Plenhöel and Marguerite were swimming shoulder to shoulder toward the open sea, with that calm, regular stroke which is so telling for long-distance work. On the float Basil’s tall form showed clear as wax against the pale shimmer of the water, and, with her back turned to him, sat Laurence, on the very edge of the planking, her feet dipping in the sea, her hair falling around her mantle-wise and trailing behind her. Suddenly she turned, swung herself up on the float, and stood before him, her arms uplifted to raise above her head the shining mass of her tresses, her perfect figure displayed to its best advantage by a bathing-dress of pure white cashmere that clung very lovingly; and there was something so challenging in her statuesque pose that the term of “professional beauty,” naïvely applied to her a fortnight or so before by Marguerite, took on, indeed, a newer and more expressive meaning.
“The minx!” grumbled the old steward, elbow to elbow with Madame Hortense. “Oh, she’ll net him, never fear—and to think that our Marquis, always so malin, alert, and wide awake, does not notice her manœuvers! As to Mademoiselle ‘Gamin’—” He paused, blew out the air from his chest with a sigh like a Triton’s, and resumed: “She’s too young, thank the Saints, to perceive such wickedness, and yet she’s sharp as a needle, and some day she’ll see, and then!”
“Well what? What will she see some day, you old mischief? What will happen some day, according to you? After all, isn’t the Prince free to marry whom he chooses? Isn’t he rich enough for two? Why shouldn’t he have a beautiful wife if he likes to? Have you any personal objection to offer, Monsieur Sulian?”
Astounded by this abrupt style of address, so entirely foreign to gentle, kindly Madame Hortense, Sulian Quentin turned to her, his self-advertised eyes wide open.
“D’you mean to tell me,” he impressively pronounced, “that you’d approve of this one for him?”
Madame Hortense glanced meditatively in the direction of the float. “What have I got to approve or disapprove of in such a matter?” she said in a tone that went far toward answering his question. “Who are we, anyhow, to judge our masters?”
Quentin gave a short laugh. “Who indeed? Who are we, indeed? We who have served them loyally for year after year this long, long time; served them, and loved them, too! Yes, loved them as if they were our own children: defunct Monsieur le Marquis, and Madame la Marquise, and our present Monsieur le Marquis and Mademoiselle ‘Gamin.’”
“But what have they got to do with it?” asked Madame Hortense, beginning to feel utterly bewildered.
Quentin went back a step and glared at her.
“You’re a bat—a real genuine bat!” he said, contemptuously, “that’s all I’ve got to say. Daylight is nothing to you, so you might as well go on traveling in darkness all your days! Oh, have it your own way! Don’t think again; it would be idle; but still let me compliment you on your sharpness, ma bonne dame. Nothing to them!... Nothing to them! That’s a good one!”