Basil assisted his wife up the marble steps and, gently retaining her hand in his own, crossed the hall and ascended the great staircase with her. A double hedge of white lilac and narcissus lined the porphyry balustrade on either side, and somehow or other Laurence felt suddenly as if their heady perfume made her dizzy. She foresaw some sort of explanation between Basil and herself; she knew that her tone and manner had been unjustifiable, and false pride rose in her at the thought of being even ever so gently called to account. Nevertheless, she let him accompany her to her own apartments without a word, and it was only when the door of the _salon d’entrée_ had shut behind them that she at last opened her mouth. “It was abominably warm at the Hôtel Plenhöel,” she said, disengaging her hand and walking ahead of him into the adjoining boudoir, where she sat herself down in closest possible proximity to the brightly burning pine-cone fire. Basil did not comment upon this curious inconsequence, but, bending, he deftly unfastened the clasp of her long blue-fox cloak, and let it fall in a heap on the back of her arm-chair. In spite of herself Laurence was ill at ease. She gave a little laugh, and began to unbutton her left glove. “They are so old-fashioned, the Plenhöels,” she said, without looking up. “One really thinks one is attending a reception at Versailles under Louis-Seize. _Did_ you see the way that Duchesse de Montemare wears her hair? I really believe it must be rolled upon a cushion, like our great-grandmothers’, and I’d swear it was powdered!” Basil, leaning against the tall chimneypiece, was looking straight into the dancing pink flames. “She is the greatest lady in France,” he replied, “and as to the old-fashionedness of the Hôtel de Plenhöel, a noisily modern reception would clash with those antique ceilings and dignified _souvenirs d’autrefois_.” “Oh, I am not finding fault!” she interposed, somewhat hurriedly. Then, looking up into her husband’s face, she saw there something that, oddly enough, made her suddenly determined to put him in the wrong. She was not going to let him reprove her, even tacitly--not she, indeed! “Of course,” she said, arrogantly, “everything at the Plenhöels’ is bound to be perfection--at least in your eyes. Fortunately for me I am not as gullible as you!” Basil turned a pair of sincerely astonished eyes upon her. For the second time in an hour he felt as a harmless traveler feels when, without warning, he faces a gun-barrel pointing at him from behind a bush. What could be the matter with his sweet little wife? he asked himself. Perhaps she was ill! He had been annoyed and a trifle irritated, but at this thought he experienced a complete revulsion of feeling, and quickly came across to her. “What is the matter, Laury?” he asked, tenderly. “Are you tired, my darling? You do not seem quite yourself to-night.”