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“He must be lovely,” interrupted Laurence, “and look as if he had rolled about on a rainbow, your cousin André.”

Marguerite stared. The tone rather than the words surprised her. This quaint little being, still at the tender age of easy laughter and easy tears, hated mockery when it was directed toward what she loved and honored. Her slangy childish tongue, so apt to speak at random, never gave its assistance to unkind sayings, and for the second time since they knew each other Laurence felt that she had struck a false note. Indeed, the “Gamin” looked at that minute like a small game-cock of ruffled plumage and sparkling eyes.

“I beg your pardon. I did not know a harmless joke could offend you,” Laurence apologized.

“It did not offend me!” stoutly declared Marguerite. “But—I don’t know why—I can’t bear to have my people laughed at.”

“Your people! You are so excessively and exclusively a Bretonne, that one cannot realize your claiming kin with Muscovites.”

“When I say my people I mean all who belong to me, which includes, of course, the Palitzins.”