“She is the greatest lady in France,” he replied, “and as to the old-fashionedness of the Hôtel de Plenhöel, a noisily modern reception would clash with those antique ceilings and dignified souvenirs d’autrefois.”
“Oh, I am not finding fault!” she interposed, somewhat hurriedly. Then, looking up into her husband’s face, she saw there something that, oddly enough, made her suddenly determined to put him in the wrong. She was not going to let him reprove her, even tacitly—not she, indeed!
“Of course,” she said, arrogantly, “everything at the Plenhöels’ is bound to be perfection—at least in your eyes. Fortunately for me I am not as gullible as you!”
Basil turned a pair of sincerely astonished eyes upon her. For the second time in an hour he felt as a harmless traveler feels when, without warning, he faces a gun-barrel pointing at him from behind a bush. What could be the matter with his sweet little wife? he asked himself. Perhaps she was ill! He had been annoyed and a trifle irritated, but at this thought he experienced a complete revulsion of feeling, and quickly came across to her.
“What is the matter, Laury?” he asked, tenderly. “Are you tired, my darling? You do not seem quite yourself to-night.”
With a petulant gesture she turned away from him, tightening her hands upon the fan she still held. There was a tiny rending sound, and the delicate tortoise-shell sticks fell apart in her lap.
“Why, Laurence!” Basil exclaimed, and, stooping, he lifted her in his arms, sat down in her place, and, holding her like a baby, drew her pretty head to his shoulder. “My dear child!” he said, affectionately. “You are ill, and it is all my fault. I should not have allowed you to keep such late hours. Since we have been in Paris you have been constantly on the go. No wonder you feel done up.”
The broken fan had slipped noiselessly into the folds of Laurence’s train, and she struggled half up, as if to recover it; but he held her fast, and with a shiver of inexpressible rage she suddenly burst into tears.
Basil was nonplussed, but for a moment he continued to stroke her hair in silence. He was not an expert in the queer humors of women, like his cousin Plenhöel, but from his great strength he looked upon them one and all as children, capricious, easily moved to shallow depths of emotion, a little irrational, and always in need of tenderness, of protection, and of caresses. Therefore he bore himself wholly in accordance with this belief during this first difficult moment of their already prolonged honeymoon. She was unstrung, pettish, a little unreasonable, yes! but adorable as always. All she wanted was to be soothed, petted. He did not even mind the sharp points of her tiara, that at every nervous sob came unpleasantly into contact with his chin and cheek. Let her cry herself out, poor dear; that was the best thing for her to do; and, of course, after the storm sunshine would follow! Every married man knows that! He did not question the sorrowfulness of those sobs; they were convincing enough to him.
“I have gone too far; I have offended him!” the silly woman—interpreting his silence wrongly—was thinking meanwhile, her face hidden on his breast. “What shall I do—how explain?” For in spite of herself she was more than a little afraid of him now. Gradually, scientifically, so to speak, she began to temper the pathetic signs of her distress; and at length she ceased altogether to cry, snuggling closer and closer to him, however, as a tired child does with its nurse after some great and exhausting emotion.