Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

“ Nestling under the trees, but facing the bay, was just such a little house as Mary had admired along the road, low and snug, shingled on walls and roof, painted white, with green shutters and a little columned porch at the front door. A small barn stood near; a little hedge divided house from lane; evidences of a flower garden showed under the windows. “Oh, what a duck!” Mary exclaimed. “Oh, Stefan!” She could almost have wept.
Farraday helped her down.
“Mrs. Byrd,” said he with his most kindly smile, “here is the key. Would you like to unlock the door yourself?” ”

“ Mary sank into her chair with the paper. There was the staring black headline, but she could hardly believe it. The Lusitania gone? The great ship she knew so well, on which she and Stefan had met, gone! Lying in the ooze, with fish darting above the decks where she had walked with Stefan. Those hundreds of cabins a labyrinth for fish to lose their way in—all rotting in the black sea currents. The possible loss of life had not yet come home to her. It was inconceivable that there would not have been ample time for every one to escape. ”

“ Mary was neither morbid nor introspective, but at this time her whole being was keyed to more than normal comprehension. Watching the picture, seeing that it was a portrayal not of her but of his love for her, she wondered if any woman could long endure the arduousness of such deification, or if a man who had visioned a goddess could long content himself with a mortal.
The face, too, vaguely troubled her. True to his promise, Stefan had not made it a portrait, but its unlikeness lay rather in the meaning and expression than in the features. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Did Thoreau surround himself with things—to hamper—did George Borrow, or Whitman, or Stevenson? Do you suppose Rodin, or de Musset, or Rousseau, or Millet, or any one else who has ever lived, cared whether they had a position, a house, horses, old furniture? All the world's wanderers, from Ulysses down to the last tramp who knocked at this door, have known more of life than all your generations of staid conventional county families! Oh, Mary”—he leant across the table toward her, and his voice pleaded—“think of what life should be. Think of the peasants in France treading out the wine. ”

“ Any visitor, he thought morosely, won more attention from her than he did, and this was in a sense true, for the visitors openly admired the baby—the heart of Mary's life—and he did not.
He did not know how intensely she longed for this, how she ached to see Stefan jab his finger at the baby as McEwan did, or watch it with the tender smile of Farraday. She tried a thousand simple wiles to bring to life the father in him. About to nurse the baby, she would call Stefan to see his eager search for the comfort of her breast, looking up in proud joy as the tiny mouth was satisfied. ”

“ The Elliot house lay in a high fold of the hills, overlooking the lake, and almost out of sight of other buildings. Within, all was spacious warmth and the crackle of great wood fires; on every side the icy view, seen through wide windows, contrasted with the glowing colors of the rooms. A steaming breakfast waited to fortify the hastily drunk coffee of the train. After it, when the Byrds found themselves in their cozy bedroom with its old New England furniture and blue-tiled bathroom, Stefan, waltzing round the room, fairly hugged Mary in excited glee. ”

“ When the scattered applause warned him that the time for Mary's song had come, he found himself utterly unable to face the saloon again. Fortunately the main companionway gave on a well opening directly over the saloon; and it was from the railing of this well that Stefan saw Mary, just as the piano sounded the opening bars.
She stood full under the brilliant lights in a gown of white chiffon, low in the neck, which drooped and swayed about her in flowing lines of grace. Her hair gleamed; her arms showed slim, white, but strong. And “Oh, my golden girl!” his heart cried to her, leaping. ”

“ The pictures were imaginative, powerful, arresting, but they were not pleasing. Few people, she felt, would care to live with them. After a long scrutiny she turned to her husband, at once glorying in the strength of his talent and troubled by its quality.
“You are a genius, Stefan,” she said.
“You really like them?” he asked eagerly.
“I think they are wonderful!” He was satisfied, for it was her heart, not her voice, that held a reservation.
Stefan showed her the smaller canvases, some unfinished. Most were of nymphs and winged elves, but there were three landscapes. ”

“ Stefan turned to her. Her face and hair shone silver, glorified. They looked at each other, their eyes strange in the moonlight. They seemed to melt together. His arms were round her, and they kissed.
A little later he began to talk, and it was of his young mother, dead years ago in Michigan, that he spoke. “You are the only woman who has ever reminded me of her, Mary. The only one whose beauty has been so divinely kind. All my life has been lonely between losing her and finding you.”
This thrilled her with an ache of mother-pity. ”

“ Stefan's moods were not always calm. He had his hours of fierce rebellion, when he felt he could not endure another moment with his deadened carcass; when, without life, it seemed so much better to die. He had days of passionate longing for the world, for love, for everything he had lost. Mary fell into the habit of borrowing the Farradays' car when she saw such a mood approaching, and sending Stefan for long drives alone. The rushing flight seldom failed to carry him beyond the reach of his black mood. ”

“ But Mary had stopped singing, and dropped on the divan as if suddenly tired. She held out her arms to Stefan, and he sat beside her, lover-like.
“Oh, dearest,” she said, her voice vibrating with tenderness, “I've wanted so to help, and now I think I've sold a story, and I've found a chance for your New York drawings. I'm so happy.”
“Why, you mysterious creature, your eyes have tears in them—and all because you've helped me! I've never seen your tears, Mary; they make your eyes like stars lost in a pool.” ”

