This was one of the few, one of the
torch-bearers!
And then she noticed the Red Admiral in the corner. She stared at it
unbelievingly. That butterfly! Why--why--She had read of one who
signed with a butterfly above his name pictures that were called
great. A thought that made her brain swim and her heart beat
suffocatingly crashed upon her like a clap of thunder. She walked
toward the mantel like one in a daze, until she stood directly
before the painting.
And it was his butterfly. And under it was his name: _Peter
Devereaux Champneys_.
The room bobbed up and down. But she didn't faint, she didn't
scream. She caught hold of the mantel to steady herself. She
wondered how she hadn't known; she had the same sense of wild
amazement that must fill one who has been brought face to face with
a stupendous, a quite impossible miracle. Such a thing couldn't
happen: and yet it is so! And oddly enough, out of this welter of
her thoughts, there came to her memory a screened bed in a hospital
ward, and a dying gutter-girl looking at her with unearthly eyes and
telling her in a thin whisper:
"I wanted to see if you was good enough for _him_.
Pages:
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509