JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN
Almost up to Christmas the weather had been so mild and warm that
folks lived out of doors. Girls clothed like the angels in white
raiment fluttered about and blessed the old streets with their fresh
and rosy faces. In the bright sunshine the flowers seemed to have lost
all thought of winter; they forgot to fade; and roses rioted in every
garden as if it were still summer. Nobody but the Butterfly Man
grumbled at this springlike balminess, and he only because he was
impatient to resume experiments carried over from year to year--the
effect of varying degrees of natural cold upon the colors of
butterflies whose chrysalids were exposed to it. He generally used the
chrysalids of the Papilio Turnus, whose females are dimorphic, that
is, having two distinct forms. He did not care to resort to artificial
freezing, preferring to allow Nature herself to work for him. And the
jade repaid him, as usual, by showing him what she could do but
refusing to divulge the moving why she did it. She gave him for his
pains sometimes a light, and sometimes a dark butterfly, with
different degrees of blurred or enlarged and vivid markings, from
chrysalids subjected to exactly the same amount of exposure.
The Butterfly Man was burning to complete his notes, already assuming
the proportions of that very exact and valuable book they were
afterward to become. He chafed at the enforced delay, and wished
himself at the North Pole.
In the meantime, having nothing else on hand just then, it occurred to
him to put some of these notes, covering the most interesting and
curious of the experiments, into papers which the general run of folks
might like to read. Dabney had been after him for some time to do some
such work as this for the _Clarion_.
I think Flint himself was genuinely surprised when he read over those
enchanting papers, though he did not then and never has learned to
appreciate their unique charm and value. Instead, however, of sending
them to Dabney, he thought they might possibly interest a somewhat
wider public, and with great diffidence, and some misgivings, he sent
one or two of them to certain of the better known magazines. They did
not come back. He received checks instead, and a request for more.
Now the book and the several monographs he had already gotten out had
been, although very interesting, strictly scientific; they could
appeal only to students and scholars. But these papers were entirely
different. Scientific enough, very clear and lucid and most quaintly
flavored with what Laurence called Flintishness, they were so well
received, and the response of the reading public to this fresh and new
presentment of an ever-fascinating subject was so immediate and so
hearty, that the Butterfly Man found himself unexpectedly confronting
a demand he was hard put to it to supply.
He was very much more modest about this achievement than we were. My
mother's pride was delicious to witness. You see, it also invested
_me_ with a very farsighted wisdom! Here was it proven to all that
Father De Rancé had been right in holding fast to the man who had come
to him in such sorry plight.
I suppose it was this which moved Madame to take the step she had long
been contemplating. Knowing her Butterfly Man, she began with infinite
wile.
"Armand," said she, one bright morning in early November, "_I_ am
going to entertain, too--everybody else has done so, and now it's my
turn. The weather is so ideal, and my garden so gorgeous with all
those chrysanthemums and salvias and geraniums and roses, that it
would be sinful not to take advantage of such conditions.
"I have saved enough out of my house-money to meet the expenses--and I
am _not_ going to be charitable and do my Christian duty with that
money! I'm going to entertain. I really owe that much attention to
Mary Virginia." She laid her hand on my arm. "I must see John Flint;
go over to his rooms, and bring him back with you."
I thought she merely needed his help and counsel, for she is always
consulting him; she considers that whatever barque is steered by John
Flint must needs come home to harbor. He obeyed her summons with
alacrity, for it delights him to assist Madame. He did not know what
fate overshadowed him!
My mother sat in her low rocker, a lace apron lending piquancy to her
appearance. She looked unusually pretty--there wasn't a girl in
Appleboro who didn't envy Madame De Rancé's complexion.
"Well," said the Butterfly Man cheerfully, unconsciously falling under
the spell of this feminine charm, "the Padre tells me there's a party
in the wind. Good! Now what am I to do? How am I to help you out?"
My mother leaned forward and compelled him to meet direct her eyes
that were friendly and clear and candid as a child's.
