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The Nest Builder

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




"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. "It _is_ me--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 marriage _for?_" 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.




VIII


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.

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