“ These affected her almost like prison bars; but Long Island's summer scourge had come, and after a few experiences of nights sung sleepless by the persistent horn of the enemy and made agonizing by his sting, she welcomed the screens as deliverers. The mosquitoes apart, Mary had adored the long, warm days—not too hot as yet on the Byrdsnest's shady eminence—and the perpetually smiling skies, so different from the sulky heavens of England. But she began to feel very heavy, and found it increasingly difficult to keep cool, so that she counted the days till her deliverance. ”

“ She did not love Stefan less, but her love was to be made flesh, and it was that incarnation she now adored. If she had been given to self-analysis she might have asked what it boded that she had never—save for that one moment's adoration of his genius the day he completed the Danaë—felt for Stefan the abandonment of love she felt for his coming child. She might have wondered, but she did not, for she felt too intensely in these days to have much need of thought. She loved her husband—he was a great man—they were to have a child. ”

“ Her hands, he thought, had the whiteness and consistency of a camelia.
“All the artists are not I, however,” he answered with a smiling shrug.
“Greek meets Greek,” thought Constance, amused, turning away to other guests.
“I admit that.” Miss Berber lit another cigarette. “I have seen your Danaë. The people who have painted me have been fools. Obvious—treating me like an advertisement for cold cream.”
She breathed a sigh, and sank again to the sofa. Her lids drooped as if in weariness of such banalities. Stefan sat beside her, the manner of both eliminating the surrounding group. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Isn't it unpleasant that girls should kill themselves because of some fool man? And wouldn't sub-humans have a right to ribald laughter at a system which fosters such things!”
“He has painted me as a sub-human, Mrs. Byrd,” drawled Felicity through her smoke, “but when I hear his opinion of humans I feel complimented.”
“It seems to me,” said Mary, “that she's not laughing at humans in general, but at this particular girl, for having cared. That's what makes it unpleasant to me.”
“I dare say she is,” said Stefan carelessly. ”

“ Deep in her being she seemed to feel an urge toward waiting, toward preparation, toward the collection of she knew not what small household gods. It was as if she wished to make fair a place to receive her sacrament of love. But this she could not express, could not speak to him of the vision of the tiny hand.
“You're brave, Mary. Your courage was one of the things I most loved in you. Let's be brave together!” His smile was irresistibly happy.
She could not bear that he should doubt her courage, and she wanted passionately not to take that smile from his face. She began to weaken. ”

“ She skated almost entirely with Stefan, only once with Gunther, who, since his strange look in the sleigh, a little troubled her. On that one occasion he tore round the clear ice at breakneck speed, halting her dramatically, by sheer weight, a few inches from the bank, where she arrived breathless and thrilled.
Seeing her thus at her best, happy and admired, and full of vigorous life, Stefan found himself almost as much in love as in the early weeks of their marriage.
“You are more beautiful than ever, Mary,” he exclaimed; “there is an added life and strength in you; you are triumphant.” ”

“ Mary opened her eyes. “Why, Stefan, they're wonderful!” she exclaimed. But even as she spoke, and amidst her sincere admiration, her heart, very slightly, sank. She knew enough of painting to see that here was genius. The two fantasies, one representing the spirits of a wind-storm, the other a mermaid fleeing a merman's grasp, were brilliant in color, line and conception. They were things of beauty, but it was a beauty strange, menacing, subhuman. The figures that tore through the clouds urged on the storm with a wicked and abandoned glee. The face of the merman almost frightened her ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though they were keeping the room, it would never hold the same meaning for her again, and though she already loved their new home, it hurt her at the last to bid their first good-bye. Perhaps it was a trick of fatigue, but as she lay there the conviction came to her that with to-day's change some part of the early glamour of marriage was to go, that not even the coming of her child could bring to life the memories this room contained. She longed for her husband, for his voice calling her the old, dear, foolish names. She felt alone, and fearful of the future. ”

“ They were sitting on the boat deck, aft, watching the wake of the ship as it twisted like an uncertain white serpent. Stefan was sketching her, as he had done already several times when he could get her apart from hovering children—he could not endure being overlooked as he worked. “They chew gum in my ear, and breathe down my neck,” he would explain.
He had almost completed an impression of her head against the sky, with a flying veil lifting above it, when a shadow fell across the canvas, and the voice of McEwan blared out a pleased greeting. ”

“ Oh, Mary,” he flung himself down beside her, and clutched her hand eagerly, “don't be wise; don't be sensible, darling. It's March, spring is beginning in Europe. It's a year and a half since I became an exile. Let's go, beloved. You say yourself we have plenty of money; let's take ship for the land where beauty is understood, where it is put first, above all things. Let's go back to France, Mary!”
His face was fired with eagerness; he almost trembled with the passion to be gone. Mary flushed, and then grew pale with apprehension. “Do you mean break up our home, Stefan, for good?” ”

“ A girl baby, lying like a pink bud among the roses of the garden, might have appealed to that elfin imagination which largely took the place in him of romance—but a boy! A boy was merely in his eyes another male, and Stefan considered the world far too full of men already.
He sealed his attitude when the question of the child's name came up. Mary had fallen into a habit of calling it “Little Stefan,” or “Steve” for short, and one morning, as the older Stefan crossed the lawn to his studio her voice floated down from the nursery in an improvised song to her “Stefan Baby.” ”