“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: 

“Laurence, if you only knew—­Laurence, if it wasn’t for John Flint—­and the Padre—­” The two of them had the two of us, each by an arm; and the Butterfly Man was brick-red and furiously embarrassed, he having a holy horror of being held up and thanked.

“Why, I did what I did,” said he, uncomfortably.  “But,”—­he brightened visibly—­“if you will have the truth, have it.  If it wasn’t for this blessed brick of a parson I’d never have been in a position to do anything for anybody.  Don’t you forget that!”

“What ridiculous nonsense the man talks!” said I, exasperated by this shameless casuistry.  “John Flint raves.  As for me—­”

“As for you,” said he with deep reproach, “you ought to know better than to tell such a thumping lie at this time of your life.  I’m ashamed of you, parson!  Why, you know good and well—­”

“Why, John Flint, you—­” I began, aghast.

My mother began to laugh.  “For heaven’s sake, thank them both and have done with it!” said she, a bit hysterically.  “God alone knows how they managed, but this thing lies between them, the two great geese.  Did one ever hear the like?”

“Madame is right, as always,” said Laurence gravely.  “Remember, I don’t know anything yet, except that somehow you’ve brought Mary Virginia and me back to each other.  That’s enough for me.  I haven’t got any questions to ask.”  His voice faltered, and he gripped us by the hand in turn, with a force that made me, for one, wince and cringe.  “And Padre—­Bughunter, you both know that I—­” he couldn’t finish.

“That we—­” choked Mary Virginia.