The Golden Butterfly

"And I forgive you, Jack, all the more because you did not treat me as you would have treated the girls who seem to me so lifeless and languid, and – Jack, it may be wrong to say it, but Oh, so small! What compliment could you have paid me better than to single me out for your friend – you who have seen so much and done so much – my friend – mine? We were friends from the first, were we not? And I have never since hidden anything from you, Jack, and never will."

He kept it down still, this mighty yearning that filled his heart, but he could not bear to look her in the face. Every word that she said stabbed him like a knife, because it showed her childish innocence and her utter unconsciousness of what her words might mean.

And then she laid her little hand in his.

"And now you have compromised me, as they would say? What does it matter Jack? We can go on always just the same as we have been doing, can we not?"

He shook his head and answered huskily, "No, Phil. Your guardian will not allow it. You must obey him. He says that I am to come here less frequently; that I must not do you – he is quite right, Phil – any more mischief; and that you are to have your first season in London without any ties or entanglements."

"My guardian leaves me alone here with Agatha. It is you who have been my real guardian, Jack. I shall do what you tell me to do."

"I want to do what is best for you, Phil – but – Child" – he caught her by the hands, and she half fell, half knelt at his feet, and looked up in his eyes with her face full of trouble and emotion – "child, must I tell you? Could not Agatha L'Estrange tell you that there is something in the world very different from friendship? Is it left for me to teach you? They call it Love, Phil."

He whispered the last words.

"Love? But I know all about it, Jack."

"No, Phil, you know nothing. It isn't the love that you bear to Agatha that I mean."

"Is it the love I have for you, Jack?" she asked in all innocence.

"It may be, Phil. Tell me only" – he was reckless now, and spoke fast and fiercely – "tell me if you love me as I love you. Try to tell me. I love you so much that I cannot sleep for thinking of you; and I think of you all day long. It seems as if my life must have been a long blank before I saw you; all my happiness is to be with you; to think of going on without you maddens me."

"Poor Jack!" she said softly. She did not offer to withdraw her hands, but let them lie in his warm and tender grasp.

"My dear, my darling – my queen and pearl of girls – who can help loving you? And even to be with you, to have you close to me, to hold your hands in mine, that isn't enough."

"What more – O Jack, Jack! what more?"

She began to tremble, and she tried to take back her hands. He let them go, but before she could change her position he bent down, threw his arms about her, and held her face close to his while he kissed it a thousand times.

"What more? My darling, my angel, this – and this! Phil, Phil! wake at last from your long childhood; leave the Garden of Eden where you have wandered so many years, and come out into the other world – the world of love. My dear, my dear! can you love me a little, only a little, in return? We are all so different from what you thought us; you will find out some day that I am not clever and good at all; that I have only one thing to give you – my love. Phil, Phil, answer me – speak to me – forgive me!"

He let her go, for she tore herself from him and sprang to her feet, burying her face in her hands and sobbing aloud.

"Forgive me – forgive me!" It was all that he could say.

"Jack, what is it? what does it mean? O Jack!" – she lifted her face and looked about her, with hands outstretched as one who feels in the darkness; her cheeks were white and her eyes wild – "what does it mean? what is it you have said? what is it you have done?"

"Phil!"

"Yes! Hush! don't speak to me – not yet, Jack. Wait a moment. My brain is full of strange thoughts" – she put out trembling hands before her, like one who wakes suddenly in a dream, and spoke with short, quick breath. "Something seems to have come upon me. Help me, Jack! Oh, help me! I am frightened."

He took her in his arms and soothed and caressed her like a child, while she sobbed and cried.

"Look at me, Jack," she said presently. "Tell me, am I the same? Is there any change in me?"

"Yes, Phil; yes, my darling. You are changed. Your sweet eyes are full of tears, like the skies in April; and your cheeks are pale and white. Let me kiss them till they get their own colour again."

He did kiss them, and she stood unresisting. But she trembled.

"I know, Jack, now," she said softly. "It all came upon me in a moment, when your lips touched mine. O Jack, Jack! it was as if something snapped; as if a veil fell from my eyes. I know now what you meant when you said just now that you loved me."

"Do you, Phil? And can you love me, too?"

"Yes, Jack. I will tell you when I am able to talk again. Let me sit down. Sit with me, Jack."

She drew him beside her on the sofa and murmured low, while he held her hands.

"Do you like to sit just so, holding my hands? Are you better now, Jack?

"Do you think, Jack, that I can have always loved you – without knowing it all – just as you love me? O my poor Jack!

"My heart beats so fast. And I am so happy. What have you said to me, Jack, that I should be so happy?

"See, the sun has come out – and the showers are over and gone – and the birds are singing – all the sweet birds – they are singing for me, Jack, for you and me – Oh, for you and me!"

Her voice broke down again, and she hid her face upon her lover's shoulder, crying happy tears.

He called her a thousand endearing names; he told her that they would be always together; that she had made him the happiest man in all the world; that he loved her more than any girl ever had been loved in the history of mankind; that she was the crown and pearl and queen of all the women who ever lived; and then she looked up, smiling through her tears.

Ah, happy, happy day! Ah, day for ever to be remembered even when, if ever, the years shall bring its fiftieth anniversary to an aged pair, whose children and grandchildren stand around their trembling feet? Ah, moments that live for ever in the memory of a life! They die, but are immortal. They perish all too quickly, but they bring forth the precious fruits of love and constancy, of trust, affection, good works, peace, and joy, which never perish.

"Take me on the river, Jack," she said presently. "I want to think it all over again, and try to understand it better."

He fetched cushion and wrapper, for the boat was wet, and placed her tenderly in the boat. And then he began to pull gently up the stream.

The day had suddenly changed. The morning had been gloomy and dull, but the afternoon was bright; the strong wind was dropped for a light cool breeze; the swans were cruising about with their lordly pretence of not caring for things external; and the river ran clear and bright.

They were very silent now; the girl sat in her place, looking with full soft eyes on the wet and dripping branches or in the cool depths of the stream.

Presently they passed an old gentleman fishing in a punt; he was the same old gentleman whom Phillis saw one morning – now so long ago – when he had that little misfortune we have narrated, and tumbled backwards in his ark. He saw them coming, and adjusted his spectacles.

"Youth and Beauty again," he murmured. "And she's been crying. That young fellow has said something cruel to her. Wish I could break his head for him. The pretty creature! He'll come to a bad end, that young man." Then he impaled an immense worm savagely and went on fishing.

A very foolish old gentleman this.

"I am trying to make it all out quite clearly, Jack," Phillis presently began. "And it is so difficult." Her eyes were still bright with tears, but she did not tremble now, and the smile was back upon her lips.

"My darling, let it remain difficult. Only tell me now, if you can, that you love me."

"Yes, Jack," she said, not in the frank and childish unconsciousness of yesterday, but with the soft blush of a woman who is wooed. "Yes, Jack, I know now that I do love you, as you love me, because my heart beat when you kissed me, and I felt all of a sudden that you were all the world to me."

"Phil, I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you."

"Not deserve me? O Jack, you make me feel humble when you say that! And I am so proud.

"So proud and so happy," she went on, after a pause. "And the girls who know all along – how do they find it out? – want every one for herself this great happiness, too. I have heard them talk and never understood till now. Poor girls! I wish they had their – their own Jack, not my Jack."