THE EXPLANATION
Owing to the fervent manner in which each succeeding dance was encored,
it was after midnight before the fairy-tale masquerade came to an end
and the lords and ladies of fairy lore became everyday boys and girls
again; and went home congratulating themselves on the blessed fact that
to-morrow was Saturday and that they could make up lost sleep the next
morning.
Marjorie Dean, however, was not among the late sleepers. She was up and
about the house at her usual hour, for the day held promise of unusual
interest. First of all, Constance was coming to see her at ten o'clock.
Then too, it was May day, a gloriously sunshiny May day, without the
faintest trace of cloud in the deep blue sky. As a third pleasant
anticipation, her class had planned a Mayday picnic at a point about
two miles up the river. It had been an unusually early spring, and the
wild flowers had blossomed in such profusion in the neighboring woods
about the town and along the river that the picnic had been planned
with a view to spending the day in gathering as many of them as
possible.
The expedition having been organized by the officers of the class there
was no question of who should be invited or who should be left out. The
class was exhorted to turn out in a body, and with the exception of a
few girls who had made plans for that Saturday prior to their knowledge
of the picnic, the freshmen of 19-- had promised to attend.
"Oh, dear, I wish ten o'clock were here!" sighed Marjorie as she
straightened the last object on her dressing table and viewed with
satisfaction the immaculate order to which she had reduced her room.
Keeping her room clean and dainty was almost a sacred obligation with
Marjorie. Her mother had spared neither time nor expense to make it a
marvel of pink-and-white beauty. The furniture was of white maple, the
thick, soft rug had a cream background scattered with small pink roses.
The window curtains were cunning ruffled affairs of fine white dotted
Swiss, while the window draperies were in pink-and-white French
cretonne. An attractive willow stand, which stood beside the bed, the
two pretty willow rockers piled high with pink and white cushions and
the creamy wallpaper with its graceful border of pink roses made the
room a perpetual joy to its appreciative owner. Marjorie always
referred to it as her "house" and when at home spent a great deal of her
time there.
But this morning the May sunshine poured rapturously in at her open
windows, touched her brown hair with mischievous golden fingers that
left gleaming imprints on her curls, and mutely coaxed her to come out
and play.
"I can't stand it indoors another minute," she breathed impatiently.
"It's almost ten. I'll walk down to the corner. Perhaps I'll see
Constance coming."
As she was about to leave the window she caught a glimpse of a slender
blue figure far down the street. With a cry of, "Oh, there she is!"
Marjorie raced out of her room, down the stairs and across the lawn to
the gate.
"You dear thing!" she called, her hands extended.
The next instant the two girls were embracing with a degree of affection
known only to those who, after blind misunderstanding, once more see the
light.
Tears of contrition stood in Marjorie's eyes as she led Constance into
the house and upstairs to her room. "Can you ever forgive me?" she
faltered, pushing Constance gently into a chair and drawing her own
opposite that of her friend.
"There is nothing to forgive," returned Constance, unsteadily. "You
didn't know. If only I had made you stay that day until we came to an
understanding! When you said 'Good-bye' in that queer tone, I called to
you to wait, for it seemed to me you were angry; but you had gone. Then
your note came. I didn't know how you could possibly have learned about
the pin, for I hadn't told a soul besides father and Uncle John. It
occurred to me that perhaps you had seen Uncle John and he had told you.
When I read what you said about not seeing me again I thought just one
thing, that, knowing my story, you didn't care to be friends with me any
more."
"What do you mean, Constance?" Marjorie's query was full of compelling
insistence. "I don't know any story about you."
"I know that you don't, dear; but I thought you knew. When Uncle John
came in that afternoon I asked him if he had seen you in the last two
days, and he said 'no,' and then 'yes.' I asked him if he had told you
about what had happened to me, and he declared that he couldn't
remember. I was sure that he had told you, because he often says that
when he is afraid father or I won't approve of something he has done.
That is the reason I didn't come to see you. Then I went to New York in
a hurry without dreaming of what your letter really meant. Jerry wrote
me two days before I had planned to come home. So I changed my plans and
started for Sanford the same day her letter reached me. Charlie was so
much better that I wasn't needed."
"Charlie?" repeated Marjorie, in bewildered interrogation.
"Yes," nodded Constance. "Haven't you seen father since I left? Didn't
he tell you?"
