Mary found Stefan an ideal lover. Their marriage, entered into with such,
headlong adventurousness, seemed to unfold daily into more perfect bloom.
The difficulties of his temperament, which had been thrown into sharp
relief by the crowded life of shipboard, smoothed themselves away at the
touch of happiness and peace. No woman, Mary realized, could wish for a
fuller cup of joy than Stefan offered her in these first days of their
mating. She was amazed at herself, at the suddenness with which love had
transmuted her, at the ease with which she adjusted herself to this new
world. She found it difficult to remember what kind of life she had led
before her marriage--hardly could she believe that she had ever lived at
all.

As for Stefan, he wasted no moments in backward glances. He neither
remembered the past nor questioned the future, but immersed himself
utterly in his present joy with an abandonment he had never experienced
save in painting. Questioned, he would have scoffed at the idea that life
for him could ever hold more than his work, and Mary.

Thus absorbed, Stefan would have allowed the days to slip into weeks
uncounted. But on the ninth day Mary, incapable of a wholly carefree
attitude, reminded him that they had planned only a week of holiday.

"Let's stay a month," he replied promptly.

But Mary had been questioning her landlord about New York.

"It appears," she explained, "that every one moves on the first of
October, and that if one hasn't found a studio by then, it is almost
impossible to get one. He says he has heard all the artists live round
about Washington Square, but that even there rents are fearfully high.