It was the fourth of August.

Stefan and Felicity sat at premier dÉjeuner 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 negligÉe was of the clear green of a wave's concavity—a butterfly 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 analyzed 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 anchored 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 cushions—“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 assure 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.

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 cushions—“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 passed 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 Marseillaise. The students sang to it, cheering wildly.

“Who fights for France?” a voice yelled hoarsely, and among cheers a score of hands went up.

“Who fights for France?” Stefan stood stock still, then hurried past the crowd, and up the stairs to his attic.

There, in the midst of gaping drawers and fast emptying shelves, stood Adolph in his shirt sleeves, methodically packing his possessions into a hair trunk. He looked up as his friend entered; his mild face was alight; tears of excitement stood in his eyes.

“Ah, my infant,” he exclaimed, “it has arrived! The Germans are across the frontier. I go to fight for France.”

“Adolph!” cried Stefan, seizing and wringing his friend's hand. “Thank God there's something great to be done in the world after all! I go with you.”

“But your wife, Stefan?”

Stefan drew out Mary's letter. For the first time his eyes were wet.

“Listen,” he said, and translated the brief words.

Hearing them, the good Adolph sat down on his trunk, and quite frankly cried. “Ah, quel dommage! quel dommage!” he exclaimed, over and over.

“So you see, mon cher, we go together,” said Stefan, and lifted his Gladstone bag to a chair. As he fumbled among its forgotten contents, a tiny box met his hand. He drew out the signet ring Mary had given him, with the winged head.

“Ah, Mary,” he whispered with a half sob, “after all, you gave me wings!” and he put the ring on. He was only twenty-seven.

Later in the day Stefan went to the bank and had Mary's draft endorsed back to New York. He enclosed it in a letter to James Farraday, in which he asked him to give it to his wife, with his love and blessing, and to tell her that he was enlisting with Adolph Jensen in the Foreign Legion.

That night they both went to a vaudeville theatre. It was packed to the doors—an opera star was to sing the Marseillaise. Stefan and Adolph stood at the back. No one regarded the performance at all till the singer appeared, clad in white, the French liberty cap upon her head, a great tricolor draped in her arms. Then the house rose in a storm of applause; every one in the vast audience was on his feet.

“'Allons, enfants de la patrie,'” began the singer in a magnificent contralto, her eyes flashing. The house hung breathless.

“'Aux armes, citoyens!'” Her hands swept the audience. “'Marchons! Marchons!'” She pointed at the crowd. Each man felt her fiery glance pierce to him—France called—she was holding out her arms to her sons to die for her—

“'Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!'”

The singer gathered the great flag to her heart. The tears rolled down her cheeks; she kissed it with the passion of a mistress. The house broke into wild cheers. Men fell upon each other's shoulders; women sobbed. The singer was dumb, but the drums rolled on—they were calling, calling. The folds of the flag dazzled Stefan's eyes. He burst into tears.

The next morning Stefan Byrd and Adolph Jensen were enrolled in the Foreign Legion of France.