"Only once. I--he--I didn't let him know about us. It was right after
you went away. He said you had taken Charlie with you. I met him in the
street and stopped only a minute. I had come from your house that day
but there was no one at home. I couldn't bear to let things go on as
they had.
"Now," declared Marjorie, drawing a long breath, "begin at the beginning
and tell me every single thing."
"I will," assured Constance, emphatically. "Let me see. It began the day
after Christmas. A letter came from New York in the morning mail
addressed to father. I gave it to him, and after he read it he sat so
still and looked so white that I thought he was going to faint. Then he
made me come and sit down beside him and told me that the letter was
from my mother's sister in New York and that she was rich and wanted me
to come and live with her.
"I said that I would never desert my own father no matter how poor he
was, and then he told me that he was only my foster father, just as he
was Charlie's. That my own father had been his best friend when they
were boys. Later on, my father became a worthless, drunken wretch and my
mother had to do sewing to take care of herself and me. My mother's
family never forgave her for marrying my father and would not help her.
She was not strong and could not stand it to be so poor and work so
hard. She died when I was a year old, and just a month afterward my
father died with pneumonia. No one wanted me, so I was put in an orphan
asylum, but Father Stevens, who had been trying to find my father, heard
where I was and took me to live with him. He wrote to my aunt first, but
she said she didn't want me. That is the first part of my story."
"It sounds like a story in a book," said Marjorie, softly. "Go on,
Connie."
"This letter that father received was from my aunt," continued
Constance. "She had been trying to find us for more than two years.
Finally, she saw father's name signed to an article in the musical
magazine, so she wrote a letter and asked the publishers to forward it.
She said in the letter that she was now an old woman who had found that
blood was thicker than water, and that she wanted her sister's daughter,
who must now be a young woman, to come and live with her. With the
letter came a jeweler's box, and in the box was the butterfly pin. She
sent it to me as a Christmas gift.
"I cried and said I would not go, but father said it was the opportunity
of my life time and that I must. He said that he had no legal right to
me and that he loved me too dearly to stand in my way. It almost broke
my heart. How I hated that butterfly and my aunt, too. When you came to
see me that unlucky day I was feeling the worst. That very night I wrote
my aunt a long letter. I told her just how I felt, how much I loved
father and Charlie and poor old Uncle John and that I could never, never
give them up. Father didn't know I wrote the letter. He thought I was
becoming resigned to going away. I went back to school and wore the pin,
as my aunt had asked me to do in a little note enclosed in father's
letter.
"Then her letter came and it was so much nicer than the other that I
cried out of pure happiness. She asked me to bring Charlie to New York.
She knew a famous specialist who she thought might help, if not cure
him. She asked me to make her a visit and said she would never wish me
to come to live with her except of my own free will.
"We went to New York as you know, and, Marjorie"--Constance made an
impressive pause--"Charlie is going to be entirely well in a little
while. The specialist operated on his hip and the operation was
successful. He will be able to walk before very long. When he knew I was
coming home he said, 'Tell Marjorie that I don't need to ask Santa Claus
for a new leg next year, because the good, kind man she told me about
fixed mine.'"
"Dear little Charlie," murmured Marjorie. "I'm so glad."
A pleasant silence fell upon the two young girls. So much had happened
that for a brief moment each was busy with her own thoughts.
"Are you coming back to school to finish the year, Constance?" asked
Marjorie, at last.
"Yes. I am going to try to make up for lost time. I'll take in June the
examinations I should have tried in January. I hope to be a Sanford
sophomore, Marjorie. Aunt Edith is coming to visit us this summer. She
is going to bring Charlie home."
Constance remained with Marjorie until almost noon.
"I wish you'd stay to luncheon," coaxed the little lieutenant.
"I can't. I'm sorry. I promised father I'd be home at noon."
"Then I wish you were going to the picnic this afternoon."
Constance shook her head, looking wistful, nevertheless.
"I'd rather not. Mignon will be there. It is better to be out of sight
and out of mind until after Monday."
"Everything is turning out beautifully," sighed Marjorie. "There's only
one thing more that I could possibly wish for."
"What is that?" asked Constance quickly.
"My lost butterfly."
"Perhaps it will fly back home when you least expect it," consoled
Constance.
"Lost pins don't fly," retorted Marjorie. "If they did my butterfly
would have come back to me long ago."
But, even then, though she could not know it, her cherished butterfly
was poising its golden wings for the homeward flight.