With a petulant gesture she turned away from him, tightening her hands upon the fan she still held. There was a tiny rending sound, and the delicate tortoise-shell sticks fell apart in her lap. “Why, Laurence!” Basil exclaimed, and, stooping, he lifted her in his arms, sat down in her place, and, holding her like a baby, drew her pretty head to his shoulder. “My dear child!” he said, affectionately. “You _are_ ill, and it is all my fault. I should not have allowed you to keep such late hours. Since we have been in Paris you have been constantly on the go. No wonder you feel done up.” The broken fan had slipped noiselessly into the folds of Laurence’s train, and she struggled half up, as if to recover it; but he held her fast, and with a shiver of inexpressible rage she suddenly burst into tears. Basil was nonplussed, but for a moment he continued to stroke her hair in silence. He was not an expert in the queer humors of women, like his cousin Plenhöel, but from his great strength he looked upon them one and all as children, capricious, easily moved to shallow depths of emotion, a little irrational, and always in need of tenderness, of protection, and of caresses. Therefore he bore himself wholly in accordance with this belief during this first difficult moment of their already prolonged honeymoon. She was unstrung, pettish, a little unreasonable, yes! but adorable as always. All she wanted was to be soothed, petted. He did not even mind the sharp points of her tiara, that at every nervous sob came unpleasantly into contact with his chin and cheek. Let her cry herself out, poor dear; that was the best thing for her to do; and, of course, after the storm sunshine would follow! Every married man knows that! He did not question the sorrowfulness of those sobs; they were convincing enough to him. “I have gone too far; I have offended him!” the silly woman--interpreting his silence wrongly--was thinking meanwhile, her face hidden on his breast. “What shall I do--how explain?” For in spite of herself she was more than a little afraid of him now. Gradually, scientifically, so to speak, she began to temper the pathetic signs of her distress; and at length she ceased altogether to cry, snuggling closer and closer to him, however, as a tired child does with its nurse after some great and exhausting emotion. “Better now, sweetheart?” Basil gently inquired. “Look up a bit, and let us dry those naughty eyes. I don’t want my beautiful wife to be disfigured by tears.” He suited the action to the words, raised her head as if it had been made of egg-shell china with one big, brown hand, and, possessing himself of the absurd morsel of lace she called her handkerchief, tenderly wiped very genuine tears of anger from her long eyelashes. Then he sat her up straight on his knee like a doll, and asked, smiling imperturbably: “Tell me now, oh, Un-Serene Highness, what causes all this big sorrow.”