The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ table were following Sylvia's game.

      "That pretty Englishwoman is playing for the first time!"—so the word went round. And they all began backing her luck with feverish haste.

      The banker, a good-looking young Frenchman, stared at Sylvia ruefully. Thanks to her, he was being badly punished. Fortunately, he could afford it.

      At the end of half an hour, feeling tired and bewildered by her good fortune, Mrs. Bailey got up and moved away from the table, the possessor of £92. The Comte Virieu had won exactly the same amount.

      Now everybody looked pleased except the banker. For the first time a smile irradiated Monsieur Wachner's long face.

      As for Madame Wachner, she was overjoyed. Catching Sylvia by the hand, she exclaimed, in her curious, woolly French, "I would like to embrace you! But I know that English ladies do not like kissing in public. It is splendid—splendid! Look at all the people you have made happy."

      "But how about the poor banker?" asked Sylvia, blushing.

      "Oh, 'e is all right. 'E is very rich."

      Madame Wolsky, like the Count, had exactly followed her friend's play, but not as soon as he had done. Still, she also had made over £80.

      "Two thousand francs!" she cried, joyfully. "That is very good for a beginning. And you?" she turned to Monsieur Wachner.

      He hesitated, and looked at his wife deprecatingly.

      "L'Ami Fritz," said Madame Wachner, "will play 'is system, Mesdames. However, I am glad to say that to-day he soon gave it up in honour of our friend here. What 'ave you made?" she asked him.

      "Only eight hundred francs," he said, his face clouding over. "If you had given me more than that hundred francs, Sophie, I might have made five thousand in the time."

      "Bah!" she said. "That does not matter. We must not risk more than a hundred francs a day—you know how often I've told you that, Fritz." She was now speaking in French, very quickly and angrily.

      But Sylvia hardly heard. She could not help wondering why the Count had not come up and congratulated her. The thought that she had brought him luck was very pleasant to her.

      He had left off playing, and was standing back, near one of the windows. He had not even glanced across to the place where she stood. This aloofness gave Sylvia a curious little feeling of discomfiture. Why, several strangers had come up and cordially thanked her for bringing them such luck.

      "Let us come out of this place and 'ave some ices," exclaimed Madame Wachner, suddenly. "When l'Ami Fritz 'as a stroke of luck 'e often treats 'is old wife to an ice."

      The four went out of the Casino and across the way to an hotel, which, as Madame Wachner explained to her two new friends, contained the best restaurant in Lacville. The sun was sinking, and, though it was still very hot, there was a pleasant breeze coming up from the lake.

      Sylvia felt excited and happy. How wonderful—how marvellous—to make nearly £100 out of a twenty-franc piece! That was what she had done this afternoon.

      And then, rather to her surprise, after they had all enjoyed ices and cakes at Madame Wachner's expense, Anna Wolsky and l'Ami Fritz declared they were going back to the Casino.

      "I don't mean to play again to-night," said Sylvia, firmly. "I feel dreadfully tired," and the excitement had indeed worn her out. She longed to go back to the Hôtel du Lac.

      Still, she accompanied the others to the Club, and together with Madame Wachner, she sat down some way from the tables. In a very few minutes they were joined by the other two, who had by now lost quite enough gold pieces to make them both feel angry with themselves, and, what was indeed unfair, with poor Sylvia.

      "I'm sure that if you had played again, and if we had followed your play, we should have added to our winnings instead of losing, as we have done," said Anna crossly.

      "I'm so sorry," and Sylvia felt really distressed. Anna had never spoken crossly to her before.

      "Forgive me!" cried the Polish woman, suddenly softening. "I ought not to have said that to you, dear little friend. No doubt we should all have lost just the same. You know that fortune-teller told me that I should make plenty of money—well, even now I have had a splendid day!"

      "Do come back with me and have dinner at the Villa du Lac," said Sylvia eagerly.

      They shook hands with the Wachners, and as they walked the short distance from the Casino to the villa, Sylvia told Anna all about her visit to the Châlet des Muguets.

      "They seem nice homely people," she said, "and Madame Wachner was really very kind."

      "Yes, no doubt; but she is a very strict wife," answered Anna smiling. "The poor man had not one penny piece till she came in, and he got so angry and impatient waiting for her! I really felt inclined to lend him a little money; but I have made it a rule never to lend money in a Casino; it only leads to unpleasantness afterwards."

      In the hall of the Villa du Lac the Comte de Virieu was standing reading a paper. He was dressed for dinner, and he bowed distantly as the two ladies came in.

      "Why, there is the Comte de Virieu!" exclaimed Anna, in a low, and far from a pleased tone. "I had no idea he was staying here."

      "Yes, he is staying here," said Sylvia, blushing uneasily, and quickly she led the way upstairs. It wanted a few minutes to seven.

      Anna Wolsky waited till the door of Sylvia's room was shut, and then,

      "I cannot help being sorry that you are staying in the same hotel as that man," she said, seriously. "Do not get to know him too well, dear Sylvia. The Count is a worthless individual; he has gambled away two fortunes. And now, instead of working, he is content to live on an allowance made to him by his sister's husband, the Duc d'Eglemont. If I were you, I should keep on very distant terms with him. He is, no doubt, always looking out for a nice rich woman to marry."

      Sylvia made no answer. She felt she could not trust herself to speak; and there came over her a feeling of intense satisfaction that Anna Wolsky was not staying here with her at the Villa du Lac.

      She also made up her mind that next time she entertained Anna she would do so at the restaurant of which the cooking had been so highly commended by Madame Wachner.

      The fact that Madame Wolsky thought so ill of the Comte de Virieu made Sylvia feel uncomfortable all through dinner. But the Count, though he again bowed when the two friends came into the dining-room, did not come over and speak to them, as Sylvia had felt sure he would do this evening.

      After dinner he disappeared, and Sylvia took Anna out into the garden. But she did not show her the potager. The old kitchen-garden already held for her associations which she did not wish to spoil or even to disturb.

      Madame Wolsky, sipping M. Polperro's excellent coffee, again mentioned the Count.

      "I am exceedingly surprised to see him here at Lacville," she said in a musing voice, "I should have expected him to go to a more chic place. He always plays in the winter at Monte Carlo."

      Sylvia summoned up courage to protest.

      "But, Anna," she exclaimed, "surely the Comte de Virieu is only doing СКАЧАТЬ