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!”