Marguerite stared. The tone rather than the words surprised her. This quaint little being, still at the tender age of easy laughter and easy tears, hated mockery when it was directed toward what she loved and honored. Her slangy childish tongue, so apt to speak at random, never gave its assistance to unkind sayings, and for the second time since they knew each other Laurence felt that she had struck a false note. Indeed, the “Gamin” looked at that minute like a small game-cock of ruffled plumage and sparkling eyes. “I beg your pardon. I did not know a harmless joke could offend you,” Laurence apologized. “It did not offend me!” stoutly declared Marguerite. “But--I don’t know why--I can’t bear to have my people laughed at.” “Your people! You are so excessively and exclusively a Bretonne, that one cannot realize your claiming kin with Muscovites.” “When I say my people I mean all who belong to me, which includes, of course, the Palitzins.” Again Laurence, not quite at her keenest on this occasion, overstepped the bounds of prudence, certainly those of Breton delicacy--which are finely drawn--for, piqued at Marguerite’s plainness of speech--perhaps at something else, too--she quickly retorted: “I am inclined to believe that you are in love with Prince Basil!” Marguerite’s blue eyes widened, her pretty lips straightened, and she rose to her feet. “I am sure papa must be fainting with ennui,” she said in a level voice. “Let’s go and challenge him to a game of billiards. It is his hour for play!” And she glided off with the lithe grace which betrays great strength concealed in satin softness. “The cut direct!” Laurence muttered, following her, and smiling in a fashion that strove, quite unsuccessfully, to be pleasingly indulgent. “Bother these Breton prudes! I’ll have to mend my paces here, it seems,” she muttered, as she crossed the gallery. CHAPTER III If the tongue’s a consuming fire, Then judging by the consternation The written syllables inspire, A letter is a conflagration. “I’m sure you must be mistaken. It cannot be possible!” Madame Gervex, Marguerite’s governess and companion, turned her perplexed, good-natured face toward the gray-haired land-steward who had begun his labors at Plenhöel in the time of the present Marquis’s father. They were standing together on the far end of a lower side terrace overlooking the green silver of the bay, to-day in one of its most charming and innocent moods. There was scarcely a ripple to be seen: a mere fringe of dainty foam hemmed the rising tide as it lazily fretted up the narrow pebbly beach. A cable-length or so beyond that lace-like border a large float rode at anchor, and Marguerite, Laurence, Basil, and “Antinoüs” were alternately to be descried taking glorious headers from its snowy planking into the placid depths.