The Nest Builder Part 18

At this point Mary ventured to draw attention to herself.

"Why is it, Miss Berber," she asked in her clear English voice, "that you have only couches here?"

Felicity's lids trembled; she half looked up. "How seldom one hears a beautiful voice," she uttered. "Chairs, Mrs. Byrd, destroy women's beauty. Why sit, when one can recline? My clients may not wear corsets; reclining encourages them to feel at ease without."

Mary found Miss Berber's affectations absurd, but this explanation heightened her respect for her intelligence. "Method in her madness,"

she quoted to herself.

"Miss Berber, I want you to create a gown for my wife. I am sure when you look at her you will be interested in the idea." Stefan expected every one to pay tribute to Mary's beauty.

Again Miss Berber's fingers strayed. The nymph appeared. "How long have I, Chloris? ... Half an hour? Then send me Daphne. You notice the silence, Mr. Byrd? It rests my clients, brings health to their nerves.

Without it, I could not do my work."

Mary smiled as she mentally contrasted these surroundings with Farraday's office, where she had last heard that expression. Was quiet so rare a privilege in America, she wondered?

A moment, and a second damsel emerged, brown-haired, clad in a paler green, and carrying paper and pencil. Not until this ministrant had seated herself at the foot of Miss Berber's couch did that lady refer to Stefan's request. Then, propping herself on her elbow, she at last looked full at Mary. What she saw evidently pleased her, for she allowed herself a slight smile. "Ah," she breathed, "an evening, or a house gown?"

"Evening," interposed Stefan. Then to Mary, "You look your best decolletee, you know."

"Englishwomen always do," murmured Miss Berber.

"Will you kindly take off your hat and coat, and stand up, Mrs. Byrd?"

Mary complied, feeling uncomfortably like a cloak model.

"Cla.s.sic, pure cla.s.sic. How seldom one sees it!" Miss Berber's voice became quite audible. "Gold, of course, cla.s.sic lines, gold sandals.

A fillet, but no ornaments. You wish to wear this raiment during the ensuing months, Mrs. Byrd?" Mary nodded. "Then write Demeter type," the designer interpolated to her satellite, who was taking notes. "Otherwise it would of course be Artemis--or Aphrodite even?" turning for agreement to Stefan. "Would you say Aphrodite?"

"I always do," beamed he, delighted.

At this point the first nymph, Chloris, again appeared, and at a motion of Miss Berber's hand rapidly and silently measured Mary, the paler hued nymph a.s.sisting her as scribe.

"Mr. Byrd," p.r.o.nounced the autocrat of the establishment, when at the conclusion of these rites the attendants had faded from the room. "I never design for less than two hundred dollars. Such a garment as I have in mind for your wife, queenly and abundant--" her hands waved in ill.u.s.tration--"would cost three hundred. But--" her look checked Mary in an exclamation of refusal--"we belong to the same world, the world of art, not of finance. Yes?" She smiled. "Your painting, Mr. Byrd, is worth three times what I gave for it, and Mrs. Byrd will wear my raiment as few clients can. It will give me pleasure"--her lids drooped to ill.u.s.trate finality--"to make this garment for the value of the material, which will be--" her lips smiled amus.e.m.e.nt at the bagatelle--"between seventy and eighty-five dollars--no more." She ceased.

Mary felt uncomfortable. Why should she accept such a favor at the hands of this poseuse? Stefan, however, saved her the necessity of decision.

He leapt to his feet, all smiles.

"Miss Berber," he cried, "you honor us, and Mary will glorify your design. It is probable," he beamed, "that we cannot afford a dress at all, but I disregard that utterly." He shrugged, and snapped a finger.

"You have given me an inspiration. As soon as the dress arrives, I shall paint Mary as Demeter. Mille remerciements!" Bending, he kissed Miss Berber's hand in the continental manner. Mary, watching, felt a tiny p.r.i.c.k of jealousy. "He never kissed my hand," she thought, and instantly scorned herself for the idea.

The designer smiled languidly up at Stefan. "I am happy," she murmured.

"No fittings, Mrs. Byrd. We rarely fit, except the model gowns. You will have the garment in a week. Au revoir." Her eyes closed. They turned to find a high-busted woman entering the room, accompanied by two young girls. As they departed a breath-like echo floated after them, "Oh, really, Mrs. Van Sittart--still those corsets? I can do nothing for you, you know." Tones of shrill excuse penetrated to the lift door. At the curb below stood a dyspeptically stuffed limousine, guarded by two men in puce liveries.

The Byrds swung southward in silence, but suddenly Stefan heaved a great breath. "Nom d'un nom d'un nom d'un vieux bonhomme!" he exploded, voicing in that c.u.mulative expletive his extreme satisfaction with the morning.

XII

Constance Elliot had not boasted her stage-management in vain. On the first Sat.u.r.day in January all proceeded according to schedule. The Danae, beautifully framed, stood at the farther end of Constance's double drawing-room, from which all other mural impedimenta, together with most of the furniture, had been removed. Expertly lighted, the picture glowed in the otherwise obscure room like a thing of flame.

Two hundred ticket holders came, saw, and were conquered. Farraday, in his most correct cutaway, personally conducted a tour of three eminent critics to the Village. Sir Micah, the English curator of the Metropolitan, reflectively tapping an eye-gla.s.s upon an uplifted finger tip, p.r.o.nounced the painting a turning-point in American art. Four reporters--whose presence in his immediate vicinity Constance had insured--transferred this utterance to their note books. Artists gazed, and well-dressed women did not forbear to gush. Tea, punch, and yellow suffrage cakes were consumed in the dining room. There was much noise and excessive heat. In short, the occasion was a success.