"Mr. Flint," said she artlessly, ignoring his questions, "Mr. Flint,
you've been with Armand and me quite a long time now, have you not?"
"A couple of lifetimes," said he, wonderingly.
"A couple of lifetimes," she mused, still holding his eyes, "is a
fairly long time. Long enough, at least, to know and to be known,
shouldn't you think?"
He awaited enlightenment. He never asks unnecessary questions.
"I am going," said my mother, with apparent irrelevance, "to entertain
in honor of Mary Virginia Eustis. I shall probably have all Appleboro
here. I sent for you to explain that you and Armand are to be present,
too."
The Butterfly Man almost fell out of his chair.
"Me?" he gasped.
"You," with deadly softness. "You."
Horror and anguish encompassed him. Perspiration appeared on his
forehead, and he gripped the arms of his chair as one bracing himself
for torture. He looked at the little lady with the terror of one to
whom the dentist has just said: "That jaw tooth must come out at once.
Open your mouth wider, please, so I can get a grip!"
My mother regarded this painful emotion heartlessly enough. She said
coolly:
"You don't need to look as if I were sentencing you to be hanged
before sundown. I am merely inviting you to be present at a very
pleasant affair." But the Butterfly Man, with his mouth open, wagged
his head feebly.
"And this," said my mother, turning the screw again, "is but the
beginning. After this, I shall manage it so that all invitations to
the Parish House include Mr. John Flint. There is no reason under
heaven why you should occupy what one might call an ambiguous
position. I am determined, too, that you shall no longer rush away to
the woods like a scared savage, the minute more than one or two ladies
appear. No, nor have Armand hurrying away as quickly as he can,
either, to bury or to marry somebody. All feminine Appleboro shall be
here at once, and you two shall be here at the same time!
"John Flint, regard me: if the finest butterfly that ever crawled a
caterpillar on this earth has the impertinence to fly by my garden the
afternoon I'm entertaining for Mary Virginia, it can fly, but you
shan't.
"Armand: nobody respects Holy Orders more than I do: but there isn't
anybody alive going to get born or baptized or married or buried, or
anything else, in this parish, on that one afternoon. If they are
selfish enough to do it anyhow, why, they can do it without your
assistance. You are going to stay home with me: both of you."
"My _dear_ mother--"
"Good Lord! Madame--"
"I am not to be dearmothered nor goodlorded! Heaven knows I ask little
enough of either of you. _I_ am at _your_ beck and call, every day in
the year. It does seem to me that when I wish to be civilized, and
return for once some of the attentions I have received from my
friends, I might at least depend upon you two for one little
afternoon!" Could anything be more artfully unanswerable?
"Oh, but Madame--" began Flint, horrified by such an insinuation as
his unwillingness to do anything at any time for this adored lady.
"Particularly," continued my mother, inexorably, "when I have your
best interest at heart, too, John Flint! Monsieur the Butterfly Man,
you will please to remember that you are a member of my household. You
are almost like a son to me. You are the apple of that foolish
Armand's eye--do not look so astounded, it is true! Also, you will
have a great name some of these days. So far, so good. But--you are
making the grievous error of shunning society, particularly the
society of women. This is wrong; it makes for queerness, it evolves
the 'crank,' it spoils many an otherwise very nice man."
Flint sagged in his chair, and clasped and unclasped his hands, which
trembled visibly. Madame regarded him without pity, with even a touch
of scorn.
"Yes, it is indeed high time to reclaim you!" she decided, with the
fearsome zeal of the female reformer of a man. "You silly man, you!
Have you no proper pride? Have you absolutely no idea of your own
worth? Well, then, if you haven't, _I_ have. You _shall_ take your
place and play your part!"
