She was looking forward with suppressed delight to the arrival of Piotr. Was he like his father, or his beautiful mother? she wondered. Marguerite adored children--especially little boys--and here again she was swayed by a clear-sightedness far beyond her age, for the modern little girl did not please her, less because of what they really are than on account of what they are bound to become--pleasure-loving, noisy, untutored beings, now that the wholesome principles of other times have been trampled under foot, and the fad for feminine “emancipation” has become the most dangerous craze the world has ever known. The Hôtel de Plenhöel was _en fête_, and decked with flowers as for some royal reception; toys of superfine quality and astounding quantity were piled up in Marguerite’s personal salon to greet the baby prince, and all the morning Marguerite herself had flitted to and fro, up and down stairs, to arrange and prepare. In an hour she would be with her father at the terminus, awaiting the private car attached to the express bringing Laurence and her suite, Piotr and his own. How large and magnificent that sounded! She suddenly laughed, pocketed Basil’s epistle, and jumped to her feet, ready for action. “Poor little boy!” she mechanically murmured. “I must hurry!” But why poor? She could not have said why, though instinctively she pitied the child--and pity is akin to love. In her fresh summer frock of white _piqué_, a white-banded sailor-hat on her golden locks that seemed to shine as through a wash of silver, a knot of Malmaison carnations thrust through her waist-ribbon, she looked indeed exquisitely young as she stood beside “Antinoüs,” inside the station. He, too, had not altered, and was still the _beau garçon_, full of chic and vim, who conquered all hearts at the point of his blond mustache. There was a white carnation in his coat, and his straw hat, set at the exactly correct angle, gave him an almost boyish appearance. In a few minutes the corridor-train came puffing up the shining metals in the wake of its spick-and-span locomotive, and the doors of the waiting-rooms were thrown wide. Marguerite had paled a trifle as she advanced to the private car (beside which now stood a Kossàk of the Russian Embassy in his dressing-gown of a coat, all brilliant with silver, holding high his astrakhaned head), and saw a graceful, languid figure wrapped in diaphanous veils, assisted to alight. Behind her came the towering form of old Garrassime, carrying in his arms a boy of startling beauty. “Antinoüs,” hat in hand, was already bowing before Laurence, who, disentangling a slim, gloved hand from her many dust-draperies, allowed him to press it to his lips. “And here is Marguerite!” she drawled, as if surprised to see her there. “Grown old and wise, eh?” she continued, shaking hands limply and taking Régis’s arm.