He turned and moved down the path. Again that thin, querulous note pierced the silence. Mary, Mary! an appeal from age to youth, ay, and a protest, a far-reaching protest, of pain against pleasure. Mark pictured the invalid mother, bedridden, possibly, dependent upon the ministrations of others, calling out of the dismal seclusion of her chamber to the young, healthy creature in the garden. He mounted his bicycle, wondering whether Mary had grown accustomed to that heart-piercing note, speculating vaguely in regard to its meaning for her and for others.
Within a week the shelter was built. Stout posts upheld a roof of tongue-and-groove boards spread with a rough thatch; the floor was boarded also and covered with sailcloth, which could be washed and scrubbed like the deck of a ship. Two walls were also boarded. These were lined with shelves, which contained a miscellaneous collection of some four hundred books. The south and west sides of the shelter were open to the wind and sun, but could be closed, if necessary, by sailcloth curtains. A large table stood in the centre; a bed, serving as a sofa in daytime, occupied one corner; in another were an exerciser, a punching-ball, and some light clubs and dumbbells; chairs, a typewriter, a small stove, and a huge chest completed the furnishings.
When it was finished Pynsent and Jim Corrance were invited to inspect and criticise. Pynsent brought with him a couple of mezari, those quaint, decorative shawls worn by the women of Genoa, and draped them cleverly; Corrance brought an Indian rug. Both men were charmed with the cottage, the garden, the grove, and the view. Pynsent, as Mark had foreseen, wanted to paint Mary Dew, but every hour of the weeks between June and August was engaged. "You're a tremendous worker," said Jim.
"So are you, Corrance. A man must work nowadays, if he means to keep his place in the procession. The competition is frightful all along the line. I shall paint Mary Dew in the autumn. What do you call her, Mark?"
"Honey. Honey Dew. Do you see? A poor pun, but my own. She's sweet as honey and fresh as dew, but her mother is a terrible person."
He described an interview with Mrs. Dew.
"Mary told me that her mother wished to see me. I found her in her own sitting-room, the prettiest and most comfortable room in the cottage. Everything deliciously fresh—chintzes, flowers, paper on the wall, matting—and in the middle Mrs. Dew: faded, peevish, puckered, old beyond her years. Picture to yourselves a puffy, yellow face with dim, shifty eyes peering out restlessly between red, swollen lids, a face framed by mouse-coloured hair and surmounting a great, shapeless body clad in black alpaca."
"Good! I see her," said Pynsent.
"I was prepared to sympathise. She has some ailment, poor creature, a chronic dyspepsia and a grievance as chronic against destiny. One could pity her if she said and ate less. Her daughter admits that she would be a different woman if she kept on the muzzle. She calls herself a lady, and told me that she married beneath her. Dew, I fancy, was a petty tradesman. He left his widow this small property and a tiny income. Mary has a tremendous struggle to make ends meet means. She's one in ten thousand."
"Um!" said Pynsent. "Don't fall in love with your Honey Dew!"