Big drops of sweat were trickling down Basil’s ashen face, and she leaned toward him, her heart literally in her mouth. What had she done? she asked herself in terror. And then a stranger thing yet happened; for Piotr, as if touched by some magnetic ray, opened wide his eyes, and with a cry of delight, one agile boyish bound, launched himself like an arrow into his father’s arms. “Papa!” Marguerite fell back, appalled. Would Basil repulse that appeal? But no! his arms closed upon the quivering boy, and Marguerite, turning, ran to the door and fell upon Régis’s shoulder. “He loves him still! He loves him still!” she gasped, laughing and crying at the same time. And in a little while they were all in the room together, Basil with Piotr on his knee, Régis and Marguerite and Garrassime--in his long linen _kaftán_--one tear after another coursing down the middle of his nose in a fashion most comical had it not been so pathetic, everybody speaking at once of the most variegated things, so that nobody could understand a word that was said. Later--was it an hour, a minute, a year?--none there could have told--Piotr was induced to return to his slumbers, and Garrassime to his side of the screen, for what little was left of the night. Dame Luna was sliding down the ultramarine slope of the sky at a rapid rate. On the edge of the shingle left bare by the tide sea-larks were beginning to move restlessly in the clusters of glass thistles and sand-poppies where they adventure their sleep, and from the mysterious east transparent scarfs of faintest nacre heralded the coming of the dawn. The air was so pure, so fresh, so exquisitely briny, that as they passed the open bay of the gallery they could not resist the temptation of breathing it in. They were silent, now, all three, quite silent, and stood facing the sea in a sort of reverence for its beauty that found no expression in words. Marguerite--a slender white shadow silvered by that unearthly light so few have the fortune to catch--leaned over the balustrade, her heart beating with gentle triumph. “Moonglade!” murmured Régis, indicating the graceful silhouette outlined so tenderly against the still, moonlit water. “You were right!” Basil turned and looked at his friend and kinsman. “Will you give her to me?” he said, very low. Régis raised both shoulders and eyes to Heaven in a gesture of complex, almost amusing resignation. “Go and ask her!” he said in the same tone, and went inside to wait for them. CHAPTER XXII Heaven, and Hell, and this earthly ball, And Jealousy confounds them all. “I have always loved you! You only! You alone, ever since you were a little baby no higher than my knee!” Marguerite laughed. “You are a vile flatterer!” she declared, making an adorable little grimace at her lord and master. “Who would have thought that my grim mentor of years ago--oh, so many years ago!--would one day descend to such trickery?”