"But," said Flint, and a gleam of hope irradiated his stricken face,
"but I don't think I've got the clothes to wear to parties. And I
really can't afford to spend any more money right now, either. I spent
a lot on that old 1797 Abbot & Smith's 'Natural History of the Rarer
Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia.' It cost like the dickens, although
I really got it for about half what it's worth. I had to take it when
I got the chance, and I'd be willing to wear gunny-sacking for a year
to pay for those plates! I need them: I want them. But I don't need a
party. I don't want a party! Madame, don't, don't make me go to any
party!"
"Nonsense!" said my mother. "Clothes, indeed! I shouldn't worry about
clothes, if I were you, John Flint. You came into this world knowing
exactly what to wear and how to wear it. Why, you have an air! That is
a very great mercy, let me tell you, and one not always vouchsafed to
the deserving, either."
"I have a cage full of grubs--most awfully particular grubs, and
they've got to be watched like a sick kid with the--with the whatever
it is sick kids have, anyhow. Why, if I were to leave those grubs one
whole afternoon--"
"You just let me see a single solitary grub have the temerity to hatch
himself out that one afternoon, that's all! They have all the rest of
their nasty little lives to hatch out!"
"Besides, there's a boy lives about five miles from here, and he's
likely to bring me word any minute about something I simply have to
have--"
"I want to see that boy!" She pointed her small forefinger at him,
with the effect of a pistol leveled at his head.
"You are coming to my affair!" said she, sternly. "If you have no
regard whatsoever for Mary Virginia and me, you shall have some for
yourself; if you have none for yourself, then you shall have some for
_us!_"
This took the last puff of wind from the Butterfly Man's sails.
"All right!" he gulped, and committed himself irremediably. "I--I'll
be right here. You say so, and of course I've got to!"
"Of course you will," said my mother, smiling at him charmingly. "I
knew I had only to present the matter in its proper light, and you'd
see it at once. You are so sensible, John Flint. It's such a comfort,
when the gentlemen of one's household are so amenable to reason, and
so ready to stand by one!"
Having said her say, and gotten her way--as she was perfectly sure she
would--Madame left the gentlemen of her household to their own
reflections and devices.
"Parson!" The Butterfly Man seemed to come out of a trance. "Remember
the day you made me let a caterpillar crawl up my hand?"
"Yes, my son."
"Parson, there's a horrible big teaparty crawling up my pants' leg
this minute!"
"Just keep still," I couldn't help laughing at him, "and it will come
down after awhile without biting you. Remember, you got used to the
others in no time."
"Some of 'em stung like the very devil," he reminded me, darkly.
"Oh, but those were the hairy fellows. This is a stingless, hairless,
afternoon party! It won't hurt you at all!"
"It's walking up my pants' leg, just the same. And I'm scared of it:
I'm horrible scared of it! My God! _Me!_ At a jane-junket! ... all the
thin ones diked out with doodads where the bones come through ...
stoking like sailors on shore leave ... all the fat ones grouchy about
their shapes and thinking it's their souls. ..." And he broke out, in
a fluttering falsetto:
"'Oh, Mr. Flint, do please let us see your lovely butterflies! Aren't
they just too perfectly sweet for anything! I wonder why they don't
trim hats with butterflies? Do you know _all_ their names, you awfully
clever man? Do _they_ know their names, too, Mr. Flint? Butterflies
must be so very interesting! And so decorative, particularly on china
and house linen! How you have the heart to kill them, I can't imagine.
Just think of taking the poor mother-butterflies away from the dear
little baby-ones!' ...--and me having to stand there and behave like a
perfect gentleman!" He looked at me, scowling:
"Now, you look here: I can stand 'em single-file, but if I'm made to
face 'em in squads, why, you blame nobody but yourself if I foam at
the mouth and chase myself in a circle and snap at legs, you hear me?"
"I hear you," said I, coldly. "You didn't get your orders from _me_.
_I_ think your proper place is in the woods. You go tell Madame what
you've just told me--or should you like me to warn her that you're
subject to rabies?"
"For the love of Mike, parson! Have a heart! Haven't I got troubles
enough?" he asked bitterly.
"You are behaving more like an unspanked brat than a grown man."
