“How are you, Laurence?” replied the “Gamin,” quietly. “Can I be of any use?” She was burning to take hold of Piotr, whose great dark eyes were scanning her from head to foot, but she had long since learned how to restrain her first impulses. “You are too kind!” Laurence said, speaking “from the top of the head” (_du haut de la tête_), as the French say. She was _the Princess_ and no mistake--perhaps even a little too much so--the conventional Princess of comedy and fiction as ordinary people understand her; but, after all, a very gracious presentment thereof, and Marguerite studiously refrained from smiling. “Yes, if you don’t mind, _ma cousine_,” Laurence continued, dwelling heavily upon this badge of kinship. “Tell them to carry the boy to your carriage--you have one in waiting, I suppose, have you not, Marquis?” she asked, turning to Régis. “And since you are so kind as to receive him and his people, I will only trouble you to take me as far as the equipage from the Embassy that is here for me!” “Will you not honor us by residing under our roof?” asked Régis, inwardly wondering how long he would find it possible to continue using such very lofty language. “Oh, thanks muchly ... you are very thoughtful; but you see my stay here will be but a few days. I am going on to London almost at once. It would not be worth while disturbing you, and I assure you that your amiability to the boy will fully suffice. Besides, I have promised their Excellencies Count and Countess Melidóff to be their guest. I was to have traveled with my sister and brother-in-law de Salvières, and stayed with them here; but at the last they altered their plans, which altered mine also.” Régis, snubbed and delighted, was about to walk on with her, when she turned her eyes royally toward the still-saluting Kossàk, and said a few words to him in vile Russian. The man’s impassive face did not indicate comprehension, and to Laurence’s evident amazement Marguerite fluently repeated the order. “Marguerite speaks Russian?” she asked, acidly, dropping all her languor. “At your service, madame,” Régis replied, laughing. “And so do I; but as to the ‘Gamin,’ she is the finest linguist in Europe, with all her little modest airs.” Princess Laurence moved on in brisker fashion, barely replying to Marguerite’s _au revoir_, and then only did the girl turn to Garrassime and his charge. “Oh, you beauty!” she said, in a slightly unsteady voice, holding out both arms to Basil’s son. “I’ll come to you,” the child lisped in French (much to his stalwart attendant’s surprise, for he was not easy), and he allowed himself to be taken up by Marguerite and kissed over and over again. Régis was already returning, curbing with considerable difficulty a violent desire to laugh.