The Nest Builder

announced. She sprang to the door and had her arms round his neck before he could speak. She took the heavy roll of canvases from him and half pushed him into the room's one comfortable arm-cha

In spite of his tan, it was pale, with hollows under the eyes. It was extraordinary tha

Nobody wants my things. This is what I've let you in for." His tone had the indifferent quality of extreme fati

waiter, as the card over it instructed her. "Failure indeed!" she went on, clearing a small table, "there's no such word! One doesn't grow rich in a day, you know." She moved silently

is arm about her he described all his experiences, the fiasco of the Jensen affair and his subsequent interviews with Fifth Avenue dealers. "They are all Jews, Mary. Some are decent enough fellows, I suppose, though I hate the Israelites!" ("Silly boy!" she interposed.) "Others are horrors. None of them want the work of an American. Old masters, or well known foreigners, they say. I explained my success at the Beaux Arts.

n," interposed

d have a gallery for nothing, do you? God knows what it would cost. Besides

race of which did not escape him even in his impatient mood, "I haven't even seen the pictures yet, you know, and can't wait any longer. Let me look at th

om her, undid them and, casting aside the smaller ones, spread the two largest against the wall, propping their corners adroitly with chairs, an umbrella, and a walking stick. "Don't look yet," he called meanwhile

ion. 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; it was repellent in its likeness at once to a fish and a man. The mermaid's face was less inhuman, but it was stricken with a horrid terror. She was

enius, Stefa

ike them?" he

satisfied, for it was her heart, no

e distance. The atmosphere was indescribably light-hearted. Mary smiled as she looked at it. The other two were empty of figures; they were delicately graceful and alluring, but there was something lacking in them--what, she could not tell. She liked best a sk

a baby, dearest!

swered carelessly. "The picture is sentimental, though.

ize a little what a strange being she had married. With an impulsive need of protection

ers she was already assuming a leadership which he was glad to follow. She suggested that in the morning he should take his smaller canva

sacrilegious to discuss the price of saucepans with a god

" she cried, astonishe

inherited the bed from the last occupant, and I think Adolph insisted on finding a pillow and a frying-pan. He used to come up and cook for us both sometimes,

pping list. "Tell me, absurd creature, what you really need

nd he sat up. "I go out early to-morrow on my dealer hunt. I force myself to stay out until late afternoon. When I return, behold! The goddess has waved her hand, and invisible minions-" h

d. "I only hope the goddess won

ore not to mention them. Mary came of a race whose women had always served their men. It did not seem stran

d I don't want to spend a cent till I have made something." They had spent very little so far; she was relieved to realize that the five hundred dollars remained almost intact. While Stefan continued to smoke luxuriously on the bed, she jotted down figures

starting housekeeping to-morrow, and I know absolutely nothing about where to shop, or what things ought to cost. Would it be

Miss Mason, who had to obtain all her romance vicariously.

lity which she knew Stefan had entirely forgotten-and notified

d precious pearls!" cha

white beams of the arc lamps near the arch. Above each of these, a myriad tiny moths fluttered their desirous wings. Under the trees Italian couples wandered, the men with dark amorous glances, the

reign, full of ardor and color. I have cursed America without cause-here I can f

d serious, and, urged by curiosity, gradually approached Mary, his velvet eyes fixed on her face. Sh

she cried; "is

"Let's move on before he begins to yell. I want to see the effect from the roadway of these

e gently lowered him and, rising, moved off in silence with Stefan, who was ignorant of any offens