"I wasn't weaned on teaparties," said he, sulkily, "and it oughtn't
to be expected I can swallow 'em at sight without making a face and--"
"Whining," I finished for him. And I added, with a reminiscent air:
"Rule 1: Can the Squeal!"
He glared at me, but as I met the glare unruffled, his lip presently
twisted into a grin of desperate humor. His shoulders squared.
"All right," said he, resignedly. And after an interval of dejected
silence, he remarked: "I've sort of got a glimmer of how Madame feels
about this. She generally knows what's what, Madame does, and I
haven't seen her make a mistake yet. If she thinks it's my turn to
come on in and take a hand in any game she's playing, why, I guess I'd
better play up to her lead the best I know how ... and trust God to
slip me over an ace or two when I need them. You tell her she can
depend on me not to fall down on her ... and Miss Eustis."
"No need to tell Madame what she already knows."
"Huh!" With his chin in his hand and his head bent, he stared out over
the autumn garden with eyes which did not see its flaming flowers. Of
a sudden his shoulders twitched; he laughed aloud.
"What are you laughing at?" I was startled out of a revery of my own.
"Everything," said the Butterfly Man, succinctly, and stood up and
shook himself. "And everybody. And me in particular. _Me!_ Oh, good
Lord, think of _Me!_" He whistled for Kerry, and took himself off. I
watched him walk down the street, and saw Judge Mayne's familiar
greeting; and Major Cartwright stop him, and with his hand on the
Butterfly Man's arm, walk off with him. Major Cartwright had kept
George Inglesby out of two coveted clubs, for all his wealth; he was
stiff as the proverbial poker to Howard Hunter, for all that
gentleman's impeccable connections; he met John Flint, not as through
a glass darkly, but face to face.
My mother, coming out of the house with her cherished manuscript
cookbook in her hand, looked after them thoughtfully:
"Yes; it is high time for that man to know his proper place!"
"And does he not?"
"Oh, I suppose so, Armand. In a man's way, though--not a woman's. It's
the woman's way that really matters, you see. When women acknowledge
that man socially--and I mean it to happen--his light won't be hidden
under a bushel basket. He will climb up into his candlestick and
shine."
That sense of bewilderment which at times overwhelmed me when the case
of John Flint pressed hard, overtook me now, with its ironic humor. As
he himself had expressed it, I felt myself caught by a Something too
big to withstand. I was afraid to do anything, to say anything, for or
against, this launching of his barque upon the social sea. I felt that
the affair had been once more lifted out of my power; that my serving
now was but to stand and wait.
And in the meanwhile my mother, with her own hands, washed and darned
the priceless old lace that was her chiefest pride; had something done
to a frock; got out her sacredest treasures of linen and china and
silver; requisitioned the Mayne and the Dexter spoons as well; had the
Parish House scoured until it glittered; did everything to the garden
but wash and iron it; spent momentous and odorous hours with Clélie
over the making of toothsome delights; and on a golden afternoon gave
a tea on the flower-decked verandahs and in the glorious garden, to
which all Appleboro, in its best bib and tucker, came as one. And
there, in the heart and center of it, cool, calm, correct, collected,
hiding whatever mortal qualms he might have felt under a demeanor as
perfect as Hunter's own, apparently at home and at ease, behold the
Butterfly Man!
Everybody seemed to know him. Everybody had something pleasant to say
to him. Folks simply accepted him at sight as one of themselves. And
the Butterfly Man accepted them quite as simply, with no faintest
trace of embarrassment.
If Appleboro had cherished the legend that this was a prodigal well on
his way home, that afternoon settled it for them into a positive fact.
His manner was perfect. It was as if one saw the fine and beautiful
grain of a piece of rare wood come out as the varnish that disfigured
it was removed. Here was no veneer to scratch and crack at a touch,
but the solid, rare thing itself. My mother had been right, as always.
John Flint stepped into his proper place. Appleboro was acknowledging
it officially.
