“Papa!”
Marguerite fell back, appalled. Would Basil repulse that appeal? But no! his arms closed upon the quivering boy, and Marguerite, turning, ran to the door and fell upon Régis’s shoulder.
“He loves him still! He loves him still!” she gasped, laughing and crying at the same time.
And in a little while they were all in the room together, Basil with Piotr on his knee, Régis and Marguerite and Garrassime—in his long linen kaftán—one tear after another coursing down the middle of his nose in a fashion most comical had it not been so pathetic, everybody speaking at once of the most variegated things, so that nobody could understand a word that was said.
Later—was it an hour, a minute, a year?—none there could have told—Piotr was induced to return to his slumbers, and Garrassime to his side of the screen, for what little was left of the night. Dame Luna was sliding down the ultramarine slope of the sky at a rapid rate. On the edge of the shingle left bare by the tide sea-larks were beginning to move restlessly in the clusters of glass thistles and sand-poppies where they adventure their sleep, and from the mysterious east transparent scarfs of faintest nacre heralded the coming of the dawn. The air was so pure, so fresh, so exquisitely briny, that as they passed the open bay of the gallery they could not resist the temptation of breathing it in. They were silent, now, all three, quite silent, and stood facing the sea in a sort of reverence for its beauty that found no expression in words.
Marguerite—a slender white shadow silvered by that unearthly light so few have the fortune to catch—leaned over the balustrade, her heart beating with gentle triumph.
“Moonglade!” murmured Régis, indicating the graceful silhouette outlined so tenderly against the still, moonlit water. “You were right!”
Basil turned and looked at his friend and kinsman. “Will you give her to me?” he said, very low.
Régis raised both shoulders and eyes to Heaven in a gesture of complex, almost amusing resignation.
“Go and ask her!” he said in the same tone, and went inside to wait for them.