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“Tell me now, oh, Un-Serene Highness, what causes all this big sorrow.”

The manner in which she lowered her eyes and pouted partook of nothing less than genius. Her white breast was still rising and falling charmingly in its frame of velvet and ermine, making the big octagonal diamonds hanging from her necklace throb with prismatic light, and altogether she was irresistible in her half-contrite, half-resentful mood.

“You treat me like ... like a baby,” she murmured, pettishly. “And yet I am your wife, and I have my rights, haven’t I?”

“Most decidedly!” he agreed, repressing a smile with difficulty. What was coming now!

“Well, then,” she went on, twisting the little chain of decorations in his buttonhole between her slim fingers, “why should I not feel hurt when you show me, so very rudely, that I am not first in your thoughts?”

Basil, greatly amused, laughed outright. “So, so!” he said, gaily. “You have discovered all by your own wee self that you are not first in my thoughts! What a clever little woman it is, to be sure! Especially under present circumstances. You should be mightily proud of such a painstaking and praiseworthy achievement.”