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The Nest Builder

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




One of Mary's first after dinner friendships was made at the hotel with a
certain Mrs. Elliott, who turned out to be the President of the local
Suffrage Club. Scenting a new recruit, this lady early engaged the Byrds
in conversation and, finding Mary a believer, at once enveloped her in
the camaraderie which has been this cause's gift to women all the world
over. They exchanged calls, and soon became firm friends.

Mrs. Elliot was an attractive woman in middle life, of slim, graceful
figure and vivacious manner. She had one son out in the world, and one in
college, and lived in a charming house just off the Avenue, with an
adored but generally invisible husband, who was engaged in business
downtown. As a girl Constance Elliot had been on the stage, and had
played smaller Shakespearean parts in the old Daly Company, but, bowing
to the code of her generation, had abandoned her profession at marriage.
Now, in middle life, too old to take up her calling again with any hope
of success, yet with her mental activity unimpaired, she found in the
Suffrage movement her one serious vocation.

"I am nearly fifty, Mrs. Byrd," she said to Mary, "and have twenty good
years before me. I like my friends, and am interested in philanthropy,
but I am not a Jack-of-all-trades by temperament. I need work--a real job
such as I had when the boys were little, or when I was a girl. We are all
working hard enough to win the vote, but what we shall fill the hole in
our time with when we have it, I don't know. It will be easy for the
younger ones--but I suppose women like myself will simply have to pay the
price of having been born of our generation. Some will find solace as
grandmothers--I hope I shall. But my elder son, who married a pretty
society girl, is childless, and my younger such a light-hearted young
rascal that I doubt if he marries for years to come."

Mary was much interested in this problem, which seemed more salient here
than in her own class in England, in which social life was a vocation for
both sexes.

At Mrs. Elliot's house she met many of the neighborhood's more
conventional women, and began to have a great liking for these gently
bred but broad-minded and democratic Americans. She also met a mixed
collection of artists, actresses, writers, reformers and followers of
various "isms"; for as president of a suffrage club it was Mrs. Elliot's
policy to make her drawing rooms a center for the whole neighborhood. She
was a charming hostess, combining discrimination with breadth of view;
her Fridays were rallying days for the followers of many more cults than
she would ever embrace, but for none toward which she could not feel
tolerance.


At first Stefan, who, man-like, professed contempt for social functions,
refused to accompany Mary to these at-homes. But after Mrs. Elliot's
visit to the studio he conceived a great liking for her, and to Mary's
delight volunteered to accompany her on the following Friday. Few
misanthropes are proof against an atmosphere of adulation, and in this
Mrs. Elliot enveloped Stefan from the moment of first seeing his Danaë.
She introduced him as a genius--America's coming great painter, and he
frankly enjoyed the novel sensation of being lionized by a group of
clever and attractive women.

Mrs. Elliot affected house gowns of unusual texture and design, which
flowed in adroitly veiling lines about her too slim form. These
immediately attracted the attention of Stefan, who coveted something
equally original for Mary. He remarked on them to his hostess on his
second visit.

"Yes," she said, "I love them. I am eclipsed by fashionable clothing.
Felicity Berber designs all my things. She's ruinous," with a sigh, "but
I have to have her. I am a fool at dressing myself, but I have
intelligence enough to know it," she added, laughing.

"Felicity Berber," questioned Stefan. "Is that a creature with Mongolian
eyes and an O-shaped mouth?"

"What a good description! Yes--have you met her?"

"I haven't, but you will arrange it, won't you?" he asked cajolingly. "I
saw a drawing of her--she's tremendously paintable. Do tell me about her.
Wait a minute. I'll get my wife!"

He jumped up, pounced on Mary, who was in a group by the tea-table, and
bore her off regardless of her interrupted conversation.

"Mary," he explained, all excitement, "you remember that picture at the
magazine office? Yes, you do, a girl with slanting black eyes--Felicity
Berber. Well, she isn't an actress after all. Sit down here. Mrs. Elliot
is going to tell us about her." Mary complied, sharing their hostess'
sofa, while Stefan wrapped himself round a stool. "Now begin at the
beginning," he demanded, beaming; "I'm thrilled about her."

"Well," said Mrs. Elliot, dropping a string of jade beads through her
fingers, "so are most people. She's unique in her way. She came here from
the Pacific coast, I believe, quite unknown, and trailing an impossible
husband. That was five years ago--she couldn't have been more than
twenty-three. She danced in the Duncan manner, but was too lazy to keep
it up. Then she went into the movies, and her face became the rage; it
was on all the picture postcards. She got royalties on every photograph
sold, and made quite a lot of money, I believe. But she hates active
work, and soon gave the movies up. About that time the appalling husband
disappeared. I don't know if she divorced him or not, but he ceased to
be, as it were. His name was Noaks." She paused, "Does this bore you?"
she asked Mary.

