To-day, however, a strange and unaccustomed atmosphere seemed to pervade this home-like and delightful retreat. Basil, perhaps exhausted by his unwonted loquacity at lunch, had fallen silent, and stood near one of the windows, gazing dreamily at the soupy gravel drive and the dripping trees. Antinoüs, sunk to the shoulders into the mellowness of a brocaded smoking-chair, pulled pensively at his mustache, his eyes idly wandering over the pages of a two-days-old number of the _Gazette de France_, and neither of them said a word. Still, Marguerite and her guest, sitting side by side on an ottoman placed in a far-off embrasure, made up for it by chattering like magpies--but _sotto voce_, so that their “confidences” should not be overheard. In truth, their “confidences” had so far remained completely one-sided. Laurence spoke in a sufficiently lively fashion, but revealed nothing of her own doings and thoughts. That she was drawing out the “Gamin” with superior skill would have been patent to a less simple little soul than Marguerite’s. “But,” Miss Seton said at last, “you never told me that you have Russian relatives.” And her eyes slid a furtive glance in the direction of Prince Basil. “Didn’t I?” Marguerite laughed. “I never thought of it in our convent days. You see, I did not know my cousin Basil then quite as well as I do now. It is like this. My grandfather’s sister, Anne de Plenhöel, married Pierre Palitzin, and became Basil’s grandmother. Am I expressing myself clearly?” “Very clearly. And is Prince Basil an only child?” Laurence spoke in the tone of one who desires, out of mere politeness, to keep up a rather boring dialogue. “Oh dear, no! He has the most exquisite sister. She married another relative of ours, Jean de Salvières. It’s quite a mixed affair, those family ties of ours, like a Neapolitan ice, pink, and green, and mauve, and lemon, in stripes.” “De Salvières.... The Duke?” mused Laurence, aloud. “Yes! The Duke, of course! Do you know him, Laurence? He has a château on the Normandy cliffs--_the_ château--_le plus beau château de France_, I believe honestly; and so picturesque, with its machicolations, its keep, its dungeons, and turrets and towers! It looks as if Gustave Doré had built it. Also Basil has two brothers--the youngest, who is in the _Corps-des-Pages_ of the Czar, and then André, an officer in the _Chevaliers-Gardes_, all white and gold and silver, and taller even than Basil, with big blue eyes, a yellow mustache, a complexion as rosy as a baby’s, a--” “He must be lovely,” interrupted Laurence, “and look as if he had rolled about on a rainbow, your cousin André.”