Half-way to the top she suddenly paused on the threshold of a domed and glassed-in gallery that projected from the side of the house over the inclosed garden. It was filled with palms and plants and blossoming creepers, with here and there the fairy plume of a bamboo aspiring to the transparent curves above. The upper end of this miniature Vale of Kashmir was crossed by a broad span of almost invisible wire, behind which birds of a tropical splendor of feather flitted hither and yon. The liquid counterpart of this delightful unstill life was afforded by a long crystal panel revealing the musical spirt of a fountain, and a background of gorgeous aquatic plants, crisscrossed by the alert dartings of the prettiest collection of highly painted fishes possible to imagine. Moving jewels they seemed, as they quadrilled in the dear element of their birth, and not unhappy at all, as most aquarium-dwellers seem to be, for their perfect comfort had been studiously considered, and they appeared very much in love with existence as it was made for them there. Basil had come to a standstill behind the ‘Gamin,’ and as she turned to speak he thought: “Her breath is as meadowsweet, her face like a flower, her hair was assuredly spun by elves, and her eyes--” Here comparison failed him, and with bent head he listened to the end of a sentence he had not been conscious of her beginning. “--you might as well tell me, after all,” the low, dear voice was saying, and he looked helplessly at her. “Didn’t you hear what I asked?” she petulantly exclaimed. “I am speaking plain French, am I not?” Plain French! Could anything be plain that was connected with her? “What were you asking?” he found himself forced to answer to those indignant eyes. “Oh, you don’t even listen any more!” she reproached. “I am an idiot!” he humbly confessed. “An idiot and a boor!” Her soft, ringing laugh suddenly rippled out beneath the opulent foliage. “My poor Basil!” she sympathized. “That’s what comes of being in love! Hortense Gervex used to tell me, when I was a baby, that Cupid is the silliest of all the gods, because he takes a malicious pleasure in stupefying all his subjects.” “Comes from being in love?” Basil said, slowly. “Oh, of course that would be an explanation.” “It is!” she triumphed. “Why, ever since you met Laurence you have been so different, so unlike your old self. Still, you should not carry your absence-of-mind too far; it is dreadfully impolite, you know.” “I know,” he assented, apparently quite absorbed in the fantastic beauty of a bird-of-paradise blossom he had disengaged from amid its long, lance-like leaves. “Well, if you know, and are properly contrite for your sins, do you mind if I now repeat my question?” “Mind? Repeat it by all means, if you find me still worthy of the slightest attention.”