The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods

She laughed happily – her sense of humor was never very deeply buried.

"I know," she nodded, "we do not meet many Galahads these days, and most of the armor is make-believe, yet I am sure there are knights whom we do not recognize, with armor which we do not see."

The young man sat up a bit straighter in his chair and assumed a more matter-of-fact tone.

"Suppose we put aside allegory," he said, "and discuss just how you think a man – myself, for instance – could set the world afire – make it wiser and better, I mean."

The embers were dying down, and she looked into them a little longer before replying. Then, presently:

"Oh, if I were only a man!" she repeated. "There is so much – so many things – for a man to do. Discovery, science, feats of engineering, the professions, the arts, philanthropy – oh, everything! And for us, so little!"

A look of amusement grew about the young man's mouth. He had seen much more of the world than she; was much older in a manner not reckoned by years.

"We do not monopolize it all, you know. Quite a few women are engaged in the professions and philanthropy; many in the arts."

"The arts, yes, but I am without talent. I play because I have been taught, and because I have practiced – oh, so hard! But God never intended that the world should hear me. I love painting and literature, and all those things. But I cannot create them. I can only look on. I have thought of the professions – I have thought a great deal about medicine and the law. But I am afraid those would not do, either. I cannot understand law papers, even the very simple ones Father has tried to explain to me. And I am not careful enough with medicines – I almost poisoned poor Mamma last week with something that looked like her headache drops and turned out to be a kind of preparation for bruises. Besides, somehow I never can quite see myself as a lawyer in court, or going about as a doctor. Lawyers always have to go to court, don't they? I am afraid I should be so confused, and maybe be arrested. They arrest lawyers don't they, sometimes?"

"They should," admitted the young man, "more often than they do. I don't believe you ought to take the risk, at any rate. I somehow can't think of you either as a lawyer or a doctor. Those things don't seem to fit you."

"That's just it. Nothing fits me. Oh, I am not even as much as I seem to be, yet can be nothing else!" she burst out rather incoherently, then somewhat hastily added: "There is philanthropy, of course. I could do good, I suppose, and Father would furnish the money. But I could never undertake things. I should just have to follow, and contribute. Some one would always have to lead. Some one who could go among people and comprehend their needs, and know how to go to work to supply them. I should do the wrong thing and make trouble – "

"And maybe get arrested – "

They laughed together. They were little more than children, after all.

"I know there are women who lead in such things," she went on. "They come here quite often, and Father gives them a good deal. But they always seem so self-possessed and capable. I stand in awe of them, and I always wonder how they came to be made so wise and brave, and why most of us are so different. I always wonder."

The young man regarded her very tenderly.

"I am glad you are different," he said earnestly. "My mother is a little like that, and of course I think the world of her. Still, I am glad you are different."

He leaned over and lifted an end of log with the tongs. A bright blaze sprang up, and for a while they watched it without speaking. It seemed to Frank Weatherby that nothing in the world was so worth while as to be there near her – to watch her there in the firelight that lingered a little to bring out the rich coloring of her rare young face, then flickered by to glint among the deep frames along the wall, to lose itself at last amid the heavy hangings. He was careful not to renew their discussion, and hoped she had forgotten it. There had been no talk of these matters during their earlier acquaintance, when she had but just returned with her parents from a long sojourn abroad. That had been at Lenox, where they had filled the autumn season with happy recreation, and a love-making which he had begun half in jest and then, all at once, found that for him it meant more than anything else in the world. Not that anything had hitherto meant a great deal. He had been an only boy, with a fond mother, and there was a great deal of money between them. It had somehow never been a part of his education that those who did not need to strive should do so. His mother was a woman of ideas, but this had not been one of them. Perhaps as a boy he had dreamed his dreams, but somehow there had never seemed a reason for making them reality. The idea of mental and spiritual progress, of being a benefactor of mankind was well enough, but it was somehow an abstract thing – something apart from him – at least, from the day of youth and love.

CHAPTER II

OUT IN THE BLOWY WET WEATHER

The room lightened a little and Constance rose and walked to the window.

"It isn't raining so hard, any more," she said. "I think I shall go for a walk in the Park."

The young man by the fire looked a little dismayed. The soft chair and the luxurious room were so much more comfortable than the Park on such a day as this.

"Don't you think we'd better put it off?" he asked, walking over beside her. "It's still raining a good deal, and it's quite windy."

"I said that I was going for a walk in the Park," the girl reiterated. "I shall run, too. When I was a child I always loved to run through a storm. It seemed like flying. You can stay here by the fire and keep nice and cozy. Mamma will be glad to come in and talk to you. She will not urge you to do and be things. She thinks you well enough as you are. She says you have repose, and that you rest her – she means, of course, after a session with me."

"I have the greatest regard for your mother – I might even say sympathy. Indeed, when I consider the serene yet sterling qualities of both your parents, I find myself speculating on the origin of your own – eh – rather unusual and, I hasten to add, wholly charming personality."

She smiled, but he thought a little sadly.

"I know," she said, "I am a trial, and, oh, I want to be such a comfort to them!" Then she added, somewhat irrelevantly, "But Father made his fight, too. It was in trade, of course, but it was a splendid battle, and he won. He was a poor boy, you know, and the struggle was bitter. You should stay and ask him to tell you about it. He will be home presently."

