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“How ill we judge women at first sight!” he remarked, lightly. “D’you remember your first view of Laurence in that gorgeous storm at Plenhöel? Who then would have imagined—”

“Speak for yourself, Régis,” Basil countered, hastily. “You were the one who found fault. I fell in love with her at first sight, I tell you. As to you, permit me to suggest that you were not using your habitual keenness of vision that morning.”

“Perhaps! Perhaps! I always said, though, that she was a beauty, you remember, and now I’ll improve upon that. Marriage decidedly agrees with her, and she has become absolutely superb.”

Once more Basil flushed with delight, for his cousin’s appreciation was not one to be disdained. “Isn’t she?” he said, with almost boyish pride. “But”—with a look of contrition and apology so sudden that it was almost ludicrous—“tell me, Régis, has the ‘Gamin’ really been ill?”

“Why?” questioned Plenhöel, utterly forgetting the excuse made for her non-appearance at the wedding, and instantly alarmed. “Don’t you think she looks well?” All thought of banter had suddenly left him, and he involuntarily took a step toward the place where Marguerite was attending to her duties, presenting one guest after another to Laurence, and that with amazing ease for a girl not yet seventeen.