That a man should have the cap of Fortunatus, and yet never try it on, even just for the experiment's sake, was downright incredible. You might not want money,—not that he had ever met the man in that predicament yet,—you might, perhaps, have no very strong desire for this, that, or t' other; yet, somehow, “the power was such a jolly thing!” The fact that you could go in and win whenever you pleased was a marvellously fine consideration. As for himself,—so he reasoned,—he did not exactly know why, but he thought his present life a very happy one. He never was less beset with cares: he had no duns; there was not a tailor in Bond Street knew his address; the very Jews had not traced him; he was as free as air. Like most men accustomed to eat and drink of the best, the simple fare of an humble inn pleased him. Grog, whenever he saw him, was good-humored and gay; and as for Lizzy, “of all the girls he had ever met, she was the only one ever understood him.”
As Annesley Beecher comprehended his own phrase, being “understood” was no such bad thing. It meant, in the first place, a generous appreciation of all motives for good, even though they never went beyond motives; a hopeful trust in some unseen, unmanifested excellence of character; a broadcast belief that, making a due allowance for temptations, human frailties, and the doctrine of chances,—this latter most of all,—the balance would always be found in favor of good versus evil; and, secondly, that all the imputed faults and vices of such natures as his were little else than the ordinary weaknesses of “the best of us.” Such is being “understood,” good reader; and, however it may chance with others, I hope that “you and I may.”
But Lizzy Davis understood him even better and deeper than all this. She knew him, if not better than I do myself, at least, better than I am able to depict to you. Apart, then, from the little “distractions” I have mentioned, Beecher was very happy. It had been many a long day since he felt himself so light-hearted and so kindly-minded to the world at large. He neither wished any misfortune to befall Holt's “stable” or Shipman's “three-year old;” he did not drop off to sleep hoping that Beverley might break down or “Nightcap” spring a back sinew; and, stranger than all, he actually could awake of a morning and not wish himself the Viscount Lackington. Accustomed as he was to tell Lizzy everything, to ask her advice about all that arose, and her explanation for all that puzzled him, he could not help communicating this new phenomenon of his temperament, frankly acknowledging that it was a mystery he could not fathom.
“Nothing seems ever to puzzle you, Lizzy,”—he had learned to call her Lizzy some time back,—“so just tell me what can you make of it? Ain't it strange?”
“It is strange,” said she, with a faint smile, in which a sort of sad meaning mingled.
“So strange,” resumed he, “that had any one said to me, 'Beecher, you 'll spend a couple of months in a little German inn, with nothing to do, nothing to see, and, what's more, it will not bore you,' I 'd have answered, 'Take you fifty to one in hundreds on the double event,—thousands if you like it better,'—and see, hang me if I should n't have lost!”
“Perhaps not. If you had a heavy wager on the matter, it is likely you would not have come.”
“Who knows! Everything is Fate in this world. Ah, you may laugh; but it is, though. What else, I ask you—what brings you here just now?—why am I walking along the river with you beside me?”
“Partly, because, I hope, you find it pleasant,” said she, with a droll gravity, while something in her eyes seemed to betoken that her own thoughts amused her.
“There must be more than that,” said he, thoughtfully, for he felt the question a knotty one, and rather liked to show that he did not skulk the encounter with such difficulties.