“_Mais, mon ‘Gamin,’_ let her get down!” Plenhöel called. “We’ll all be drenched to the bone.” And then only Marguerite regretfully leaped into his arms, making it possible for Basil to assist Laurence to the ground. Under such circumstances the introduction was necessarily quite unconventional, and, driven indoors by the rain now flooding in torrents from the leaden gutters overhead and ricochetting in the liveliest fashion from the steps, Marguerite and Laurence ran off without further ado. Pulling off his long mackintosh and soaked driving-gloves, Plenhöel turned to his cousin: “A dramatic _entrée_!” he said, grinning, and displaying under his blond mustache teeth of a whiteness and regularity worthy of a boy of twenty. “With the ‘Gamin’ one can always expect something unforeseen,” he added, leading the way to his den. “Here, have a dash of cognac, Basil. You look almost as pumped as I am!” And he pushed the tantalus toward his relative. “It will sharpen our appetites for luncheon, too.” Basil quietly possessed himself of a very easy chair, and, declining the spirits by a gesture, lighted a cigarette. “Who and what is that ethereal apparition who is throwing our ‘Gamin’ into such convulsions of joy?” he asked, lazily following with his eyes a ring of smoke floating toward the caissoned ceiling. “Hum-um!” “Antinoüs” replied, setting down his little glass and drying his mustache on his handkerchief. “A very beautiful person, as you may have seen.” “I did not see. She was cowled like a monk, and, save for a bit of resolute chin and the gleam of an interesting pair of eyes--” “Oh, she’s beautiful; no doubt about that, my boy; but as far as I have been able to judge--which is not much, I admit--she is scarcely the sort I would have accused the ‘Gamin’ of turning into an idol.” “Accuse is severe!” Basil remarked, knocking the ashes from his cigarette with the tip of his little finger. “What’s amiss with her? You don’t mean that she’s a dark filly?” “No....” “Antinoüs” hesitated. “No--but hard in the mouth, and a bit sultry in temperament, I should say. Of course it is hard to judge, where the Anglo-Saxon ‘Miss Independence’ is concerned; but this one has been admirably brought up by our good ladies of the Sacré-Cœur; and moreover I understand that all her life she has been pruned, and prismed, and molded, and clipped by a dragon of an aunt--an ex-beauty--now rather long in the tooth, who, it appears, is not often inclined to joke. But still the finished product of her labors inspires me with no extravagant amount of confidence.”