“Angry?” she asked. “Not a bit of it. It isn’t worth while. But hark you, Cousin Basil, don’t make any mistake. The ‘Gamin’ is a better friend of yours than you think. I may not yet be a young lady with grand manners. I am a good little chap, however—a tomboy, if you like; but try me if you ever need a real, genuine, bona-fide, faithful-to-the-end friend, and you’ll see!”
She pirouetted and, beckoning to him to follow, raced up the long flight of secondary stairs which led to the very roof.
Half-way to the top she suddenly paused on the threshold of a domed and glassed-in gallery that projected from the side of the house over the inclosed garden. It was filled with palms and plants and blossoming creepers, with here and there the fairy plume of a bamboo aspiring to the transparent curves above. The upper end of this miniature Vale of Kashmir was crossed by a broad span of almost invisible wire, behind which birds of a tropical splendor of feather flitted hither and yon. The liquid counterpart of this delightful unstill life was afforded by a long crystal panel revealing the musical spirt of a fountain, and a background of gorgeous aquatic plants, crisscrossed by the alert dartings of the prettiest collection of highly painted fishes possible to imagine. Moving jewels they seemed, as they quadrilled in the dear element of their birth, and not unhappy at all, as most aquarium-dwellers seem to be, for their perfect comfort had been studiously considered, and they appeared very much in love with existence as it was made for them there.
Basil had come to a standstill behind the ‘Gamin,’ and as she turned to speak he thought: “Her breath is as meadowsweet, her face like a flower, her hair was assuredly spun by elves, and her eyes—” Here comparison failed him, and with bent head he listened to the end of a sentence he had not been conscious of her beginning.
“—you might as well tell me, after all,” the low, dear voice was saying, and he looked helplessly at her.
“Didn’t you hear what I asked?” she petulantly exclaimed. “I am speaking plain French, am I not?”
Plain French! Could anything be plain that was connected with her?
“What were you asking?” he found himself forced to answer to those indignant eyes.
“Oh, you don’t even listen any more!” she reproached.
“I am an idiot!” he humbly confessed. “An idiot and a boor!”