“And what about yours?” Basil laughed, vainly attempting to capture in both hands the flying silk of her glorious hair; but with another of her acrobatic bounds she darted from his side, turned the corner like a blown feather, and disappeared into the Cour-d’Honneur, where he hastened to join her, bullied by the wind and with less decorum than was his wont.
Great black clouds were once more piling up in the sky, and as the horses turned into the wide paved space a few enormous drops of rain began to fall.
Fortunately here there was some shelter from the storm, and it became possible to reassume some dignity of demeanor, if one felt so inclined. Marguerite, however, had no such cares, and as soon as her father—Le Beau Plenhöel, known since his early youth by the eminently unpretentious sobriquet of “Antinoüs”—had accomplished a masterly turn around the central fountain and brought his mettlesome team to a stand at the foot of the perron, she had clambered on the near wheel and, lifting herself to the box, was hugging Laurence Seton like a bear.
The Marquis de Plenhöel burst into hearty laughter and glanced indulgently at Basil, standing ready to help the two girls down. The grooms had jumped to the horses’ heads, where they now remained, like twin wax figures incapable of movement or expression, under the pelting shower.
“Mais, mon ‘Gamin,’ let her get down!” Plenhöel called. “We’ll all be drenched to the bone.” And then only Marguerite regretfully leaped into his arms, making it possible for Basil to assist Laurence to the ground. Under such circumstances the introduction was necessarily quite unconventional, and, driven indoors by the rain now flooding in torrents from the leaden gutters overhead and ricochetting in the liveliest fashion from the steps, Marguerite and Laurence ran off without further ado.
Pulling off his long mackintosh and soaked driving-gloves, Plenhöel turned to his cousin:
“A dramatic entrée!” he said, grinning, and displaying under his blond mustache teeth of a whiteness and regularity worthy of a boy of twenty. “With the ‘Gamin’ one can always expect something unforeseen,” he added, leading the way to his den. “Here, have a dash of cognac, Basil. You look almost as pumped as I am!” And he pushed the tantalus toward his relative. “It will sharpen our appetites for luncheon, too.”
Basil quietly possessed himself of a very easy chair, and, declining the spirits by a gesture, lighted a cigarette.
“Who and what is that ethereal apparition who is throwing our ‘Gamin’ into such convulsions of joy?” he asked, lazily following with his eyes a ring of smoke floating toward the caissoned ceiling.
“Hum-um!” “Antinoüs” replied, setting down his little glass and drying his mustache on his handkerchief. “A very beautiful person, as you may have seen.”