"On the contrary," smiled she, "it's most amusing--like the penny
novelettes they sell in England."

"Olympian superiority!" teased Stefan. "Please go on, Mrs. Elliot. Did
she attach another husband?"

"No, she says she hates the bother of them," laughed their hostess. "Men
are always falling in love with her, but-openly at least-she seems
uninterested in them."

"Hasn't found the right one, I suppose," Stefan interjected.

"Perhaps that's it. At any rate her young men are always confiding their
woes to me. My status as a potential grandmother makes me a suitable
repository for such secrets."

"Ridiculous," Stefan commented.

"But true, alas!" she laughed. "Well, Felicity had always designed the
gowns for her dancing and acting, and after the elimination of Mr. Noaks
she set up a dressmaking establishment for artistic and individual gowns.
She opened it with a thé dansant, at which she discoursed on the art of
dress. Her showroom is like a sublimated hotel lobby--tea is served there
for visitors every afternoon. Her prices are high, and she has made a
huge success. She's wonderfully clever, directs everything herself.
Felicity detests exertion, but she has the art of making others work for
her."

"That sounds as if she would get fat," said Stefan, with a shudder.

"Doesn't it?" agreed Mrs. Elliot. "But she's as slim as a panther, and
intensely alive nervously, for all her physical laziness."

"Do you like her?" Mary asked.

"Yes, I really do, though she's terribly rude, and I tell her I'm
convinced she's a dangerous person. She gives me a feeling that gunpowder
is secreted somewhere in the room with her. I will get her here to meet
you both--you would be interested. She's never free in the afternoon;
we'll make it an evening." With a confirming nod, Mrs. Elliot rose to
greet some newcomers.

"Mary," Stefan whispered, "we'll go and order you a dress from this
person. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"How sweet of you, dearest, but we can't afford it," replied Mary,
surreptitiously patting his hand.

"Nonsense, of course we can. Aren't we going to be rich?" scoffed he.

"Look who's coming!" exclaimed Mary suddenly.

Farraday was shaking hands with their hostess, his tall frame looking
more than ever distinguished in its correct cutaway. Almost instantly he
caught sight of Mary and crossed the room to her with an expression of
keen pleasure.

"How delightful," he greeted them both. "So you have found the presiding
genius of the district! Why did I not have the inspiration of introducing
you myself?" He turned to Mrs. Elliot, who had rejoined them. "Two more
lions for you, eh, Constance?" he said, with a twinkle which betokened
old friendship.

"Yes, indeed," she smiled, "they have no rivals for my Art and Beauty
cages."

"And what about the literary circus? I suppose you have been making Mrs.
Byrd roar overtime?"

Their hostess looked puzzled.

"Don't tell me that you are in ignorance of her status as the Household
Company's latest find?" he ejaculated in mock dismay.

Mrs. Elliot turned reproachful eyes on Mary. "She never told me, the
unfriendly woman!"

"Just retribution, Constance, for poring over your propagandist sheets
instead of reading our wholesome literature," Farraday retorted. "Had you
done your duty by the Household magazines you would have needed no
telling."

"A hit, a palpable hit," she answered, laughing. "Which reminds me that I
want another article from you, James, for our Woman Citizen."

"Mrs. Byrd," said Farraday, "behold in me a driven slave. Won't you come
to my rescue and write something for this insatiable suffragist?"

Mary shook her head. "No, no, Mr. Farraday, I can't argue, either
personally or on paper. You should hear me trying to make a speech!
Pathetic."

Stefan, who had ceased to follow the conversation, and was restlessly
examining prints on the wall, turned at this. "Don't do it, dearest.
Argument is so unbeautiful, and I couldn't stand your doing anything
badly." He drifted away to a group of women who were discussing the
Italian Futurists.

"Tell me about this lion, James," said Constance, settling herself on the
sofa. "I believe she is too modest to tell me herself." She looked at
Mary affectionately.

"She has written a second 'Child's Garden,' almost rivaling the first,
and we have a child's story of hers which will be as popular as some of
Frances Hodgson Burnett's," summed up Farraday.

Mary blushed with pleasure at this praise, but was about to deprecate it
when Stefan signaled her away. "Mary," he called, "I want you to hear
this I am saying about the Cubists!" She left them with a little smile of
excuse, and they watched her tall figure join her husband.

