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“They’ve been married nearly four months now, haven’t they? Sapristi! How time flies! A chance meeting ... a hot-headed Muscovite ... a level-headed Britisher, an infinitesimal courtship, a consent from the Czar, a splendid wedding-feast, a short trip to one’s vasty estates, and here is our interesting couple royally established in the Faubourg St.-Germain, and cradled by the town of revolutions, where they will doubtless dominate chic and fashion. Ah, there’s no denying it! Your Loris knows how to paddle her own canoe.”

“You never did like Laurence!” Marguerite observed.

“No, I never did; I don’t mind owning up to that; and the high-handed way in which she landed one of the greatest matrimonial prizes in Europe did not improve my admiration, either. A girl as competent as she proved herself to be before twenty promises for the future.”

Marguerite was turning her horses from the departmental road into one which opened upon it at right angles, and made a short cut to Plenhöel across the heath. This delicate operation might, therefore, have excused her silence, but her father did not think so.