The garden was full of laughter and chatter and perfumes, and women in
pretty clothes, and young girls dainty as flowers, and the smiling
faces of men. But I am no longer of the party age. I stole away to a
favorite haunt of mine at the back of the garden, behind the spireas
and the holly tree, where there is a dilapidated old seat we have been
threatening to remove any time this five years. Here, some time
later, the Butterfly Man himself came stealthily, and seemed
embarrassed to find the place preëmpted.
"Well," said I, making room for him beside me, "it isn't so bad after
all, is it?"
"No. I'm glad I was let in for it," he admitted frankly, "though I'd
hate to have to come to parties for a living. Still, this afternoon
has nailed down a thought that's been buzzing around loose in my mind
this long time. It's this: people aren't anything but people, after
all. Men and women and kids, the best and the worst of 'em, they're
nothing but people, the same as everybody else. No, I'll never be
scared to meet anybody, after this. _I'm_ people, too!"
"The same as everybody else."
"The same as everybody else," he repeated, soberly. "Not but what
there's lots of difference between folks. And there are things it's
good to know, too ... things that women like Madame ... and Miss Mary
Virginia Eustis ... expect a man to know, if they're not going to be
ashamed of him." He thought about this awhile, then:
"I tell you what, father," he remarked, tentatively, "it must be a
mighty fine thing to know you've got the right address written on you,
good and plain, and the right number of stamps, and the sender's name
somewhere on a corner, to keep you from going astray or to the Dead
Letter Office; and not to be scrawled in lead-pencil, and misspelt,
and finger-smutched, and with a couple of postage-due stamps stuck on
you crooked, and the Lord only knows who and where from."
"Why, yes," said I, "that's true, and one does well to consider it.
But the main thing, the really important thing, is the letter
itself--what's written inside, John Flint."
"But what's written inside wouldn't be any the worse if it was written
clearer and better, and the outside was cleaner and on nice paper? And
in pen-and-ink, not lead-pencil scratches?" he insisted earnestly.
"Of course not."
"That's what I've been thinking lately, father. Somehow, I always did
like things to have some class to 'em. I remember how I used to lean
against the restaurant windows when I was a kid, and watch the folks
inside, how they dressed and acted, and the way the nicest of 'em
handled table-tools. They weren't swells, of course, and plenty of 'em
made plenty of mistakes--I've seen stunts done with a common
table-knife that had the best of the sword-swallowing gents skinned a
mile--but I wasn't a fool, and I learned some. Then when I--er--began
to make real money (parson, I made it in wads and gobs and lumps those
days!) why, I got me the real thing in glad rags from the real thing
in tailors, and I used to blow a queen that'd been a swell herself
once, to the joint where the gilt-edged bunch eat and show off their
clothes and the rest of themselves. My jane looked the part to the
life, I had the kale and the clothes and was chesty as a head-waiter,
being considerably stuck on yours truly along about then, so we put it
over. I had the chance to get hep to the last word in clothes and
manners; that's what I'd gone for, though I didn't tell that to the
skirt I was buying the eats for. And it was good business, too, for
more than once when some precinct bonehead that pipe-dreamed he was a
detective was pussy-catting some cold rat-hole, there was me
vanbibbering in the white light at the swellest joints in little old
New York! Funny, wasn't it? And handy! And I was learning,
too--learning things worth good money to know. I saw that the best
sort didn't make any noise about anything. They went about their
business, whatever it was, easy-easy, same as me in my line. But,
parson, though I'd got hep to the outside, and had sense enough to
copy what I'd seen, I wasn't wise to the inside difference--the things
that make the best what it is, I mean--because I'd never been close
enough to find out that there's more to it than looks and duds and
manners. It took the Parish House people to soak that into me. People
aren't anything but people--but the best are--well, different."
