am very well, and expect our baby about
the tenth of October. Elliston is beautiful; imagine, he is a
year old now! I think he will have your eyes. I am sorry
you are not getting on well with your work, but perhaps that
has changed by now. Dear, I had a letter from Miss Mason
this morning, and she writes of having seen you and Miss
Berber together at the opera. You didn't tell me she was in
Paris, and I can't help feeling it strange that you should not
have done so, and should leave me without news for so long.
I trust you, dear Stefan, and believe in our love in spite of the
difficulties we have had. And I think you did rightly to take
a holiday abroad. But you have been gone three months, and
I have heard so little. Am I wrong still to believe in our love?
Only six months ago we were so happy together. Do you wish
our marriage to come to an end? Please write me, dear, and
tell me what you really think, for, Stefan, I don't know how
I shall bear the suspense much longer. I'm trying to be brave,
dear--and I _do_ believe 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, _if_ there'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.




XIII


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, _impossible_ that you desert a
beautiful and good wife who expects your child. I cannot believe it."

"I _haven't_ deserted 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 I _can't_ go 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 has
come to me, and I can answer it only with the truth. All that
you feared when you heard of F.'s being with me is true. I
found her here two months ago, and we have been together
most of the time since. It was not planned, Mary; it came to
me wholly unexpectedly, when I thought myself cured of love.
I care for you, my dear, I believe you the noblest and most
beautiful of women, but from F. I have had something which
a woman of your kind could never give, and in spite of the
pain I feel for your grief, I cannot say with truth that I regret
it. There are things--in life and love of which you, my
beautiful and clear-eyed Goddess, can know nothing--there is
a wild grape, the juice of which you will never drink, but which
once tasted, must ever be desired. Because this draught is so
different from your own milk and honey, because it leaves my
tenderness for you all untouched, because drinking it has assuaged
a thirst of which you can have no knowledge, I ask you
not to judge it with high Olympian judgment. I ask you
to forgive me, Mary, for I love you still--better now than when
I left you--and I hold you above all women. The cup is still
at my lips, but if you will grant me forgiveness I will drink
no more. I agonize over your grief--if you will let me I will
return and try to assuage it. Write me, Mary, and if the word
is forgive, for your sake I will bid my friend farewell now and
forever. I am still your husband if you will have me--there
is 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.




XIV


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, I _am_ tired, 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 you
have done shames me to the earth. You have broken our marriage.
It was a sacred thing to me--now it is profaned. I ask
nothing from you, and enclose you the balance of your own
money. I can make my living and care for the children, whom
you 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.

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