That seductive “we” in that golden voice routed him, horse and foot.  He looked at the small hand on his arm, and his glance went swiftly to the sweet and innocent eyes looking at him with such frank friendliness.

“It’s better than I deserve,” he said, gently enough.  “And it isn’t I’m not grateful to the rest of them for liking me,—­if they do.  It’s that I want to box their ears when they pretend to like my insects, and don’t.”

“Being a gentleman has its drawbacks,” said I, tentatively.

“Believe me!” he spoke with great feeling.  “It’s nothing short of doing a life-stretch!”

The boy and girl laughed gaily.  When he spoke thus it added to his unique charm.  So profoundly were they impressed with what he had become, that even what he had been, as they remembered it, increased their respect and affection.  That past formed for him a somber background, full of half-lights and shadows, against which he stood out with the revealing intensity of a Rembrandt portrait.

“What I came over to tell you, is that Madame says you’re to stay home this evening, Mr. Flint,” said Mary Virginia, comfortably.  “I’m spending the night with Madame, you’re to know, and we’re planning a nice folksy informal sort of a time; and you’re to be home.”

“Orders from headquarters,” commented Laurence.

“All right,” agreed the Butterfly Man, briefly.

Mary Virginia shook out her white skirts, and patted her black hair into even more distractingly pretty disorder.

“I’ve got to get back to the office—­mean case I’m working on,” complained Laurence.  “Mary Virginia, walk a little way with me, won’t you?  Do, child!  It will sweeten all my afternoon and make my work easier.”

“You haven’t grown up a bit—­thank goodness!” said Mary Virginia.  But she went with him.

The Butterfly Man looked after them speculatively.

“Mrs. Eustis,” he remarked, “is an ambitious sort of a lady, isn’t she?  Thinks in millions for her daughter, expects her to make a great match and all that.  Miss Sally Ruth told me she’d heard Mrs. Eustis tried once or twice to pull off a match to suit herself, but Miss Mary Virginia wouldn’t stand for it.”

“Why, naturally, Mrs. Eustis would like to see the child well settled in life,” said I.

“Oh, you don’t have to be a Christian all the time,” said he calmly.  “I know Mrs. Eustis, too.  She talked to me for an hour and a half without stopping, one night last week.  See here, parson:  Inglesby’s got a roll that outweighs his record.  Suppose he wants to settle down and reform—­with a young wife to help him do it—­wouldn’t it be a real Christian job to lady’s-aid him?”

I eyed him askance.

“Now there’s Laurence,” went on the Butterfly Man, speculatively.  “Laurence is making plenty of trouble, but not so much money.  No, Mrs. Eustis wouldn’t faint at the notion of Inglesby, but she’d keel over like a perfect lady at the bare thought of Laurence.”