We fell silent; a happy silence, into which, as from another planet,
there drifted light laughter, and sweet gay voices of girls, and the
stir and rustle of many people moving about. On the Mayne fence the
judge's black Panch sat, neck outstretched, emerald eyes aslant, ears
cocked uneasily at these unwonted noises. At a little distance a
bluejay watched him with bright malevolent eyes, every now and then
screaming insults at the whole tribe of cats, and black Panch in
particular. Flint snapped his fingers, and Panch, with a spring, was
off the fence and on his friend's knees. It seemed to me it had only
needed the sleek beastie to make that hour perfect;--for cats in the
highest degree make for a sense of homely, friendly intimacy. Flint,
feeling this, stroked the black head contentedly. Panch purred for the
three of us.
Into this presently broke Miss Sally Ruth Dexter, and bore down on
John Flint like a frigate with all sails spread. At sight of her Panch
spat and fled, and took the happy spell with him.
"Here you are, cuddling that old pirate of a black cat!" said she,
briskly. "I told Madame you'd be mooning about somewhere. Here's some
cocoanut cake for you both. Father, Madame's been looking for you. Did
you know," she sank her voice to a piercing whisper, "that George
Inglesby's here? Well, he is! He's talking to Mary Virginia Eustis,
this very minute! They do say he's running after Mary Virginia, and
I'm sure I wouldn't be surprised, for if ever a mortal man had the
effrontery of Satan that man's George Inglesby! I must admit he's
improved since Mr. Hunter took him in hand. He's not nearly so stout
and red-faced, and he hasn't half the jowl, though Lord knows he'll
have to get rid of a few tons more of his blubber" (Miss Sally Ruth
has a free and fetterless tongue) "if he wants to look _human_. As I
say, what's the use of being a millionaire if you've got a shape like
a rainbarrel? I often tell myself, 'Maybe you haven't been given such
a lot of this world's goods as some, Sally Ruth Dexter, but you can
thank your sweet Redeemer you've at least got a Figure!"
The Butterfly Man cast a speculative eye over her generous
proportions.
"Yes'm, you certainly have a whole lot to be thankful for," he agreed,
so wholeheartedly that Miss Sally Ruth laughed.
"Get along with you, you impudent fellow!" said she, in high good
humor. "Go and look at that old scamp of an Inglesby making eyes at a
girl young enough to be his daughter! I heard this morning that Mr.
Hunter has orders to get him, by hook or crook, an invitation to
anything Mary Virginia goes to. I declare, it's scandalous! Come to
think of it, though, I never saw any man yet, no matter how old or
ugly or outrageous he might be, who didn't really believe he stood a
perfectly good chance to win the affections of the handsomest young
woman alive! If you ask _me_, _I_ think George Inglesby had better
join the church and get himself ready to meet his God, instead of
gallivanting around girls. If he feels he has to gallivant, why don't
he pick out somebody nearer his own age?"
"Why should you make him choose mutton when he wants lamb?" asked the
Butterfly Man, unexpectedly.
"Because he's an old bellwether, that's why!" snapped Miss Sally Ruth,
scandalized. "I wonder at Annabelle Eustis allowing him to come near
Mary Virginia, millionaire or no millionaire. I bet you James Eustis
will have something to say, if Mary Virginia herself doesn't!" And she
sailed off again, leaving us, as the saying is, with a bug in the ear.
"Now what in the name of heaven," I wondered, "can Miss Sally Ruth
mean? Mary Virginia ... Inglesby. ... The thing's sacrilegious."
The Butterfly Man rose abruptly. "Suppose we stroll about a bit?" he
suggested.
"I thought," said my mother, when we approached her, "that you had
disobeyed orders, and run away!"
"We were afraid to," said John Flint. "We knew you'd make us go to bed
without supper."
"Did you know," said my mother, hurriedly, for Clélie was making signs
to her, "that George Inglesby is here? The invitation was merely
perfunctory, just sent along with Mr. Hunter's. I never dreamed the
man would accept it. You can't imagine how astonished I was when he
presented himself!"
