"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. That became a habit in his spare hours. Swiftly the new idea took form, as the flower grows in the field, without travail or effort. He worked harder than ever at Jonathan's drawings those days--hot lazy days they were, too--to earn release a half-hour earlier; and he swallowed his dinners more hastily than was wise. Then, when no hack work for Dick Holden was to be done, he sat at his easel sketching until the clock struck an hour--more often two--after midnight. Esther's aunt was a model landlady and had nothing to say about extravagance in gas. He did not pat himself with the remark, "They will have to come to me yet." He never even thought of that. Neither did he say, "I am doing a big thing," having no opinion at all as to whether the thing was little or big. But he whistled sometimes as he worked, quite softly, and he went to bed always in a warm mellow glow that merged easily into sound restful sleep. In the morning he awoke ready, even eager, for the new day. He even took some pleasure in his work for Dick Holden. It was Dick who gave him a bit of interesting news. David had called that noon to get data for some plans Dick wanted him to make. "I could do them myself," the latter explained. "But I'm loafing this summer. I'm in town only because there's talk that St. Mark's is going to build." David did not wince. "And to pay tribute into your coffers?" "That's what I'm here for," grinned Dick. "And what are you going to give them?" "_I_ don't know." Dick waved a confident hand. "Whatever they want."