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Her Neville! The boy she had loved—as far, at least, as she was capable of loving. Her restless eyes scanned the flower-filled enfilade of salons, and dwelt for an instant upon her husband, who, with “Antinoüs” in tow, was returning from the smoking-room. Basil’s personality was of those that impose themselves upon any milieu. Patrician to his finger-tips, elegant—in the delicate French sense of this word so misused by foreigners—a full head taller than most of the men there, he was a Prince to be proud of, a Prince Charming—as Marguerite had once called him—in every possible respect. Why then did she feel her throat contract at the realization that she was, after all was said and done, his irrevocably, and that Neville Moray was henceforth but a figment of the days that had gone?

Basil certainly dwarfed his neighbors; she could not help admitting it to herself; and yet the English guardsman was good to look at, too, and had, moreover, an advantage over him to-night—he was in uniform, the soirée being a semi-official affair—and to a woman a uniform always appeals, especially when worn by men as manly as Moray. To Laurence, so enamoured of pomp and show, it appealed doubly.