She went red and white. She looked entreatingly into the Butterfly Man's face. She didn't exactly see why he should drive her thus, but she caught courage from his. One saw how wise Flint had been to have snared Laurence here just now. One moment she hesitated. Then:
"Yes!" said she, and her head went up proudly. "Yes, oh, yes, I care—like that. Only much, much more! I shall always care like that, although he probably won't believe me now when I say so. And I can't blame him for doubting me."
"But it just happens that I have never been able to make myself doubt you," said Laurence gravely. "Why, Mary Virginia, you are you."
"Then, Laurence," said the Butterfly Man, quickly, "will you take your old friends' word for it—mine, Madame's, the Padre's—that you were most divinely right to go on believing in her and loving her, because she never for one moment ceased to be worthy of faith and affection? No, not for one moment! She couldn't, you know. She's Mary Virginia! And will you promise to listen with all your patience to what she may think best to tell you presently—and then forget it? You're big enough to do that! She's been in sore straits, and she needs all the love you have, to help make up to her. Can she be sure of it, Laurence?"
Laurence flushed. He looked at his old friend with reproach in his fine brown eyes. "You have known me all my life, all of you," said he, stiffly. "Have I ever given any of you any reason to doubt me!"
"No, and we don't. Not one of us. But it's good for your soul to say things out loud," said Flint comfortably. "And now you've said it, don't you think you two had better go on over to the Parish House parlor, which is a nice quiet place, and talk this whole business over and out—together?"
Laurence looked at Mary Virginia and what he saw electrified him. Boyishness flooded him, youth danced in his eyes, beauty was upon him, like sunlight.
"Mary Virginia!" said the boy lover to the girl sweetheart, "is it really so? I was really right to believe all along that you—care?"
"Laurence, Laurence!" she was half-crying. "Oh, Laurence, are you sure you care—yet? You are sure, Laurence? You are sure? Because—I—I don't think I could stand things now if—if I were mistaken—"
I don't know whether the boy ran to the girl at that, or the girl to the boy. I rather think they ran to each other because, in another moment, perfectly regardless of us, they were clinging to each other, and my mother was walking around them and crying heartily and shamelessly, and enjoying herself immensely. Mary Virginia began to stammer: