It was late April. The wooded slopes behind “The Byrdsnest,” as Mary had christened the cottage, were peppered with a pale film of green. The lawn before the house shone with new grass. Upon it, in the early morning, Mary watched beautiful birds of types unknown to her, searching for nest-making material. She admired the large, handsome robins, so serious and stately after the merry pertness of the English sort, but her favorites were the bluebirds, and another kind that looked like greenish canaries, of which she did not know the name. None of them, she thought, had such melodious song as at home in England, but their brilliant plumage was a constant delight to her.

Daffodils were springing up in the garden, crocuses were out, and the blue scylla. On the downward slope toward the bay the brown furry heads of ferns had begun to push stoutly from the earth. The spring was awake.

Stefan seemed thoroughly contented again. He had his north light in the barn, but seldom worked there, being absorbed in outdoor sketching. He was making many small studies of the trees still bare against the gleam of water, with a dust of green upon them. He could get a number of valuable notes here, he told Mary.

During their first two weeks in the country his restlessness had often recurred. He had gone back and forth to the city for work on his Demeter, and had even slept there on several occasions. But one morning he wakened Mary by coming in from an early ramble full of joy in the spring, and announcing that the big picture was now as good as he could make it, and that he was done with the town. He threw back the blinds and called to her to look at the day.

“It's vibrant, Mary; life is waking all about us.” He turned to the bed.

“You look like a beautiful white rose, cool with the dew.”

She blushed—he had forgotten lately his old habit of pretty speech-making. He came and sat on the bed's edge, holding her hand.

“I've had my restless devil with me of late, sweetheart,” he said. “But now I feel renewed, and happy. I shan't want to leave you any more.” He kissed her with a gravity at which she might have wondered had she been more thoroughly awake. His tone was that of a man who makes a promise to himself.

Since that morning he had been consistently cheerful and carefree, more attentive to Mary than for some time past, and pleased with all his surroundings. She was overjoyed at the change, and for her own part never tired of working in the house and garden, striving to make more perfect the atmosphere of simple homeliness which Farraday had first imparted to them. Lily was fascinated by her kitchen and little white bedroom.

“This surely is a cute little house, yes, ma'am,” she would exclaim emphatically, with a grin.

Lily was a small, chocolate-colored negress, with a neat figure, and the ever ready smile which is God's own gift to the race. Mary, who hardly remembered having seen a negro till she came to America, had none of the color-prejudice which grows up in biracial communities. She found Lily civil, cheerful, and intelligent, and felt a sincere liking for her which the other reciprocated with a growing devotion.

Often in these days a passerby—had there been any—could have heard a threefold chorus rising about the cottage, a spring-song as unconscious as the birds'. From the kitchen Lily's voice rose in the endless refrain of a hymn; Mary's clear tones traveled down from the little room beside her own, where she was preparing a place for the expected one; and Stefan's whistle, or his snatches of French song, resounded from woods or barn. Youth and hope were in the house, youth was in the air and earth.

Farraday's gardens were the pride of the neighborhood, these and the library expressing him as the house did his mother. Several times he sent down an armful of flowers to the Byrdsnest, and, one Sunday morning, Mary had just finished arranging such a bunch in her vases when she heard the chug of an automobile in the lane. She looked out to see Constance, a veiled figure beside her, stopping a runabout at the gate. Delighted, she hastened to the door. Constance hailed her.

“Mary, behold the charioteer! Theodore has given me this machine for suffrage propaganda during the summer, and I achieved my driver's license yesterday. I'm so vain I'm going to make Felicity design me a gown with a peacock's tail that I can spread. I've brought her with me to show off too, and because she needed air. How are you, bless you? May we come in?”

Not waiting for an answer, she jumped down and hugged Mary, Miss Berber following in more leisurely fashion. Mary could not help wishing Constance had come alone, as she now felt a little self-conscious before strangers. However, she shook hands with Miss Berber, and led them both into the sitting-room.

“Simply delicious!” exclaimed Constance, glancing eagerly about her, “and how divinely healthy you look—like a transcendental dairy-maid! This place was made for you, and how you've improved it. Look, Felicity, at her chintz, and her flowers, and her cunning pair of china shepherdesses!” She ran from one thing to another, ecstatically appreciative.

Mary had had no chance to speak yet, and, as Felicity was absorbed in the languid removal of a satin coat and incredible yards of apple green veiling, Constance held the floor.

“Look at her pair of love-birds sidling along the curtain pole, as tame as humans! Where did you find that wooden cage? And that white cotton dress? You smell of lavender and an ironing-board! Oh, dear,” she began again, “driving is very wearing, and I should like a cocktail, but I must have milk. Milk, my dear Mary, is the only conceivable beverage in this house. Have you a cow? You ought to have a cow—a brindled cow—also a lamb; 'Mary had,' et cetera. My dear, stop me. Enthusiasm converts me into an 'agreeable rattle,' as they used to call our great-grandmothers.”

