“Wanted to fight him? Swords or pistols for two, eh?” asked Basil, amused in spite of himself.
“Clasp-knives, if you please,” she responded. “Clasp-knives, sailor fashion.”
“Oh,” commented Basil, “nothing if not energetic!”
“Mercy, yes! Blood will tell, you know! You yourself are no milksop, my dearest Basil. Neither were your ancestors, from all I’ve heard and read.”
A shadow passed over his forehead. He could not as yet quite endure being reminded of the horrible period of doubt he had gone through with regard to Piotr’s birthright. During the last days of their sojourn on the Côte-d’Azur they had come unexpectedly, and most unpleasantly for him, across Sir Robert and Lady Seton stepping from the dinghy of their yacht. There had been a moment’s embarrassment, and then all four had sauntered on the promenade together, studiously avoiding any allusion to Laurence. Later on, by a special, if somewhat diffident, request of the nautical baronet, Basil had rowed back with him to the yacht for a short talk—a rather painful experience. Sir Robert, his choleric blue eye cocked up to the saloon skylight of the Phyllis, had roundly denounced his late niece, overbearing Basil’s chivalrous silence, and, glad to be able to let himself go for once, had used language of exceeding saltiness—picturesque, much to the point, and altogether adequate even to that subject.
This encounter had re-opened a wound or two which had not been very prompt to heal again, and had served, moreover, to show him how very much more deeply he had suffered during his first marriage than he had believed.
“I must dress for dinner now,” Marguerite said, cutting into his unamiable reminiscences. “Run along, dear, and do likewise.”
“Are you going to dress at once,” he asked, “or do you intend to go mooning after Piotr to get the latest bulletin, Madame ‘Moonglade’?”
“I shall do, beloved, just precisely as I see fit,” she laughed. “You gave me Piotr quite a long time ago as an earnest of good-will. He is, therefore, more mine than anybody else’s—past, present, or future—so kindly turn your exclusive attention to the tying of your cravat—the color of your buttonhole flower. I shall make myself very beautiful in rose and silver, since it is my lord’s favorite combination of tints, and meanwhile I bid you God-speed.”
She courtesied to him, made a quick little run, raised her delicious mouth to be kissed, and in a flurry of gauze and cobwebby lace disappeared through the narrow door in the arras leading to her apartments.