A few moments later, the Butterfly Man said in a low voice: "Look
yonder!" And turning, I saw Hunter. He was for the moment alone, and
stood with his head bent slightly forward, his bright cold glance
intent upon the two persons approaching--Mary Virginia and George
Inglesby. His white teeth showed in a smile. I remembered,
disagreeably, Flint's "I don't like the expression of his teeth: he
looks like he'd bite."
Until that afternoon I had not seen the secretary for some time, for
he had been kept unusually busy. Those eminently sensible talks to the
mill workers had been well received, and were to be followed by others
along the same line. He had done even more: he had induced the owners
to recognize the men's Union, and all future complaints and demands
were to be submitted to arbitration. Inglesby had undoubtedly gained
ground enormously by that move. Hunter had done well. And
yet--catching that sharp-toothed smile, I felt my faith in him for the
first time shaken by one of those unaccountable uprushes of intuition
which perplex and disturb.
I knew, too, that Laurence had had several long and serious
conferences with Eustis, and I could well imagine the arguments he had
brought to bear, the rousing of a sense of duty, and of state pride.
Eustis was obstinate. He had many interests. He was a very, very busy
man. He didn't want to be a Senator; he wanted to be let alone to
attend to his own business in his own way. But, insisted Laurence,
when a thing must be done, and you can do it in a manner which
benefits all and injures none; when your own people ask you to do it
for them, isn't _that_ your business?
A cold damning resume of Inglesby's entire career made Eustis
hesitate. A vivid picture of what the state might expect at Inglesby's
hands roused him to just anger. Such as this fellow represent
Carolina? Never! When Inglesby's name should be put up, Eustis
unwillingly agreed to oppose him.
And here was Inglesby, in my garden, making himself agreeable to
Eustis's daughter! He was so plainly desirous to please her, that it
troubled me, although it made his secretary smile.
The Mary Virginia walking beside Inglesby was not the Mary Virginia
_we_ knew: this was the regal one, the great beauty. Her whole manner
was subtly charged with a sort of arrogant hauteur; her fairness
itself changed, tinged with pride as with an inward fire, until she
glowed with a cold, jewel-like brightness, hard and clear. Her very
skirts rustled pridefully. Her glance at the man beside her was
insulting in its disdainful indifference.
What would have saddened a nobler spirit enchanted Inglesby. He was
dazzled by her. Her interest in what he was saying was coolly
impersonal, the fixed habit of trained politeness. He could even
surmise that she was mentally yawning behind her hand. When she looked
at him her eyes under her level brows held a certain scornfulness. And
this, too, delighted him. He groveled to it. His red face glowed with
pleasure; he swelled with a pride very different from Mary Virginia's.
I thought he had an upholstered look in his glossy clothes, reminding
me unpleasantly of horsehair furniture.
"He looks like a day coach in July," growled the Butterfly Man in my
ear, disgustedly.
Inglesby at this moment perceived Hunter and beamed upon him, as well
he might! Who but this priceless secretary had pulled the strings
which set him beside this glorious creature, in the Parish House
garden? He turned to the girl, with heavy jauntiness:
"My good right hand, Miss Eustis, I assure you!" he beamed. "But I am
sure you two need no dissertations upon each other's merits!"
"None whatever," said Miss Eustis, and looked over Mr. Hunter's head.
"Oh, Miss Eustis and I are really old acquaintances!" smiled the
secretary. "We know each other very well indeed."
Mary Virginia made no reply. Instead, she looked about her,
indifferently enough, until her glance encountered the Butterfly
Man's. What he saw in her's I do not know. But he instantly moved
toward her, and swept me with him.
"Father De Rancé and I," said he, easily, "haven't had chance to speak
to you all afternoon, Miss Eustis." He acknowledged Hunter's friendly
greeting pleasantly enough.
"And I've been looking for you both." The hauteur faded from the young
face. Our own Mary Virginia appeared, changed in the twinkling of an
eye.
Inglesby favored me with condescending effusiveness. Flint got off
with a smirking stare.