“Subdue yourself with this,” laughed Mary, holding out the desired glass of milk. “Miss Berber, can I get anything for you?”

Felicity by this time was unwrapped, and had disposed herself upon a window-seat, her back to the light.

“Wine or water, Mrs. Byrd; I do not drink milk,” she breathed, lighting a cigarette.

“We have some Chianti; nothing else, I'm afraid,” said Mary, and a glass of this the designer deigned to accept, together with a little yellow cake set with currants, and served upon a pewter plate.

“I see, Mrs. Byrd,” Felicity murmured, as Constance in momentary silence sipped her milk, “that you comprehend the first law of decoration for woman—that her accessories must be a frame for her type. I—how should I appear in a room like this?” She gave a faint shrug. “At best, a false tone in a chromatic harmony. You are entirely in key.”

Her eyelids drooped; she exhaled a long breath of smoke. “Very well thought out—unusually clever—for a layman,” she uttered, and was still, with the suggestion of a sibyl whose oracle has ceased to speak.

Mary tried not to find her manner irritating, but could not wholly dispel the impression that Miss Berber habitually patronized her.

She laughed pleasantly.

“I'm afraid I can't claim to have been guided by any subtle theories—I have merely collected together the kind of things I am fond of.”

“Mary decorates with her heart, Felicity, you with your head,” said Constance, setting down her empty tumbler.

“I'm afraid I should find the heart too erratic a guide to art. Knowledge, Mrs. Byrd, knowledge must supplement feeling,” said Felicity, with a gesture of finality.

“Really!” answered Mary, falling back upon her most correct English manner. There was nothing else to say. “She is either cheeky, or a bromide,” she thought.

“Felicity,” exclaimed Constance, “don't adopt your professional manner; you can't take us in. You know you are an outrageous humbug.”

“Dear Connie,” replied the other with the ghost of a smile, “you are always so amusing, and so much more wide awake in the morning than I am.”

Conversation languished for a minute, Constance having embarked on a cake. For some reason which she could not analyze, Mary felt in no great hurry to call Stefan from the barn, should he be there.

Felicity rose. “May we not see your garden, Mrs. Byrd?”

“Certainly,” said Mary, and led the way to the door. Felicity slipped out first, and wandered with her delicate step a little down the path.

“Isn't it darling!” exclaimed Constance from the porch, surveying the flower-strewn grass, the feathery trees, and the pale gleam of the water. Mary began to show her some recent plantings, in particular a rose-bed which was her last addition to the garden.

“I see you have a barn,” said Felicity, flitting back to them with a hint of animation. “Is it picturesque inside? Would it lend itself to treatment?” She wandered toward it, and there was nothing for the others to do but follow.

“Oh, yes,” explained Mary, “my husband has converted it into a studio. He may be working there now—I had been meaning to call him.”

She felt a trifle uncomfortable, almost as if she had put herself in the wrong.

“Coo-oo, Stefan,” she called as they neared the barn, Felicity still flitting ahead. The door swung open, and there stood Stefan, pallette in hand, screwing up his eyes in the sun.

As they lit on his approaching visitor an expression first of astonishment, and then of something very like displeasure, crossed his face. At sight of it, Mary's spirits subconsciously responded by a distinct upward lift. Stefan waved his brush without shaking hands, and then, seeing Constance, broke into a smile.

“How delightful, Mrs. Elliot! How did you come? By auto? And you drove Miss Berber? We are honored. You are our first visitors except the Farradays. Come and see my studio.”

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.

“There's nothing to see in here-these are the merest sketches,” he said abruptly. “Come along, Mrs. Elliot, I've been working since before breakfast; let's say good-morning to the flowers.” And with his arm linked through hers he piloted Constance back toward the lawn.

“Mr. Byrd ought never to wear tweed, do you think? It makes him look heavy,” remarked Felicity.

Again Mary had to suppress a feeling of irritation. “I rather like it,” she said. “It's so comfy and English.”

“Yes?” breathed Felicity vaguely, walking on.

Suddenly she appeared to have a return of animation.

She floated forward quickly for a few steps, turned with a swaying movement, and waited for Mary with hands and feet poised.

“The grass under one's feet, Mrs. Byrd, it makes them glad. One could almost dance!”

Again she fluttered ahead, this time overtaking Constance and Stefan, who had halted in the middle of the lawn. She swayed before them on tiptoe.

“Connie,” she was saying as Mary came up, “why does one not more often dance in the open?”

Though her lids still drooped she was half smiling as she swayed.

“It may be the spring; or perhaps I have caught the pastoral mood of Mr. Byrd's work; but I should like to dance a little. Music,” her palms were lifted in repudiation, “is unnecessary. One has the birds.”

“Good for you, Felicity! That will be fun,” Constance exclaimed delightedly. “You don't dance half often enough, bad girl. Come along, people, let's sit on the porch steps.”

