The Nest Builder Part 45

He flung himself down at the desk, and s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 n.o.blest 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 G.o.ddess, 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 a.s.suaged 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 a.s.suage 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 das.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 dejeuner 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 negligee was of the clear green of a wave's concavity--a b.u.t.terfly 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 a.n.a.lyzed 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 cus.h.i.+ons--"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 a.s.sure 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 cus.h.i.+ons--"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 pa.s.sed 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 Ma.r.s.eillaise. The students sang to it, cheering wildly.