The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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      And now, as had been the case exactly a week ago, Sylvia was resting in her room. She was sitting just as she had then sat, in a chair drawn up close to the window. There had been no ride that morning, for Paul de Virieu had been obliged to go into Paris for the day.

      Sylvia felt dull and listless. She had never before experienced that aching longing for the presence of another human being which in our civilised life is disguised under many names, but which in this case, Sylvia herself called by that of "friendship."

      Moreover, she had received that morning a letter which had greatly disturbed her. It now lay open on her lap, for she had just read it through again. This letter was quite short, and simply contained the news that Bill Chester, her good friend, sometime lover, and trustee, was going to Switzerland after all, and that he would stop a couple of days in Paris in order to see her.

      It was really very nice of Bill to do this, and a month ago Sylvia would have looked forward to seeing him. But now everything was changed, and Sylvia could well have dispensed with Bill Chester's presence.

      The thought of Chester at Lacville filled her with unease. When she had left her English home two months ago—it seemed more like two years than two months—she had felt well disposed to the young lawyer, and deep in her inmost heart she had almost brought herself to acknowledge that she might very probably in time become his wife.

      She suspected that Chester had been fond of her when she was a girl, at a time when his means would not have justified him in proposing to her, for he was one of those unusual men who think it dishonourable to ask girls to marry them unless they are in a position to keep a wife. She remembered how he had looked—how set and stern his face had become when someone had suddenly told him in her presence of her engagement to George Bailey, the middle-aged man who had been so kind to her, and yet who had counted for so little in her life, though she had given him all she could of love and duty.

      Since her widowhood, so she now reminded herself remorsefully, Chester had been extraordinarily good to her, and his devotion had touched her because it was expressed in actions rather than in words, for he was also the unusual type of man, seldom a romantic type, who scorns, however much in love, to take advantage of a fiduciary position to strengthen his own.

      The fact that he was her trustee brought them into frequent conflict. Too often Bill was the candid friend instead of the devoted lover. Their only real quarrel—if quarrel it could be called—had been, as we know, over the purchase of her string of pearls. But time, or so Sylvia confidently believed, had proved her to have been right, for her "investment," as she always called it to Bill Chester, had improved in value.

      But though she had been right in that comparatively trifling matter, she knew that Chester would certainly disapprove of the kind of life—the idle, purposeless, frivolous life—she was now leading.

      Looking out over the lake, which, as it was an exceedingly hot, fine day, was already crowded with boats, Sylvia almost made up her mind to go back into Paris for two or three days.

      Bill would think it a very strange thing that she was staying here in Lacville all by herself. But the thought of leaving Lacville just now was very disagreeable to Sylvia.... She wondered uncomfortably what her trustee would think of her friendship with Count Paul de Virieu—with this Frenchman who, when he was not gambling at the Casino, spent every moment of his time with her.

      But deep in her heart Sylvia knew well that when Bill Chester was there Paul de Virieu would draw back; only when they were really alone together did he talk eagerly, naturally.

      In the dining-room of the Villa he hardly ever spoke to her, and when they were both in the Baccarat-room of the Club he seldom came and stood by her side, though when she looked up she often found his eyes fixed on her with that ardent, absorbed gaze which made her heart beat, and her cheeks flush with mingled joy and pain.

      Suddenly, as if her thoughts had brought him there, she saw Count Paul's straight, slim figure turn in from the road through the gates of the Villa.

      He glanced up at her window and took off his hat. He looked cool, unruffled, and self-possessed, but her eager eyes saw a change in his face. He looked very grave, and yet oddly happy. Was it possible that he had news at last of Anna Wolsky?

      He mounted the stone-steps and disappeared into the house; and Sylvia, getting up, began moving restlessly about her room. She longed to go downstairs, and yet a feminine feeling of delicacy restrained her from doing so.

      A great stillness brooded over everything. The heat had sent everyone indoors. M. Polperro, perhaps because of his Southern up-bringing, always took an early afternoon siesta. It looked as if his servants followed his example. The Villa du Lac seemed asleep.

      Sylvia went across to the other window, the window overlooking the large, shady garden, and there, glancing down, she saw Count Paul.

      "Come into the garden—," he said softly in English; and Sylvia, leaning over the bar of her window, thought he added the word "Maud"—but of course that could not have been so, for her name, as the Count knew well, was Sylvia! And equally of course he always addressed her as "Madame."

      "It's so nice and cool up here," she whispered back. "I don't believe it is half so cool in the garden!"

      She gazed down into his upturned face with innocent coquetry, pretending—only pretending—to hesitate as to what she would do in answer to his invitation.

      But Sylvia Bailey was but an amateur at the Great Game, the game at which only two—only a man and a woman—can play, and yet which is capable of such infinite, such bewilderingly protean variations. So her next move, one which Paul de Virieu, smiling behind his moustache, foresaw—was to turn away from the window.

      She ran down the broad shallow staircase very quickly, for it had occurred to her that the Count, taking her at her word, might leave the garden, and, sauntering off to the Casino, lose his money—for whatever he might be in love, Count Paul was exceedingly unlucky at cards! And lately she had begun to think that she was gradually weaning her friend from what she knew to be in his case, whatever it was in hers, and in that of many of the people about them, the terrible vice of gambling.

      When, a little breathless, she joined him in the garden, she found that he had already taken two rocking-chairs into a shady corner which was out of sight of the white villa and of its inquisitive windows.

      "Something very serious has happened," said Count Paul slowly.

      He took both her hands in his and looked down into her face. With surprise and concern she saw that his eyelids were red. Was it possible that Count Paul had been crying? He almost looked as if he had.

      The idea of a grown-up man allowing himself to give way to emotion of that sort would have seemed absurd to Sylvia a short time ago, but somehow the thought that Paul de Virieu had shed tears made her feel extraordinarily moved.

      "What is the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Has anything happened to your sister?"

      "Thank God—no!" he answered hastily. "But something else, something which was to be expected, but which I did not expect, has happened—"

      And then, very gravely, and at last releasing her hands, he added, "My kind godmother, the little Marquise you met last week, died last night."

      Sylvia felt the sudden sense of surprise, almost of discomfiture, the young always feel in the neighbourhood of death.

      "How СКАЧАТЬ