"But," said I, perplexed, "what can you do? A young lady has seen fit to break her engagement; young ladies often see fit to do that, my dear fellow. This isn't an uncommon case. Also, one doesn't interfere in a lady's private affairs, not even when one is an old priest who has loved her since her childhood, nor yet a Butterfly Man who is her devoted friend. Don't you see?"
"I see there's something wrong," said he, doggedly.
"Perhaps. But that doesn't give one the right to pry into something she evidently doesn't wish to reveal," I told him.
"I suppose," said he, heavily, "you are right. But if you hear anything, let me know, won't you?"
I promised; but I found out nothing, save that it had not been Mrs. Eustis who influenced her daughter's action. This came out in a call Mrs. Eustis made at the Parish House.
"My dear," she told my mother, "when she told me she had broken that engagement, I was astounded! But I can't say I wasn't pleased. Laurence is a dear boy; and his family's as good as ours—no one can take that away from the Maynes. But Mary Virginia should have done better.
"I quarreled with her, argued with her, pleaded with her. I cried and cried. But she's James Eustis to the life—you might as well try to move the Rock of Gibraltar. Then one morning she came to my room and told me she found she couldn't marry Laurence! And she had already told him so, and broken her engagement, and I wasn't to ask her any questions. I didn't. I was too glad."
"And—Laurence—?" asked my mother, ironically.
"Laurence? Laurence is a man. Men get over that sort of thing. I've known a man to be perfectly mad over his wife—and marry, six months after her death. They're like that. They always get over it. It's their nature."
"Let us hope, then, for Laurence's peace of mind," said my mother, "that he'll get over it—like all the rest of his sex. Though I shouldn't call Laurence fickle, or faithless, if you ask me."