"No, you don't," said he. "And it wasn't silly of you to come, either; it was dear and delightful, and I prayed the Lord to put the notion into your darling head, and He did it. And now you're here you don't budge from this spot until you've heard what I've got to say.

"Mary Virginia, I reckon you're just about the most beautiful girl in the world. You've been run after and courted and flattered and followed until it was enough to turn any girl's head, and it would have turned any girl's head but yours. You could say to almost any man alive, Come, and he'd come--oh, yes, he'd come quick. You've got the earth to pick and choose from--but I'm asking you to pick and choose _me_. I haven't got as much to offer you as I shall have some of these days, but I've got me myself, body and brain and heart and soul, sound to the core, and all of me yours, and I think that counts most, if you care as I do. Mary Virginia, will you marry me?"

"Oh, but, Laurence! Why--Laurence--I--indeed, I didn't know--I didn't think--" stammered the girl. "At least, I didn't dream you cared--like that."

"Didn't you? Well, all I can say is, you've been mighty blind, then.

For I do care. I guess I've always cared like that, only, somehow, it's taken this one short winter to drive home what I'd been learning all my life?" said he, soberly. "I reckon I've been just like other fool-boys, Mary Virginia. That is, I spooned a bit around every good looking girl I ran up against, but I soon found out it wasn't the real thing, and I quit. Something in me knew all along I belonged to somebody else. To you. I believe now--Mary Virginia, I believe with all my heart--that I cared for you when you were squalling in your cradle."

"Oh! ... Did I squall, really?"

"_Squall?_ Sometimes it was tummy and sometimes it was temper. Between them you yelled like a Comanche," said this astonishing lover.

Mary Virginia tilted her head back, adorably.

"It was very, very n.o.ble of you to mind me--under the circ.u.mstances,"

she conceded, graciously.

"Believe me, it was," agreed Laurence. "I didn't know it, of course, but even at that tender age my fate was upon me, for I _liked_ to mind you. Even the bawling didn't daunt me, and I adored you when you resembled a squab. Yes, I was in love with you then. I'm in love with you now. My girl, my own girl, I'll go out of this world and into the next one loving you."

"Then why," she asked reproachfully, "haven't you said so?"

"Why haven't I said what?"

"Why, you know. That you--loved me, Laurence." Her rich voice had sunk to a whisper.

"Good Lord, haven't I been saying it?"

"No, you haven't! You've been merely asking me to marry you. But you haven't said a word about loving me, until this very minute!"

"But you must know perfectly well that I'm crazy about you, Mary Virginia!" said the boy, and his voice trembled with bewilderment as well as pa.s.sion. "How in heaven's name could I help being crazy about you? Why, from the beginning of things, there's never been anybody else, but just you. I never even pretended to care for anybody else.

No, there's n.o.body but you. Not for me. You're everything and all, where I'm concerned. And--please, please look up, beautiful, and tell me the truth: look at me, Mary Virginia!"

The white-clad figure moved a hair's breadth nearer; the uplifted lovely face was very close.

"Do I really mean that to you, Laurence? All that, really and truly?"

she asked, wistfully.

"Yes! And more. And more!"

"I'll be the unhappiest girl in the world: I'll be the most miserable woman alive--if you ever change your mind, Laurence," said she.

There was a quivering pause. Then:

"You care?" asked the boy, almost breathlessly. "Mary Virginia, you care?" He laid his hands upon her shoulders and bent to search the alluring face.

"Laurence!" said Mary Virginia, with a tremulous, half-tearful laugh, "Laurence, it's taken this one short winter to teach me, too. And--you were mistaken, utterly mistaken about those symptoms of mine. It wasn't tummy, Laurence. And it wasn't temper. I think--I am sure--that what I was trying so hard to squall to you in my cradle was--that I cared, Laurence."

