“Do you mind, old man, but I am just dying to look at these silly proofs of mine--pride of authorship, you know--suppose you look up Mariana--she is out there, I see, on the veranda--and talk astronomy to her for a few minutes. Then we can have a talk....”
“With all my heart,” said Laleham, laughing as he opened the door on to the starlit veranda, and left the old man to himself.
As Laleham took a chair by Mariana’s side, her recognition of his presence would have been imperceptible to anyone who did not understand her language of silence. Her eyes remained fixed on the stars, and he sat down near her without attempting even to join her reverie. He was well content to look at her and know that she was near. Presently, without turning her head, with her eyes still among the stars, she said in her curious deep sudden voice:
“Twice!” she exclaimed, at length turning and looking at him. “Twice! and you lost it both times....”
Before he could answer, she raised her hand to the stars. “Look!” she said. “I sometimes think that the soul is like a butterfly, and that it goes from star to star, as a butterfly goes from flower to flower....” then, with another of her sudden, and often disconcerting, transitions, she turned again to Laleham:
“Will you tell me about those times you saw your butterfly?” she said.
“It is an odd story,” Laleham began, “and I am afraid you may think me superstitious. But you mustn’t think that it accounts for my butterflies, for I have loved them, for some unexplained reason, since I was a boy....”
“Perhaps,” he added, “some tastes are prophetic;” and then he went on. “The first time I saw it was one morning about eight years ago. I was hunting it among country similar to this, and suddenly it rose out of a bed of reeds. It was so near me that I made sure it was mine, so sure that I was in no haste to strike with my net, but watched it and studied it a while, was quite carelessly certain of it in fact ... and then, just as I held my net ready to capture it, away it went on the wind, not quite out of sight, but always keeping a coquettish distance, near enough to lure me on, far enough away to escape....”
“It rather served you right for being so sure, didn’t it?” said Mariana.