"Oh, no!" he protested. "You mustn't say that. You mustn't think—"
He stopped with a curt laugh. "That's queer advice from me."
"But it's very good advice—for any one, I am sure." Her eyes had become very grave. "And I shouldn't have said that, for it really doesn't matter so much as it did once. You see, I was pretty cowardly about it at first, when I found I couldn't depend on my voice. Because I couldn't have all I wanted I wouldn't have anything at all. For two years I wouldn't sing a note. The doctor says the long rest is what gives me a chance now, but I don't deserve that. I made myself foolishly unhappy. But it's different now. Even if I can't go back to studying or ever hope to do big things, I know I can sing a little for myself and get a great deal of happiness out of that."
It may be that her smile was a little too bright.
"Do you really mean that?" he asked. "Or are you only whistling again to keep up your courage?"
"If I'm only whistling—why, please let me whistle. But I think I do mean it. It's very sound philosophy. Even if the lame duckling can't fly, is there any reason why it shouldn't waddle for the fun of it?" And now the smile was just as it should have been.
David considered that. For some reason hidden from her his cheeks were burning; you would have said that he was ashamed again.
"No reason at all," he said at last, "if the duckling happens to be very brave. But I hope she is going to fly very high and very far."
And with that he left her, more abruptly than was polite. She would have been glad to have him stay longer.
For many minutes she sat there by the piano, thinking not of the gift that seemed to be coming back, but of the queer lame duck who took his lameness so much to heart. She saw no harm in such employment. She wished she were a fairy godmother, so that she could by a wave of her wand make his wings whole once more.
Up in his room David, too, was thinking earnestly. After a long while he rose from his chair, set up the easel and began to work, not on a pretty-pretty picture for Dick Holden, but on an idea of his own that lately had been haunting him.