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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 jumped up, amazed at the time she had wasted. Her spell of depression was over, and she was her usual cheerful self when, at three o'clock, she heard Stefan's feet bounding up the stairs for the last time. "Tra-la, Mary, the car is here!" he called. "Thank God we are getting out of this city! Good-by, Miss Sparrow, don't peck me, and come and see us at Crab's Bay. March, Lily.
I helps you along, sure." He had dashed towards him with devastating speed. The fellow turned to run, but a second later the slack of some of his garments was in Stefan's huge hand. Struggling and backing he found himself half lifted, half propelled on the ground, all the way to the sled. There he was lifted high and dumped in, like a bag of feed. "Any oders as need help?" roared Stefan.
The waiting man had not recognized Stefan's voice, nor, had he done so, would he have feared detection. Stefan's eyes and ears were quick, however, and in that pause he had held up a warning finger to his companion and had then sprung forward. "I took you for your master," cried the waiting man when he saw that he was discovered, "but "
The transom was open, and through it Mary, who had paused on the landing to button her glove, overheard Miss Berber's valedictory pronouncement. "The English are a remarkable race remarkable. Character in them is fixed in us, fluid." Mary sped down the first flight, in terror of hearing Stefan's reply.
While her work progressed, Stefan's remained at a standstill. Disillusioned with his marriage and with his whole way of life he fretted himself from his old sure confidence to a mood of despair. Their friends bored him, his studio like his house became a cage. New York appeared in her old guise of mammoth materialist, but now he had no heart to satirize her dishonor.
When Mary was posed she became absorbed in watching Gunther's work grow. He modeled with extraordinary speed, yet his movements had none of the lightning swoops and darts of Stefan's method.
He raised his glass of lemonade, and ostentatiously drank Stefan's health. The others laughed at him, and the conversation veered. Mary absorbed herself in trying to draw out the bashful Jamie, and Stefan listened while his hostess talked on her favorite theme, that of her son, James Farraday.
At last he roused himself and stretched stiffly. The lamp was burning low he looked at his watch it was four o'clock. Stefan's Gladstone bag still yawned on a chair beside the table. In it, the dull glow of the lamp was reflected from a small silver object lying among a litter of ties and socks. Adolph picked it up, and looked for some moments at the face of Mary, smiling above her little son.
They trooped into the quaint little barn, which appeared to wear its big north light rather primly, as a girl her first low-necked gown. It was unfurnished, save for a table and easel, several canvases, and an old arm-chair. Felicity glanced at the sketches. "In pastoral mood again," she commented, with what might have been the faintest note of sarcasm. Stefan's eyebrows twitched nervously.
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