“Aye, aye,” he chuckled, nodding his ponderous head, and again “Aye, aye,” in tones of fat content, as the two Byrds swung lightly by.
“Aye, aye, Mr. McEwan,” smiled Constance, tapping his knee with her fan. “All this was your idea, and you are a good fellow. From this moment, I intend to call you by your first name.”
“Aye, aye,” beamed McEwan, more broadly than before, extending a huge hand; “that'll be grand.”
The dance was the climax of the week. The next day was their last, leave-takings were in the air, and toward afternoon a bustle of packing. Stefan was in a mood of slight reaction from his excitement of the night before. While Mary packed for them both he prowled uncertainly about the house, and, finding the men in the library, whiled away the time in an utterly impossible attempt to quarrel with McEwan on some theory of art.
They all left for the train with lamentations, and arrived in New York the next morning in a cheerless storm of wet snow.
But by this time Mary's regret at the ending of their holiday was lost in joy at the prospect of seeing her baby. She urged the stiff and tired Stefan to speed, and, by cutting short their farewells and jumping for a street car, managed to make the next train out for Crab's Bay. She could hardly sit still in the decrepit cab, and it had barely stopped at their gate before she was out and tearing up the stairs.
Stefan paid the cab, carried in their suitcase, and wandered, cold and lonely, to the sitting room. For him their home-coming offered no alleviating thrill. Already, he felt, Mary's bright wings were folding again above her nest.