He and his wife had been in India on a pleasure trip at the time of the marriage, and his surprise at what he now discovered was painful. “The _famous_ ‘Gamin’!” he said, speculatively. “Why famous? Has that dear little thing rendered herself guilty of any more heroic deeds since I last had the happiness of seeing her?” “Heroic deeds? I was not aware she dealt in that sort of thing!” said Laurence, who for so lofty a soul was now within measurable distance of snappishness, and she looked at Salvières with a severity indicative of an intention to keep him strictly in his place. Yet had she taken the trouble to do so, she might have realized that she sat in the presence of that rare and indefinable creation--a strong man, whom no feminine trickery could find at any moment off his guard. “I beg your pardon,” he quietly replied. “She frequently, on the contrary, deals in such things. Only a few months ago she jumped into the sea from a high rock--a very high rock, understand--to save from drowning a silly gawk of a ship’s boy. Half a gale was blowing at the time, and it was something more than a man’s ordinary risk for her to take.” Laurence’s eyelids fluttered, but she did not actually raise her eyes to the uncomfortable neighbor whose simple directness of speech found no favor in her sight. “Really!” she remarked. “I never heard of it!” “It is your loss then, madame, and I am glad to have been so fortunate as to repair this lack of knowledge on your part.” She made a grimace expressive of real annoyance. “I am not much of a gossip,” she shrugged, “and therefore never greatly given to listen to it.” “That being the case,” retorted Salvières, “we may remain hopeful that this will go no further. Good actions are best left out of general conversation, excepting in such particular cases as this one. They are so seldom credited.” [“Why in the world does she hate the ‘Gamin’?” he was asking himself. “What has the poor child done to her?”] “You seem very fond of Marguerite de Plenhöel?” Laurence remarked. “Everybody I know appears to have some weakness or other for her, and yet she is really nothing extraordinary!” “Perhaps that might explain it,” he said. “You see, she is simplicity itself, without pose of any sort, but also very bright and clever; also she is gay and brave--Heaven help her!” “If she is all that, why should Heaven need to interfere?” Salvières was again thoughtfully twisting his mustache, Decidedly this new relative of his was not improving on better acquaintance. Unhappy Basil! When the scales--thick as window-shutters he was forced to believe--fell from his eyes, what would he do? “Heaven,” he said, slowly, “must always interfere with its own, although God forbid that I should attempt to explain to you the ways of Providence.” “You evidently consider Marguerite an angel, then?” Laurence queried, in an odd voice. “Oh, by no means! She has faults, great faults, not the least of them being her over-confidence in others.”