"James," said Mrs. Elliot irrelevantly, "why in the world don't you
marry?"

"Because, Constance," he smiled, "all the women I most admire in the
world are already married."

"À propos, have you seen Mr. Byrd's work?" she asked.

"Only some drawings, from which I suspect him of genius. But she is as
gifted in her way as he, only it's a smaller way."

"Don't place him till you've seen his big picture, painted from her. It's
tremendous. We've got to have it exhibited at Constantine's. I want you
to help me arrange it for them. She's inexperienced, and he's helplessly
unpractical. Oh!" she grasped his arm; "a splendid idea! Why shouldn't I
have a private exhibition here first, for the benefit of the Cause?"

Farraday threw up his hands. "You are indefatigable, Constance. We'd
better all leave it to you. The Byrds and Suffrage will benefit equally,
I am sure."

"I will arrange it," she nodded smiling, her eyes narrowing, her slim
hands dropping the jade beads from one to the other.

Farraday, knowing her for the moment lost to everything save her latest
piece of stage management, left her, and joined the Byrds. He engaged
himself to visit their studio the following week.




IX


Miss Mason was folding her knitting, and Mary sat in the firelight sewing
diligently. Stefan was out in search of paints.

"I tell you what 'tis, Mary Elliston Byrd," said Miss Mason. "It's 'bout
time you saw a doctor. My mother was a physician-homeopath, one of the
first that ever graduated. Take my advice, and have a woman."

"I'd much rather," said Mary.

"I should say!" agreed the other. "I never was one to be against the men,
but oh, my--" she threw up her bony little hands--"if there's one thing I
never could abide it's a man doctor for woman's work. I s'pose I got
started that way by what my mother told me of the medical students in her
day. Anyway, it hardly seems Christian to me for a woman to go to a man
doctor."

Mary laughed. "I wish my dear old Dad could have heard you. I remember he
once refused to meet a woman doctor in consultation. She had to leave
Lindum--no one would employ her. I was a child at the time, but even then
it seemed all wrong to me."

"My dear, you thank the Lord you live under the Stars and Stripes,"
rejoined Miss Mason, who conceived of England as a place beyond the reach
of liberty for either women or men.

"I shall live under the Tricolor if Stefan has his way," smiled Mary.

"Child," said her visitor, putting on her hat, "don't say it. Your
husband's an elegant man--I admire him--but don't you ever let me hear
he doesn't love his country."

"I'm certainly learning to love it myself," Mary discreetly evaded.

"You're too fine a woman not to," retorted the other. "Now I tell you.
I've been treated for my chest at the Women's and Children's Hospital.
There's one little doctor there's cute's she can be. I'm goin' to get you
her address. You've got to treat yourself right. Good-bye," nodded the
little woman; and was gone in her usual brisk fashion.

It was the day of Mr. Farraday's expected call, and Miss Mason had hardly
departed when the bell rang. Mary hastily put away her sewing and pressed
the electric button which opened the downstairs door to visitors. She
wished Stefan were back again to help her entertain the editor, and
greeted him with apologies for her husband's absence. She was anxious
that this man, whom she instinctively liked and trusted, should see her
husband at his best. Seating Farraday in the Morris chair, she got him
some tea, while he looked about with interest.

The two big pictures, "Tempest," and "Pursuit," now hung stretched but
unframed, on either side of the room. Farraday's gaze kept returning to
them.

"Those are his Beaux Arts pictures; extraordinary, aren't they?" said
Mary, following his eyes.

"They certainly are. Remarkably powerful. I understand there is another,
though, that he has only just finished?"

"Yes, it's on the easel, covered, you see," she answered. "Stefan must
have the honor of showing you that himself."

"I wish you would tell me, Mrs. Byrd," said Farraday, changing the
subject, "how you happened to write those verses? Had you been brought up
with children, younger brothers and sisters, for instance?"

Mary shook her head. "No, I'm the younger of two. But I've always loved
children more than anything in the world." She blushed, and Farraday,
watching her, realized for the first time what a certain heightened
radiance in her face betokened. He smiled very sweetly at her. She in her
turn saw that he knew, and was glad. His manner seemed to enfold her in a
mantle of comfort and understanding.

As they finished their tea, Stefan arrived. He entered gaily, greeted
Farraday, and fell upon the tea, consuming two cups and several slices of
bread and butter with the rapid concentration he gave to all his acts.

That finished, he leaped up and made for the easel.

