  Byrd had lived for seven years in Paris, wandering on foot in summer through much of France and Italy. His little patrimony, stretched to the last sou, and supplemented in later years by the occasional sale of his work to small dealers, had sufficed him so long. His headquarters were in a high windowed attic facing north along the rue des Quatre Ermites. His work had been much admired in the ateliers, but his personal unpopularity with, the majority of the students had prevented their admiration changing to a friendship whose demands would have drained his small resources. “Ninety-nine per cent of the Quarter dislikes Stefan Byrd,” an Englishman had said, “but one per cent adores him.” Repeated to Byrd, this utterance was accepted by him with much complacence, for, even more than the average man, he prided himself upon his faults of character. His adoration of Paris had not prevented him from criticizing its denizens; the habits of mental withdrawal and reservation developed in his boyhood did not desert him in the city of friendship, but he became more deeply aware of the loneliness which they involved. He searched eagerly for the few whose qualities of mind or person lifted them beyond reach of his demon of disparagement, and he found them, especially among women. To a minority of that sex he was unusually attractive, and he became a lover of women, but as subjects for enthusiasm rather than desire. In passion he was curious but capricious, seldom rapidly roused, nor long held. In his relations with women emotion came second to mental stimulation, so that he never sought one whose mere sex was her main attraction. This saved him from much—he was experienced, but not degraded. Of love, however, in the fused sense of body, mind, and spirit, he knew nothing. Perhaps his work claimed too much from him; at any rate he was too egotistical, too critical and self-sufficient to give easily. Whether he had received such love he did not ask himself—it is probable that he had, without knowing it, or understanding that he had not himself given full measure in return. The heart of France is practical; with all her ardor Paris had given Byrd desire and friendship, but not romance. In his last year, with only a few francs of his inheritance remaining, Stefan had three pictures in the Beaux Arts. One of these was sold, but the other two importuned vainly from their hanging places. Enormous numbers of pictures had been exhibited that year. Every gallery, public and private, was crowded; Paris was glutted with works of art. Stefan faced the prospect of speedy starvation if he could not dispose of another canvas. He had enough for a summer in Brittany, after which, if the dealers could do nothing for him, he was stranded. Nevertheless, he enjoyed his holiday light-heartedly, confident that his two large pictures could not long fail to be appreciated. Returning to Paris in September, however, he was dismayed to find his favorite dealers uninterested in his canvases, and disinclined to harbor them longer. Portraits and landscapes, they told him, were in much demand, but fantasies, no. His sweeping groups of running, flying figures against stormy skies, or shoals of mermaids hurrying down lanes of the deep sea, did not appeal to the fashionable taste of the year. Something more languorous, more subdued, or, on the other hand, more “chic,” was demanded. In a high rage of disgust, Stefan hired a fiacre, and bore his children defiantly home to their birthplace. Sitting in his studio like a ruffled bird upon a spoiled hatching, he reviewed the fact that he had 325 francs in the world, that the rent of his attic was overdue, and that his pictures had never been so unmarketable as now. At this point his one intimate man friend, Adolph Jensen, a Swede, appeared as the deus ex machine. He had, he declared, an elder brother in New York, an art dealer. This brother had just written him, describing the millionaires who bought his pictures and bric-a-brac. His shop was crowded with them. Adolph's brother was shrewd and hard to please, but let his cher Stefan go himself to New York with his canvases, impress the brother with his brilliance and the beauty of his work, and, undoubtedly, his fortune would at once be made. The season in New York was in the winter. Let Stefan go at once, by the fastest boat, and be first in the field—he, Adolph, who had a little laid by, would lend him the necessary money, and would write his brother in advance of the great opportunity he was sending him. Ultimately, with a very ill grace on Stefan's part—who could hardly be persuaded that even a temporary return to America was preferable to starvation—it was so arranged. The second-class passage money was 250 francs; for this and incidentals, he had enough, and Adolph lent him another 250 to tide him over his arrival. He felt unable to afford adequate crating, so his canvases were unstretched and made into a roll which he determined should never leave his hands. His clothing was packed in two bags, one contributed by Adolph. Armed with his roll, and followed by his enthusiastic friend carrying the bags, Stefan departed from the Gare Saint-Lazare for Dieppe, Liverpool, and the Lusitania. Reacting to his friend's optimism, Stefan had felt confident enough on leaving Paris, but the discomforts of the journey had soon flattened his spirits, and now, limp in his berth, he saw the whole adventure mistaken, unreal, and menacing. In leaving the country of his adoption for that of his birth, he now felt that he had put himself again in the clutches of a chimera which had power to wither with its breath all that was rare and beautiful in his life. Nursing a grievance against himself and fate, he at last fell asleep, clothed as he was, and forgot himself for a time in such uneasy slumber as the storm allowed.
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