“Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed!” rang, she fancied, in the very sound of his foot on the gravel. A foot of admirable shape and comparative narrowness, although a bit heroic—ex-pede-Herculem!
Everything has an end—nur die Wurst hat zwei (as our graceful friends the Germans have a knack of putting it)—and that charming long walk round to the Castle inclosure, machicolated and betowered and bekeeped, came at last to its conclusion. Not another word had been spoken. At the base of the turret where Basil had always had his rooms the couple came to a stand. It was a very proud, historic turret, coiffed with a pointed octagonal slate poivrière agreeably topped by a gray vane, and entered by one of those mullioned pointed doorways that are the delight of artists, with their intricate sculpturings, dainty rainceaux and wonderful stone tendrils engarlanding the royal fleur-de-lys.
“Now, please,” said Basil—“please don’t awaken any one for me, Marguerite. I’d sooner be alone at first, just for a little while at least.”
“Can’t I call Garrassime?” she pleaded, prettily, her mouth drooping at the corners in a tiny moue that made him pull himself together with a mental jerk.
“Ah, yes! to be sure, Garrassime is here,” he remarked; “but I would rather you didn’t call him. I am used to shifting for myself now whenever it’s necessary; often I prefer it, even.”
His hand was on the etched and graven latch, the primeval and archaic loquet of the door, that was still thought sufficient to guard the treasures within when the family was there. The banner flapping in the eternal sea-breeze above the keep was guard enough for all purposes then.
“As you will,” said the “Gamin.” “Et que dieu vous protége, mon cousin!” and she turned and went her way.
From the greater portion of the days that followed, and from all the conferences à deux, à trois, et à quatre which took up so many hours, Marguerite naturally was absent. She had known it would be thus, and was resigned beforehand to her isolation, but what she had not counted upon was the sudden removal of Piotr and Garrassime to far-off Plenhöel without the boy having seen his father. Why they hadn’t sent her off also she could not imagine, for what use was she, excepting at meal-times, when she was expected to fill her place as usual?
She missed Piotr very much. Basil she hardly saw. Tatiana and Jean and her own father had evidently never been so busy in their lives. Poor “Antinoüs” had said to her: “It’s a bad moment to pass, mon Chevalier. Keep a stiff upper lip! Basil is going to convey his—er—relic to Russia. Noblesse-oblige you know—and then you and I, my precious, will take flight too and rebegin our good little comfortable life once more.”
“But what of Piotr?” she had asked. “Can’t we keep him with us, Papa? I cannot imagine why Basil appears to push him purposely out of his way. The de Salvières have their own cares, their own duties and interests, but we, Papa, in our ménage de vieux garçons have nothing but our two selfish selves to think of. Can’t we keep him, Papa, until Basil awakes? Can’t we really, please, please!”