"Now, Farraday," he cried, "you are going to see one of the finest modern
paintings in the world. Why should I be modest about it? I'm not. It's a
masterpiece--Mary's and mine!"

Mary wished he had not included her. Though determined to overcome the
feeling, she still shrank from having the picture shown in her presence.
Farraday placed himself in position, and Stefan threw back the cloth,
watching the other's face with eagerness. The effect surpassed his
expectation. The editor flushed, then gradually became quite pale. After
a minute he turned rather abruptly from the canvas and faced Stefan.

"You are right, Mr. Byrd," he said, in an obviously controlled voice, "it
_is_ a masterpiece. It will make your name and probably your
fortune. It is one of the most magnificent modern paintings I have ever
seen."

Mary beamed.

"Your praise honors me," said Stefan, genuinely delighted.

"I'm sorry I have to run away now," Farraday continued almost hurriedly.
"You know what a busy man I am." He shook hands with Stefan. "A thousand
congratulations," he said. "Good-bye, Mrs. Byrd; I enjoyed my cup of tea
with you immensely." The hand he offered her was cold; he hardly looked
up. "You will let me have some more stories, won't you? I shall count on
them. Good-bye again--my warmest congratulations to you both," and he
took his departure with a suddenness only saved from precipitation by the
deliberate poise of his whole personality.

"I'm sorry he had to go so soon," said Mary, a little blankly.

"What got into the man?" Stefan wondered, thrusting his hands into his
pockets. "He was leisurely enough till he had seen the picture. I tell
you what!" he exclaimed. "Did you notice his expression when he looked at
it? I believe the chap is in love with you!" He turned his most impish
and mischievous face to her.

Mary blushed with annoyance. "How perfectly ridiculous, Stefan! Please
don't say such things."

"But he is!" He danced about the room, hugely entertained by his idea.
"Don't you see, that is why he is so eager about your verses, and why he
was so bouleversé by the Danaë! Poor chap, I feel quite sorry for him.
You must be nice to him."

Mary was thoroughly annoyed. "Please don't talk like that," she
reiterated. "You don't know how it hurts when you are so flippant. If you
suggest such a reason for his acceptance of my work, of course I can't
send in any more." Tears of vexation were in her eyes.

"Darling, don't be absurd," he responded, teasingly. "Why shouldn't he be
in love with you? I expect everybody to be so. As for your verses, of
course he wouldn't take them if they weren't good; I didn't mean that."

"Then why did you say it?" she asked, unplacated.

"Dearest!" and he kissed her. "Don't be dignified; be Aphrodite again,
not Pallas. I never mean anything I say, except when I say I love you!"

"Love isn't the only thing, Stefan," she replied.

"Isn't it? What else is there? I don't know," and he jumped on the table
and sat smiling there with his head on one side, like a naughty little
boy facing his schoolmaster.

She wanted to answer "comprehension," but was silent, feeling the
uselessness of further words. How expect understanding of a common human
hurt from this being, who alternately appeared in the guise of a god and
a gamin? She remembered the old tale of the maiden wedded to the
beautiful and strange elf-king. Was the legend symbolic of that
mysterious thread--call it genius or what you will--that runs its erratic
course through humanity's woof, marring yet illuminating the staid
design, never straightened with its fellow-threads, never tied, and never
to be followed to its source? With the feeling of having for an instant
held in her hand the key to the riddle of his nature, Mary went to Stefan
and ran her fingers gently through his hair.

"Child," she said, smiling at him rather sadly; and "Beautiful," he
responded, with a prompt kiss.




X


The next morning brought Constance Elliot, primed with a complete scheme
for the future of the Danaë. She found Mary busy with her sewing and
Stefan rather restlessly cleaning his pallette and brushes. The great
picture was propped against the wall, a smaller empty canvas being
screwed on the easel. Stefan greeted her enthusiastically.

"Come in!" he cried, forestalling Mary. "You find us betwixt and between.
She's finished," indicating the Danaë, "and I'm thinking of doing an
interior, with Mary seated. I don't know," he went on thoughtfully; "it's
quite out of my usual line, but we're too domestic here just now for
anything else." His tone was slightly grumbling. From the rocking chair
Constance smiled importantly on them both. She had the happy faculty of
never appearing to hear what should not have been expressed.

"Children," she said, "your immediate future is arranged. I have a plan
for the proper presentation of the masterpiece to a waiting world, and I
haven't been responsible for two suffrage matinees and a mile of the
Parade for nothing. I understand publicity. Now listen."

