"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."
"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!'"
Frank felt his heart grow warm. It seemed to him that her confession showed a depth of interest not acknowledged before.
"I'll try to make amends, Constance," he said, "by being a little nearer what you would like to have me now," and could not help adding, "only you'll have to decide just what particular thing you want me to be, and please don't have the North Pole in it."
Out in the blowy wet weather again, by avenues and by-ways, they raced through the Park, climbing up to look over at the wind-driven water of the old reservoir, clambering down a great wet bowlder on the other side--the girl as agile and sure of foot as a boy. Then they pushed toward Eighth Avenue, missed the entrance and wandered about in a labyrinth of bridle-paths and footways, suddenly found themselves back at the big bowlder again, scrambled up it warm and flushed with the exertion, and dropped down for a moment to breathe and to get their bearings.