They arranged themselves to watch, Constance and Mary on the upper step, Stefan on the lower, his shoulders against his wife's knees, while Felicity dexterously slipped off her sandals and stockings.

Her dress, modeled probably on that of the central figure in Botticelli's Spring, was of white chiffon, embroidered with occasional formal sprigs of green leaves and hyacinth-blue flowers, and kilted up at bust and thigh. Her loosely draped sleeves hung barely to the elbow. A line of green crossed from the shoulders under each breast, and her hair, tightly bound, was decorated with another narrow band of green. She looked younger than in the city—almost virginal. Stooping low, she gathered a handful of blue scylla from the grass, Mary barely checking an exclamation at this ravishing of her beloved bulbs. Then Felicity lay down upon the grass; her eyes closed; she seemed asleep. They waited silently for some minutes. Stefan began to fidget.

Suddenly a robin called. Felicity's eyes opened. They looked calm and dewy, like a child's. She raised her head—the robin called again. Felicity looked about her, at the flowers in her hand, the trees, the sky. Her face broke into smiles, she rose tall, taller, feet on tiptoe, hands reaching skyward. It was the waking of spring. Then she began to dance.

Gone was the old languor, the dreamy, hushed steps of her former method. Now she appeared to dart about the lawn like a swallow, following the calls of the birds. She would stand poised to listen, her ear would catch a twitter, and she was gone; flitting, skimming, seeming not to touch the earth. She danced to the flowers in her hand, to the trees, the sky, her face aglint with changing smiles, her skirts rippling like water.

At last the blue flowers seemed to claim her solely. She held them sunward, held them close, always swaying to the silent melody of the spring. She kissed them, pressed them to her heart; she sank downward, like a bird with folding wings, above a clump of scylla; her arms encircled them, her head bent to her knees—she was still.

Constance broke the spell with prolonged applause; Mary was breathless with admiration; Stefan rose, and after prowling restlessly for a moment, hurried to the dancer and stooped to lift her.

As if only then conscious of her audience, Felicity looked up, and both the other women noticed the expression that flashed across her face before she took the proffered hand. It seemed compounded of triumph, challenge, and something else. Mary again felt uncomfortable, and Constance's quick brain signaled a warning.

“Surely not getting into mischief, are you, Felicity?” she mentally questioned, and instantly began to east about for two and two to put together.

“Wonderful!” Stefan was saying. “You surely must have wings—great, butterfly ones—only we are too dull to see them. You were exactly like one of my pictures come to life.” He was visibly excited.

“Husband disposed of, available lovers unattractive, asks me to drive her out here; that's one half,” Constance's mind raced. “Wife on the shelf, variable temperament, studio in town; and that's the other. I've found two and two; I hope to goodness they won't make four,” she sighed to herself anxiously.

Mary meanwhile was thanking Miss Berber. She noticed that the dancer was perfectly cool—not a hair ruffled by her efforts. She looked as smooth as a bird that draws in its feathers after flight. Stefan was probably observing this, too, she thought; at any rate he was hovering about, staring at Felicity, and running his hands through his hair. Mary could not be sure of his expression; he seemed uneasy, as if discomfort mingled with his pleasure.

They had had a rare and lovely entertainment, and yet no one appeared wholly pleased except the dancer herself. It was very odd.

Constance looked at her watch. “Now, Felicity, this has all been ideal, but we must be getting on. I 'phoned James, you know, and we are lunching there. I was sure Mrs. Byrd wouldn't want to be bothered with us.”

Mary demurred, with a word as to Lily's capacities, but Constance was firm.

“No, my dear, it's all arranged. Besides, you need peace and quiet. Felicity, where are your things? Thank you, Mr. Byrd, in the sitting-room. Mary, you dear, I adore you and your house—I shall come again soon. Where are my gloves?” She was all energy, helping Felicity with her veil, settling her own hat, kissing Mary, and cranking the runabout—an operation she would not allow Stefan to attempt for her—with her usual effervescent efficiency. “I'd no idea it was so late!” she exclaimed.

As Felicity was handed by Stefan into the car, she murmured something in French, Constance noticed, to which he shook his head with a nervous frown. As the machine started, he was left staring moodily after it down the lane.

“Thee is earlier than I expected,” little Mrs. Farraday said to Constance, when they arrived at the house. “I am afraid we shall have to keep thee waiting for thy lunch for half an hour or more.”

“How glad I shall be—” Stefan turned to Mary, half irritably—“when this baby is born, and you can be active again.”

He ate his lunch in silence, and left the table abruptly at the end. Nor did she see him again until dinner time, when he came in tired out, his boots whitened with road dust.

“Where have you been, dearest?” she asked. “I've been quite anxious about you.”

“Just walking,” he answered shortly, and went up to his room. The tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them away resolutely. She must not mind, must not show him that she even dreamed of any connection between his moodiness and the events of the morning.

“My love must be stronger than that, now of all times,” thought Mary. “Afterwards—afterwards it will be all right.” She smiled confidently to herself.