The young man's arms closed about her, and I saw the young mouths meet. I saw more than that: I saw other figures steal out into the moonlight and stand thus entwined, and one was the ghost of what once was I. That other, lost Armand De Rance, looked at me wistfully with his clear eyes; and I was very, very sorry for him, as one may be poignantly sorry for the innocent, beautiful dead. My hand tightened on my beads, and the feel of my ca.s.sock upon me, as a uniform, steadied and sustained me.

Those two had drawn back a little into the shadows as if the night had reached out its arms to them. Such a night belonged to such as these; they invest it, lend it meaning, give it intelligible speech. As for me, I was an old priest in an old ca.s.sock, with all his fond and foolish old heart melting in his breast. Youth alone is eternal and immortal. And as for love, it is of G.o.d.

"_As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen_." I had finished the decade. And then as one awakes from a trance I rose softly and as softly crept back to the Parish House, happy and at peace, because I had seen that which makes the morning stars rejoice when they sing together.

"Armand," said my mother, sleepily, "is that you, dear? I must have been nodding in my chair. Mary Virginia's just walked to the gate with Laurence."

"My goodness," said she, half an hour later. "What on earth can that child mean? Hadn't you better call her in, Armand?"

"No," said I, decidedly.

Laurence brought her back presently. There must have been something electrical in the atmosphere, for my mother of a sudden sat bolt upright in her chair. Women are like that. That is one of the reasons why men are so afraid of them.

"Padre, and p't.i.te Madame," began Laurence, "you've been like a father and mother to me--and--and--"

"And we thought you ought to know," said Mary Virginia.

"My children!" cried my mother, ecstatically, "it is the wish of my heart! Always have I prayed our good G.o.d to let this happen--and you see?"

"But it's a great secret: it's not to be _breathed_, yet," said Mary Virginia.

"Except, of course, my father--" began Laurence.

"And the b.u.t.terfly Man," I added, firmly. Well knowing none of us could keep such news from _him_.

"As for me," said my mother, gloriously reckless, "I shall open one of the two bottles of our great-grandfather's wine!" The last time that wine had been opened was the day I was ordained. "Armand, go and bring John Flint."

When I reached his rooms Kerry was whining over a huddled form on the porch steps. John Flint lay p.r.o.ne, his arms outstretched, horribly suggestive of one crucified. At my step he struggled upright. I had my arms about him in another moment.

"Are you hurt? sick? John, John, my son, what is it? What is it?"

"No, no, I'm all right. I--was just a little shaky for the minute.

There, there, don't you be scared, father." But his voice shook, and the hand I held was icy cold.

"My son, my dear son, what is wrong with you?"

He controlled himself with a great effort. "Oh, I've been a little off my feed of late, father, that's all. See, I'm perfectly all right, now." And he squared his shoulders and tried to speak in his natural voice.

"My mother wanted you to come over for a few minutes, there's something you're to know. But if you don't feel well enough--"

He seemed to brace himself. "Maybe I know it already. However, I'm quite able to walk over and hear--anything I'm to be told," he said, composedly.

In the lighted parlor his face showed up pale and worn, and his eyes hollow. But his smile was ready, his voice steady, and the hand which received the wine Mary Virginia herself brought him, did not tremble.

"It is to our great, great happiness we wish you to drink, old friend," said Laurence. Intoxicated with his new joy, glowing, shining, the boy was magnificent.

The b.u.t.terfly Man turned and looked at him; steadily, deliberately, a long, searching, critical look, as if measuring him by a new standard.

Laurence stood the test. Then the man's eyes came back to the girl, rose-colored, radiant, star-eyed, and lingered upon her. He arose, and held up the gla.s.s in which our old wine seemed to leap upward in little amber-colored flames.

"You'll understand," said the b.u.t.terfly Man, "that I haven't the words handy to my tongue to say what's in my heart. I reckon I'd have to be G.o.d for awhile, to make all I wish for you two come true." There was in look and tone and manner something so sweet and reverent that we were touched and astonished.