Nest Builder | Page 9

of gratitude. Other matrons, vocative, surrounded the circle, momentarily cutting off his view. He changed his position to the bulwarks beside the group. There, a yard or two from the gleaming head, he perched on the rail, feet laced into its supports, and continued his concentrated observation.
"See yon chap," remarked the Scot from the smoking-room door to which his talent-seeking round of the deck had again brought him. "He's fair staring the eyes oot o'his head!"
"Exceedingly annoying to the young lady, I should imagine," returned his table neighbor, the prim minister, who had joined the group.
"Hoots, she willna' mind the likes of him," scoffed the other, with his booming laugh.
And indeed she did not. Oblivious equally of Byrd and of her more distant watchers, the English girl passed from "Hunt the Slipper" to "A Cold and Frosty Morning," and from that to story-telling, as absorbed as her small companions, or as her watcher-in-chief.
Gradually the sun broke out, the water danced, huddled shapes began to rise in their chairs, disclosing unexpected spots of color--a bright tie or a patterned blouse--animation increased on all sides, and the ring about the storyteller became three deep.
After a time a couple of perky young stewards appeared with huge iron trays, containing thick white cups half full of chicken broth, and piles of biscuits. Upon this, the pouter-pigeon lady bore off her small son to be fed, other mothers did the same, and the remaining children, at the lure of food, sidled off of their own accord, or sped wildly, whooping out promises to return. For the moment, the story-teller was alone. Stefan, seeing the Scot bearing down upon her with two cups of broth in his hand and purpose in his eye, wakened to the danger just in time. Throwing his cigarette overboard, he sprang lightly between her and the approaching menace.
"Won't you be perfectly kind, and come for a walk?" he asked, stooping to where she sat. The girl looked up into a pair of green-gold eyes set in a brown, eager face. The face was lighted with a smile of dazzling friendliness, and surmounted by an uncovered head of thick, brown-black hair. Slowly her own eyes showed an answering smile.
"Thank you, I should love to," she said, and rising, swung off beside him, just in time--as Stefan maneuvered it--to avoid seeing the Scot and his carefully balanced offering. Discomfited, that individual consoled himself with both cups of broth, and bided his time.
"My name is Stefan Byrd. I am a painter, going to America to sell some pictures. I'm twenty-six. What is your name?" said Stefan, who never wasted time in preliminaries and abhorred small talk--turning his brilliant happy smile upon her.
"To answer by the book," she replied, smiling too, "my name is Mary Elliston. I'm twenty-five. I do odd jobs, and am going to America to try to find one to live on."
"What fun!" cried Stefan, with a faunlike skip of pleasure, as they turned onto the emptier windward deck. "Then we're both seeking our fortunes."
"Living, rather than fortune, in my case, I'm afraid."
"Well, of course you don't need a fortune, you carry so much gold with you," and he glanced at her shining hair.
"Not negotiable, unluckily," she replied, taking his compliment as he had paid it, without a trace of self-consciousness.
"Like the sunlight," he answered. "In fact,"--confidentially--"I'm afraid you're a thief; you've imprisoned a piece of the sun, which should belong to us all. However, I'm not going to complain to the authorities, I like the result too much. You don't mind my saying that, do you?" he continued, sure that she did not. "You see, I'm a painter. Color means everything to me--that and form."
"One never minds hearing nice things, I think," she replied, with a frank smile. They were swinging up and down the windward deck, and as he talked he was acutely aware of her free movements beside him, and of the blow of her skirts to leeward. Her hair, too closely pinned to fly loose, yet seemed to spring from her forehead with the urge of pinioned wings. Life radiated from her, he thought, with a steady, upward flame--not fitfully, as with most people.
"And one doesn't mind questions, does one--from real people?" he continued. "I'm going to ask you lots more, and you may ask me as many as you like. I never talk to people unless they are worth talking to, and then I talk hard. Will you begin, or shall I? I have at least two hundred things to ask."
"It is my turn, though, I think." She accepted him on his own ground, with an open and natural friendliness.
"I have only one at the moment, which is, 'Why haven't we talked before?'" and she glanced with a quiet humorousness at the few unpromising samples of the