"And this," said Inglesby in the sort of voice some people use in
addressing strange children to whom they desire to be patronizingly
nice and don't know how, "this is the Butterfly Man!" Out came the
jovial smile in its full deadliness. The Butterfly Man's lips drew
back from his teeth and his eyes narrowed to gimlet points behind his
glasses. "I have heard of you from Mr. Hunter. And so you collect
butterflies! Very interesting and active occupation for any one
that--ahem! likes that sort of thing. Very."
"He collects obituaries, too," said Hunter, immensely amused. "You
mustn't overlook the obituaries, Mr. Inglesby."
Mr. Inglesby favored the collector of butterflies _and_ obituaries
with another speculative, piglike stare. You could see the thought
behind it: "Trifling sort of fellow! Idiotic! Very." Aloud he merely
mumbled:
"Singular taste. Very. Collecting obituaries, eh?"
"Fascinating things to collect. Very," said the Butterfly Man,
sweetly. "Not to be laughed at. I might add yours to 'em, too, you
know, some of these fine days!"
"Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed!" murmured Hunter. Mr. Inglesby,
however, was visibly ruffled and annoyed. Who was this fellow braying
of obituaries as if he, Inglesby, were on the highroad to oblivion
already, when he was, in reality, still quite a young man? And right
before Miss Eustis! He turned purple.
"My obituary?" he spluttered. "_Mine_? Mine?"
"Sure, if it's worth while," said the Butterfly Man, amiably. Mary
Virginia barely suppressed a smile.
"Madame would like to see you, Miss Eustis," he told her.
Mary Virginia, bowing distantly to the millionaire and his secretary,
walked off with him, I following.
Once free of them, her spirits rose soaringly.
"It's been a lovely afternoon, and I've enjoyed it all--except Mr.
Inglesby. I don't _like_ Mr. Inglesby, Padre. He's amusing enough, I
suppose, at times, but one can't seem to get rid of him--he's a
perfect Old Man of the Sea," she told us, confidentially. "And you
can't imagine how detestably youthful he is, Mr. Flint! He told me
half a dozen times this afternoon that after all, years don't
matter--it is the heart which is young. And he takes cold tubs and is
proud of himself, and plays golf--for exercise!" The scorn of the
lithe and limber young was in her voice.
"What's the use of being a millionaire, if you have a shape like the
rainbarrel?" I quoted pensively.
Later that night, when "the lights were fled, the garlands dead, and
all but me departed," I went over for my usual last half-hour with
John Flint. Very often we have nothing whatever to say, and we are
even wise enough not to say it. We sit silently, he with Kerry's noble
old head against his foot, each busy with his own thoughts and
reflections, but each conscious of the friendly nearness of the other.
You have never had a friend, if you have never known one with whom you
might sit a silent, easy hour. To-night he sucked savagely at his old
pipe, and his eyes were somber.
"You got the straight tip from Miss Sally Ruth, father," he said,
coming out of a brown study. "What do you suppose that piker's trying
to crawl out of his cocoon for? He never wanted to caper around
Appleboro women before, did he? No. And here he's been muldooning to
get some hog-fat off and some wind and waistline back. Now, why? To
please himself? _He_ don't have to care a hoot what he looks like. To
please some girl? That's more likely. Parson: that girl's Mary
Virginia Eustis." He added, through his teeth: "Hunter knows. Hunter's
steering." And then, with quiet conviction: "They're both as crooked
as hell!" he finished.
"But the thing's absurd on the face of it! Why, the mere notion is
preposterous!" I insisted, angrily.
"I have seen worse things happen," said he, shortly. "But there,--keep
your hair on! Things don't happen unless they're slated to happen, so
don't let it bother you too much. You go turn in and forget everything
except that you need a night's sleep."
I tried to follow his sound advice, but although I needed a night's
sleep and there was no tangible reason why I shouldn't have gotten it,
I didn't. The shadow of Inglesby haunted my pillow.