They were sitting under the pink-and-white awning of their villa on the “Azure Coast”--as it is so fittingly called. In front of them a heavy garland of ivy-geraniums, a mass of rose-colored bloom nestling in their white-and-green foliage, seemed the _rendez-vous_ of every butterfly of the littoral. Marguerite’s gown was rose-hued, too, and her favorite floppy shape of garden hat was covered with pink acacia; on the love-finger of her left hand glowed the great ruby of her _fiançailles_, and Basil, in a spirit of emulation, wore a pink-and-white carnation in the lapel of his light-gray morning coat. The honeymoon was, officially speaking, over, but only officially, for those two would be lovers always; and soon they would sail north again, where Régis and Piotr awaited their return with what patience they could muster. It had been a pretty wedding _au-village_. The Castle chapel filled with flowers, the peasants and sailors and salt-workers in their gala costumes, the bagpipes blowing merrily on the green outside, and a whole ox roasting under the trees for the feast given to all the people, who, had come for miles around to do honor to the _Chevalier_ “_Gamin_.” Tatiana and Jean and Pavlo had arrived from Russia, other friends and relatives from all corners of France, and also from other lands, and during a week the countryside had been _en fête_. Piotr as his father’s best man had made a brave show, wearing proudly a Court suit with a little sword at his side; and as to the bride herself, words fail to describe that dream-maiden in her cloud of whiteness, like wreaths of delicate vapor one over the other, caught up here and there by clusters of odorous blossoms from the _orangerie_; and her long illusion veil, with the diadem of orange-buds that held something mystical in its fragrant purity. At Basil’s demand the “Moonglade” idea he loved was carried out by a jewel--the only one she wore--which he had himself designed, and combined, and ordered--a crescent moon of palest sapphires embedded in diamonds, and drooping from it fluent chain after fluent chain of the same gems--so exquisitely wrought that one could discover no setting--falling from her heart, over which the crescent was fastened, sideways, to the edge of her skirt in a wavy succession of softly shimmering rays, like those of a very young moon over misty water. Tatiana had cried out that _fiancées_ in France wear no gems, and this is true enough, in the real “world” of old principles and aristocratic ways, but Basil had pleaded, and Marguerite had declared that his word was her law; and so Tatiana had yielded, laughing over her own discomfiture. When at last the long days of festivity were over, Piotr, who, strange to relate, had displayed no jealousy of his father, had been taken to Salvières for a time by Régis to avoid his moping after his “little darling Malou.”