He adopted her serious tone.

"I think myself I should stay and have an important talk with your father," he said. "I have been getting up courage to speak for some time."

She affected not to hear, and presently they were out in the wild weather, protected by waterproofs and one huge umbrella, beating their way toward the Fifty-ninth Street entrance to Central Park. Not many people were there, and, once within, they made their way by side paths, running and battling with the wind, laughing and shouting like children, until at last they dropped down on a wet bench to recover breath.

"Oh," she panted, "that was fine! How I should like to be in the mountains such weather as this. I dream of being there almost every night. I can hardly wait till we go."

Her companion assented rather doubtfully.

"I have been in the mountains in March," he said. "It was pretty nasty. I suppose you have spent summers there. I believe you went to the Pyrenees."

"But I know the mountains in March, too – in every season, and I love them in all weathers. I love the storms, when the snow and sleet and wind come driving down, and the trees crack, and the roads are blocked, and the windows are covered with ice; when there's a big drift at the door that you must climb over, and that stays there almost till the flowers bloom. And when the winter is breaking, and the great rains come, and the wind, – oh, it's no such little wind as this, but wind that tears up big trees and throws them about for fun, and the limbs fly, and it's dangerous to go out unless you look everywhere, and in the night something strikes the roof, and you wake up and lie there and wonder if the house itself won't be carried away soon, perhaps to the ocean, and turn into a ship that will sail until it reaches a country where the sun shines and there are palm trees, and men who wear turbans, and where there are marble houses with gold on them. And in that country where the little house might land, a lot of people come down to the shore and they kneel down and say, 'The sea has brought a princess to rule over us.' Then they put a crown on her head and lead her to one of the marble and gold houses, so she could rule the country and live happy ever after."

As the girl ran on, her companion sat motionless, listening – meanwhile steadying their big umbrella to keep their retreat cozy. When she paused, he said:

"I did not know that you knew the hills in winter. You have seen and felt much more than I. And," he added reflectively, "I should not think, with such fancy as yours, that you need want for a vocation; you should write."

She shook her head rather gravely. "It is not fancy," she said, "at least not imagination. It is only reading. Every child with a fairy-book for companionship, and nature, rides on the wind or follows subterranean passages to a regal inheritance. Such things mean nothing afterward. I shall never write."

They made their way to the Art Museum to wander for a little through the galleries. In the Egyptian room they lingered by those glass cases where men and women who died four thousand years ago lie embalmed in countless wrappings and cryptographic cartonnage – exhibits, now, for the curious eye, waiting whatever further change the upheavals of nations or the progress of an alien race may bring to pass.

They spoke in subdued voice as they regarded one slender covering which enclosed "A Lady of the House of Artun" – trying to rebuild in fancy her life and surroundings of that long ago time. Then they passed to the array of fabrics – bits of old draperies and clothing, even dolls' garments – that had found the light after forty centuries, and they paused a little at the cases of curious lamps and ornaments and symbols of a vanished people.

"Oh, I should like to explore," she murmured, as she looked at them. "I should like to lead an expedition to uncover ancient cities, somewhere in Egypt, or India, or Yucatan. I should like to find things right where they were left by the people who last saw them – not here, all arranged and classified, with numbers pasted on them. If I were a man, I should be an explorer, or maybe a discoverer of new lands – places where no one had ever been before." She turned to him eagerly, "Why don't you become an explorer, and find old cities or – or the North Pole, or something?"

Mr. Weatherby, who was studying a fine scarab, nodded.

"I have thought of it, I believe. I think the idea appealed to me once. But, don't you see, it takes a kind of genius for those things. Discoverers are born, I imagine, as well as poets. Besides" – he lowered his voice to a pitch that was meant for tenderness – "at the North Pole I should be so far from you – unless," he added, reflectively, "we went there on our wedding journey."

"Which we are as likely to do as to go anywhere," she said, rather crossly. They passed through the corridor of statuary and up the stairway to wander among the paintings of masters old and young. By a wall where the works of Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Velasquez hung, she turned on him reproachfully.

"These men have left something behind them," she commented – "something which the world will preserve and honor. What will you leave behind you?"

"I fear it won't be a picture," he said humbly. "I can't imagine one of my paintings being hung here or any place else. They might hang the painter, of course, though not just here, I fancy."

In another room they lingered before a painting of a boy and a girl driving home the cows – Israel's "Bashful Suitor." The girl contemplated it through half-closed lids.

"You did not look like that," she said. "You were a self-possessed big boy, with smart clothes, and an air of ownership that comes of having a lot of money. You were a good-hearted boy, rather impulsive, I should think, but careless and spoiled. Had Israel chosen you it would have been the girl who was timid, not you."

He laughed easily.

"Now, how can you possibly know what I looked like as a boy?" he demanded. "Perhaps I was just such a slim, diffident little chap as that one. Time works miracles, you know."

"But even time has its limitations. I know perfectly well how you looked at that boy's age. Sometimes I see boys pass along in front of the house, and I say: 'There, he was just like that!'"