“Will you like it at Plenhöel?” Marguerite asked, suddenly, a little anxiety in her voice, for the only shadow in her happiness was the thought that perhaps her Basil would miss Russia and his active life there among his own people.
“Will I like it?” he laughed. “Why d’you think I might not?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Brittany is not over-cheerful with its wild seas, its storms, its bleak moorlands and rock-girt shores. I adore it, but then I was born there, you know, which makes all the difference.”
“You perhaps forget that I am a bit of a Breton myself,” he retorted. “Not such a bad combination, either—Celt and Slav. What do you say, Madame ‘Moonglade’?”
“I find it extremely satisfactory,” she admitted, “still, I wish I were sure that you like it altogether—as much as you do Russia?”
Basil threw his half-smoked cigarette far into the bushes near the sea-wall, and rose.
“I didn’t want to talk about it; indeed, nothing was farther from my mind than to let the very essence of a surprise out of the bag, but you are irresistible, my little siren, and so here goes!”
“What are you talking about?” asked Marguerite, wide-eyed.
“This: do you remember a certain antique ruin with many beaux-restes like your old friend Madame de Belbye ... a ruin, say I, perched on a lofty rock, with forests of cork-oaks and other useful vegetables unfurling their evergreen waves against the demantibulated bastions of the above-mentioned fortress, a few leagues only from Plenhöel?”
“La Tour du Chevalier!” she cried, her eyes dancing with interest—“La Tour du Chevalier! the old warhold where Du Guesclin dwelt, and before him dozens of other great knights of Brittany, for hundreds and hundreds of years ... the finest, most romantic spot that exists or has ever existed!”