She outlined her scheme to them. The reporters were to be sent for and
informed that the great new American painter, sensation of this year's
Salon, had kindly consented to a private exhibition of his masterpiece at
her house for the benefit of the Cause. Tickets, one dollar each, to be
limited to two hundred.

"Then a bit about your both being Suffragists, and about Mary's writing,
you know," she threw in. "Note the value of the limited sale--at once it
becomes a privilege to be there." Tickets, she went on to explain, would
be sent to the art critics of the newspapers, and Mr. Farraday would
arrange to get Constantine himself and one or two of the big private
connoisseurs. She personally knew the curator of the Metropolitan, and
would get him. The press notices would be followed by special letters and
articles by some of these men. Then Constantine would announce a two
weeks' exhibition at his gallery, the public would flock, and the picture
would be bought by one of the big millionaires, or a gallery. "I've
arranged it all," she concluded triumphantly, looking from one to the
other with her dark alert glance.

Stefan was grinning delightedly, his attention for the moment completely
captured. Mary's sewing had dropped to her lap; she was round-eyed.

"But the sale itself, Mrs. Elliot, you can hardly have arranged that?"
she laughed.

Constance waved her hand. "That arranges itself. It is enough to set the
machinery in motion."

"Do you mean to say," went on Mary, half incredulous, "that you can
simply send for the reporters and get them to write what you want?"

"Within reason, certainly," answered the other. "Why not?"

"In England," Mary laughed, "if a woman were to do that, unless she were
a duchess, a Pankhurst, or a great actress, they wouldn't even come."

Constance dismissed this with a shrug. "Ah, well, my dear, luckly we're
not in England! I'm going to begin to-day. I only came over to get your
permission. Let me see--this is the sixteenth--too near Christmas. I'll
have the tickets printed and the press announcement prepared, and we'll
let them go in the dead week after Christmas, when the papers are
thankful for copy. We'll exhibit the first Saturday in the New Year. For
a week we'll have follow-up articles, and then Constantine will take it.
You blessed people," and she rose to go, "don't have any anxiety.
Suffragists always put things through, and I shall concentrate on this
for the next three weeks. I consider the picture sold."

Mary tried to express her gratitude, but the other waved it aside. "I
just love you both," she cried in her impulsive way, "and want to see you
where you ought to be--at the top!" She shook hands with Stefan
effusively. "Mind you get on with your next picture!" she cried in
parting; "every one will be clamoring for your work!"

"Oh, Stefan, isn't it awfully good of her?" exclaimed Mary, linking her
arm through his. He was staring at his empty canvas. "Yes, splendid," he
responded carelessly, "but of course she'll have the kudos, and her
organization will benefit, too."

"Stefan!" Mary dropped his arm, dumfounded. It was not possible he should
be so ungenerous. She would have remonstrated, but saw he was oblivious
of her.

"Yes," he went on absently, looking from the room to the canvas, "it's
fine for every one all round--just as it should be. Now, Mary, if you
will sit over there by the fire and take your sewing, I think I'll try
and block in that Dutch interior effect I noticed some time back. The
light is all wrong, but I can get the thing composed."

He was lost in his new idea. Mary told herself she had in part misjudged
him. His comment on their friend's assistance was not dictated by lack of
appreciation so much as by indifference. No sooner was the picture's
future settled than he had ceased to be interested in it. The practical
results of its sale would have little real meaning for him, she knew. She
began to see that all he asked of humanity was that it should leave him
untrammeled to do his work, while yielding him full measure of the beauty
and acclamation that were his food. "Well," she thought, "I'm the wife of
a genius. It's a great privilege, but it is strange, for I always
supposed if I married it would simply be some good, kind man. He would
have been very dull," she smiled to herself, mentally contrasting the
imagined with the real.

A few days before Christmas Mary noticed that one of the six skyscraper
studies was gone from the studio. She spoke of it, fearing the
possibility of a theft, but Stefan murmured rather vaguely that it was
all right--he was having it framed. Also, on three consecutive mornings
she awakened to find him busily painting at a small easel close under the
window, which he would hastily cover on hearing her move. As he evidently
did not wish her to see it, she wisely restrained her curiosity. She was
herself busy with various little secrets--there was some knitting to be
done whenever his back was turned, and she had made several shopping
expeditions. On Christmas Eve Stefan was gone the whole afternoon, and
returned radiant, full of absurd jokes and quivers of suppressed glee. He
was evidently highly pleased with himself, but cherished with touching
faith, she thought, the illusion that his manner betrayed nothing.

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