"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 G.o.d! _Me!_ At a jane-junket! ... all the thin ones diked out with doodads where the bones come through ...
stoking like sailors on sh.o.r.e 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 b.u.t.terflies! Aren"t they just too perfectly sweet for anything! I wonder why they don"t trim hats with b.u.t.terflies? Do you know _all_ their names, you awfully clever man? Do _they_ know their names, too, Mr. Flint? b.u.t.terflies 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-b.u.t.terflies 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 n.o.body 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 G.o.d 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 gla.s.s darkly, but face to face.
My mother, coming out of the house with her cherished ma.n.u.script 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 Clelie 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 b.u.t.terfly Man accepted them quite as simply, with no faintest trace of embarra.s.sment.
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 b.u.t.terfly Man himself came stealthily, and seemed embarra.s.sed to find the place preempted.
"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-s.m.u.tched, 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 cla.s.s 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 p.u.s.s.y-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 c.o.c.ked 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 G.o.d, 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 b.u.t.terfly Man rose abruptly. "Suppose we stroll about a bit?" he suggested.