He seemed to brace himself.  “Maybe I know it already.  However, I’m quite able to walk over and hear—­anything I’m to be told,” he said, composedly.

In the lighted parlor his face showed up pale and worn, and his eyes hollow.  But his smile was ready, his voice steady, and the hand which received the wine Mary Virginia herself brought him, did not tremble.

“It is to our great, great happiness we wish you to drink, old friend,” said Laurence.  Intoxicated with his new joy, glowing, shining, the boy was magnificent.

The Butterfly Man turned and looked at him; steadily, deliberately, a long, searching, critical look, as if measuring him by a new standard.  Laurence stood the test.  Then the man’s eyes came back to the girl, rose-colored, radiant, star-eyed, and lingered upon her.  He arose, and held up the glass in which our old wine seemed to leap upward in little amber-colored flames.

“You’ll understand,” said the Butterfly Man, “that I haven’t the words handy to my tongue to say what’s in my heart.  I reckon I’d have to be God for awhile, to make all I wish for you two come true.”  There was in look and tone and manner something so sweet and reverent that we were touched and astonished.

When my mother had peremptorily sent Laurence home to the judge, and carried Mary Virginia off to talk the rest of the night through, I went back to his rooms with John Flint, in spite of the lateness of the hour:  for I was uneasy about him.

I think my nearness soothed him.  For with that boyish diffident gesture of his he reached over presently and held me by the sleeve.

“Parson,” he asked, abruptly, “is a man born with a whole soul, or just a sort of shut-up seed of one?  Is one given him free, or has he got to earn and pay for one before he gets it, parson?  I want to know.”

“We all want to know that, John Flint.  And the West says Yes, and the East, No.”

“I’ve been reading a bit,” said he, slowly and thoughtfully.  “I wanted to hear what both sides had to say.  Paul is pretty plain, on his side of the fence.  But, parson, some chaps that talk as if they knew quite as much as Paul does, say you don’t get anything in this universe for nothing; you have to pay for what you get.  As near as I can figure it out, you land here with a chance to earn yourself.  You can quit or you can go on—­it’s all up to you.  If you’re a sport and play the game straight, why, you stand to win yourself a water-tight fire-proof soul.  Because, you see, you’ve earned and paid for it, parson.  That sounded like good sense to me.  Looked to me as if I was sort of doing it myself.  But when I began to go deeper into the thing, why, I got stuck.  For I can’t deny I’d been doing it more because I had to than because I wanted to.  But—­which-ever way it is, I’m paying!  Oh, yes, I’m paying!”

“Ah, but so is everybody else, my son,” said I, sadly. “... each in his own coin. ...  But after all isn’t oneself worth while, whatever the cost?”