Читать книгу The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods - Albert Bigelow Paine - Страница 4

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Frank rose and, plunging his hands into his pockets, lounged over to the wide window and gazed out on the wild March storm which was drenching and dismaying Fifth Avenue. A weaving throng of carriages, auto-cars and delivery wagons beat up and down against it, were driven by it from behind, or buffeted from many directions at the corners. Coachmen, footmen and drivers huddled down into their waterproofs; pedestrians tried to breast the rain with their umbrellas and frequently lost them. From where he stood the young man could count five torn and twisted derelicts soaking in gutters. They seemed so very wet—everything did. When a stage—that relic of another day—lumbered by, the driver on top, only half sheltered by his battered oil-skins, seemed wetter and more dismal than any other object. It all had an art value, certainly, but there were pleasanter things within. The young man turned to the luxurious room, with its wide blazing fire and the young girl who sat looking into the glowing depths.

"Do you know, Constance," he said, "I think you are a bit hard on me." Then he drifted into a very large and soft chair near her, and, stretching out his legs, stared comfortably into the fire as if the fact were no such serious matter, after all.

The girl smiled quietly. She had a rich oval face, with a deep look in her eyes, at once wistful and eager, and just a bit restless, as if there were problems there among the coals—questions she could not wholly solve.

"I did not think of it in that way," she said, "and you should not call me Constance, not now, and you are Mr. Weatherby. I do not know how we ever began—the other way. I was only a girl, of course, and did not know America so well, or realize—a good many things."

The young man stirred a little without looking up.

"I know," he assented; "I realize that six months seems a long period to a—to a young person, and makes a lot of difference, sometimes. I believe you have had a birthday lately."

"Yes, my eighteenth—my majority. That ought to make a difference."

"Mine didn't to me. I'm just about the same now as I was then, and——"

"As you always will be. That is just the trouble."

"I was going to say, as I always had been."

"Which would not be true. You were different, as a boy."

"And who gave you that impression, pray?"

The girl flushed a little.

"I mean, you must have been," she added, a trifle inconsequently. "Boys always are. You had ambitions, then."

"Well, yes, and I gratified them. I wanted to be captain of my college team, and I was. We held the championship as long as I held the place. I wanted to make a record in pole-vaulting, and I did. It hasn't been beaten since. Then I wanted the Half-mile Cup, and I won that, too. I think those were my chief aspirations when I entered college, and when I came out there were no more worlds to conquer. Incidentally I carried off the honors for putting into American some of Mr. Horace's justly popular odes, edited the college paper for a year, and was valedictorian of the class. But those were trivial things. It was my prowess that gave me standing and will remain one of the old school's traditions long after this flesh has become dust."

The girl's eyes had grown brighter as he recounted his achievements. She could not help stealing a glance of admiration at the handsome fellow stretched out before her, whose athletic deeds had made him honored among his kind. Then she smiled.

"Perhaps you were a pillar of modesty, too," she commented, "once."

He laughed—a gentle, lazy laugh in which she joined—and presently she added:

"Of course, I know you did those things. That is just it. You could do anything, and be anything, if you only would. Oh, but you don't seem to care! You seem satisfied, comfortable and good-naturedly indifferent; if you were poor, I should say idle—I suppose the trouble is there. You have never been poor and lonely and learned to want things. So, of course, you never learned to care for—for anything."

Her companion leaned toward her—his handsome face full of a light that was not all of the fire.

"I have, for you," he whispered.

The girl's face lighted, too. Her eyes seemed to look into some golden land which she was not quite willing to enter.

"No," she demurred gently. "I am not sure of that. Let us forget about that. As you say, a half-year has been a long time—to a child. I had just come from abroad then with my parents, and I had been most of the time in a school where girls are just children, no matter what their ages. When we came home, I suppose I did not know just what to do with my freedom. And then, you see, Father and Mother liked you, and let you come to the house, and when I first saw you and knew you—when I got to know you, I mean—I was glad to have you come, too. Then we rode and drove and golfed all those days about Lenox—all those days—your memory is poor, very poor, but you may recall those October days, last year, when I had just come home—those days, you know——"

Again the girl's eyes were looking far into a fair land which queens have willingly died to enter, while the young man had pulled his chair close, as one eager to lead her across the border.

"No," she went on—speaking more to herself than to him, "I am older, now—ages older, and trying to grow wise, and to see things as they are. Riding, driving and golfing are not all of life. Life is serious—a sort of battle, in which one must either lead or follow or merely look on. You were not made to follow, and I could not bear to have you look on. I always thought of you as a leader. During those days at Lenox you seemed to me a sort of king, or something like that, at play. You see I was just a schoolgirl with ideals, keeping the shield of Launcelot bright. I had idealized him so long—the one I should meet some day. It was all very foolish, but I had pictured him as a paladin in armor, who would have diversions, too, but who would lay them aside to go forth and redress wrong. You see what a silly child I was, and how necessary it was for me to change when I found that I had been dreaming, that the one I had met never expected to conquer or do battle for a cause—that the diversions were the end and sum of his desire, with maybe a little love-making as a part of it all."

"A little—" Her companion started to enter protest, but did not continue. The girl was staring into the fire as she spoke and seemed only to half remember his existence. For the most part he had known her as one full of the very joy of living, given to seeing life from its cheerful, often from its humorous, side. Yet he knew her to be volatile, a creature of moods. This one, which he had learned to know but lately, would pass. He watched her, a little troubled yet fascinated by it all, his whole being stirred by the charm of her presence.

"One so strong—so qualified—should lead," she continued slowly, "not merely look on. Oh, if I were a man I should lead—I should ride to victory! I should be a—a—I do not know what," she concluded helplessly, "but I should ride to victory."

He restrained any impulse he may have had to smile, and presently said, rather quietly:

"I suppose there are avenues of conquest to-day, as there were when the world was young. But I am afraid they are so crowded with the rank and file that paladins ride few and far between. You know," he added, more lightly, "knight-errantry has gone out of fashion, and armor would be a clumsy thing to wear—crossing Broadway, for instance."

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.