Toward the end, when few people remained except the genial Sir Micah, whom Constance was judiciously holding with tea, smiles, and a good cigar, the all-important Constantine arrived. Prompted, Sir Micah was induced to repeat his verdict. But the picture spoke for itself, and the famous dealer was visibly impressed. Constance was able to eat her dinner at last with a comfortable sense of accomplishment. She was only sorry that the Byrds had not been there to appreciate her strategy.

Stefan, indeed, did appear for half an hour, but Mary's courage had failed her entirely. She had succ.u.mbed to an attack of stage fright and shut herself up at home.

As for Stefan, he had developed one of his most contrary moods. Refusing conventional attire, he clad himself in the baggy trousers and flowing tie of his student days, under the illusion that he was thus defying the prejudices of Philistia. He was unaware that the Philistines, as represented by the gentlemen of the press, considered his costume quintessentially correct for an artist just returned from Paris, and would have been grieved had he appeared otherwise. Unconsciously playing to the gallery, Stefan on arrival squared himself against a doorway and eyed the crowds with a frown of disapprobation. He had not forgotten his early snubs from the dealers, and saw in every innocent male visitor one of the fraternity.

Constance, in her bid for publicity, had sold most of her tickets to the socially prominent, so that Stefan was soon surrounded by voluble ladies unduly furred, corseted, and jeweled. He found these unbeautiful, and his misanthropy, which had been quiescent of late, rose rampant.

Presently he was introduced to a stout matron, whose costume centered in an enormous costal cascade of gray pearls.

"Mr. Byrd," she gushed, "I dote on art. I've made a study of it, and I can say that your picture is a triumph."

"Madam," he fairly scowled, "it is as easy for the rich to enter the kingdom of Art as for a camel to pa.s.s through the eye of a needle."

Leaving her pink with offense, he turned his back and, shaking off other would-be admirers, sought his hostess.

"My G.o.d, I can't stand any more of this--I'm off," he confided to her.

Constance was beginning to know her man. She gave him a quick scrutiny.

"Yes, I think you'd better be," she agreed, "before you spoil any of my good work. An absent lion is better than a snarling one. Run home to Mary." She dismissed him laughingly, and Stefan catapulted himself out of the house, thereby missing the attractive Miss Berber by a few minutes. Das.h.i.+ng home across the Square, he flung himself on the divan with every appearance of exhaustion. "Sing to me, Mary," he implored.

"Why, Stefan," she asked, startled, "wasn't it a success? What's the matter?"

"Success!" he scoffed. "Oh, yes. They all gushed and gurgled and squeaked and squalled. Horrible! Sing, dearest; I must hear something beautiful."

Failing to extract more from him, she complied.

The next day brought a full account of his success from Constance, and glowing tributes from the papers. The head-lines ranged from "Suffragettes Unearth New Genius" to "Distinguished Exhibit at Home of Theodore M. Elliot." The verdict was unanimous. A new star had risen in the artistic firmament. One look at the headings, and Stefan dropped the papers in disgust, but Mary pored over them all, and found him quite willing to listen while she read eulogistic extracts aloud.

Thus started, the fuse of publicity burnt brightly. Constance's carefully planned follow-up articles appeared, and reporters besieged the Byrds' studio. Unfortunately for Mary, these gentry soon discovered that she was the Danae's original, which fact created a mild succes de scandale. Personal paragraphs appeared about her and her writing, and, greatly embarra.s.sed, she disconnected the door-bell for over a week. But the picture was all the more talked about. In a week Constantine had it on exhibition; in three, he had sold it for five thousand dollars to a tobacco millionaire.

"Mary," groaned Stefan when he heard the news, "we have given in to Mammon. We are capitalists."

"Oh, dear, think of our beautiful picture going to some odious nouveau riche!" Mary sighed. But she was immeasurably relieved that Stefan's name was made, and that they were permanently lifted from the ranks of the needy.

That very day, as if to ill.u.s.trate their change of status, Mrs. Corriani puffed up the stairs with the news that the flat immediately below them had been abandoned over night. The tenants, a dark couple of questionable habits and nationality, had omitted the formality of paying their rent--the flat was on the market. The outcome was that Stefan and Mary, keeping their studio as a workshop, overflowed into the flat beneath, and found themselves in possession of a bed and bathroom, a kitchen and maid's room, and a sitting room. These they determined to furnish gradually, and Mary looked forward to blissful mornings at antique stores and auctions. She had been brought up amidst the Chippendale, old oak, and bra.s.ses of a cathedral close, and new furniture was anathema to her. A telephone and a colored maid-servant were installed. Their picnicking days were over.

XIII

True to her word, Constance arranged a reception in the Byrds' honor, at which they were to meet Felicity Berber. The promise of this encounter reconciled Stefan to the affair, and he was moreover enthusiastically looking forward to Mary's appearance in her new gown. This had arrived, and lay swathed in tissue paper in its box. In view of their change of fortune they had, in paying the account of seventy-five dollars, concocted a little note to Miss Berber, hoping she would now reconsider her offer, and render them a bill for her design. This note, written and signed by Mary in her upright English hand, brought forth a characteristic reply. On black paper and in vermilion ink arrived two lines of what Mary at first took to be Egyptian hieroglyphics. Studied from different angles, these yielded at last a single sentence: "A gift is a gift, and repays itself." This was followed by a signature traveling perpendicularly down the page in Chinese fas.h.i.+on. It was outlined in an oblong of red ink, but was itself written in green, the capitals being supplied with tap-roots extending to the base of each name. Mary tossed the letter over to Stefan with a smile. He looked at it judicially.

"There's draughtsmans.h.i.+p in that," he said; "she might have made an etcher. It's drawing, but it's certainly not handwriting."