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 Marc would have begun to set nets for larks and bought both toaster and broiler had the same idol of his imagination predicted an immediate fall of the skies. That his inamorata was twenty years his senior made no difference to the distinguished impressionist; that Marc was twenty years her junior made not the slightest difference to madame—nor did Marc himself, for that matter. All good men were comrades to her—and Marc was one: further she never went. Her rule of life was freedom of thought and action, and absolute deference to her whims, however daring and foolish.

Nor did the marquise herself enlighten us further as to what she thought of Mignon’s love affairs or Lemois’ narrow matrimonial views. She had become suddenly intent on having the smashed villa pulled uphill and set on its legs again, with Marc as adviser and Le Blanc’s friend, The Architect, as director-in-chief—an appointment which blew into thin air that gentleman’s determination to put into dramatic form the new Robinson Crusoe of which Herbert had told us, with Goringe, the explorer, as star, the lady remarking sententiously that she had definite reasons for the restoration and