The Chink in the Armour Part 23

"And isn't that a good thing?" asked Sylvia, eagerly. "Isn't it far better that he should spend his time talking to me about ordinary things than in the Casino? Let me a.s.sure you again, and most solemnly, Anna, that he never makes love to me--"

"Of course it is a good thing for him that he plays less"--Anna spoke impatiently--"but is it best for you? That is what I ask myself. You have not looked well lately, Sylvia. You have looked very sad sometimes. Oh, do not be afraid, you are quite as pretty as ever you were!"

The tears were running down Sylvia's face. She felt that she ought to be very angry with her friend for speaking thus plainly to her, and yet she could not be angry. Anna spoke so tenderly, so kindly, so delicately.

"Shall we go away from Lacville?" asked Madame Wolsky, suddenly. "There are a hundred places where you and I could go together. Let us leave Lacville! I am sure you feel just as I do--I am sure you realise that the Comte de Virieu would never make you happy."

Sylvia shook her head.

"I do not want to go away," she whispered.

And then Madame Wolsky uttered a short exclamation.

"Ah!" she cried, "I understand. He is the friend you are to meet to-morrow--that is why you are going into Paris!"

Sylvia remained silent.

"I understand it all now," went on Anna. "That is the reason why he was not there to-night. He has gone into Paris so as not to compromise you at Lacville. That is the sort of gallantry that means so little! As if Lacville matters--but tell me this, Sylvia? Has he ever spoken to you as if he desired to introduce his family to you? That is the test, remember--that is the test of a Frenchman's regard for a woman."

There came a knock at the door. "The carriage for Madame has arrived."

They went downstairs, Sylvia having left her friend's last question unanswered.

Madame Wolsky, though generally so undemonstrative, took Sylvia in her arms and kissed her.

"G.o.d bless you, my dear little friend!" she whispered, "and forgive all I have said to you to-night! Still, think the matter over. I have lived a great deal of my life in this country. I am almost a Frenchwoman. It is no use marrying a Frenchman unless his family marry you too--and I understand that the Comte de Virieu's family have cast him off."

Sylvia got into the carriage and looked back, her eyes blinded with tears.

Anna Wolsky stood in the doorway of the Pension, her tall, thin figure in sharp silhouette against the lighted hall.

"We will meet the day after to-morrow, is that not so?" she cried out.

And Sylvia nodded. As she drove away, she told herself that whatever happened she would always remain faithful to her affection for Anna Wolsky.

CHAPTER XIII

The next morning found Paul de Virieu walking up and down platform No. 9 of the Gare du Nord, waiting for Mrs. Bailey's train, which was due to arrive from Lacville at eleven o'clock.

Though he looked as if he hadn't a care in the world save the pleasant care of enjoying the present and looking forward to the future, life was very grey just now to the young Frenchman.

To a Parisian, Paris in hot weather is a depressing place, even under the pleasantest of circ.u.mstances, and the Count felt an alien and an outcast in the city where he had spent much of his careless and happy youth.

His sister, the d.u.c.h.esse d'Eglemont, who had journeyed all the way from Brittany to see him for two or three days, had received him with that touch of painful affection which the kindly and the prosperous so often bestow on those whom they feel to be at once beloved and prodigal.

When with his dear Marie-Anne, Paul de Virieu always felt as though he had been condemned to be guillotined, and as if she were doing everything to make his last days on earth as pleasant as possible.

When he had proposed that his sister should ask his new friend, this English widow he had met at Lacville, to luncheon--nay more, when he had asked Marie-Anne to lend Mrs. Bailey a riding habit, and to arrange that one of the Duc's horses should come over every morning in order that he and Mrs. Bailey might ride together--the kind d.u.c.h.esse had at once a.s.sented, almost too eagerly, to his requests. And she had asked her brother no tiresome, indiscreet questions as to his relations with the young Englishwoman,--whether, for instance, he was really fond of Sylvia, whether it was conceivably possible that he was thinking of marrying her?

And, truth to tell, Paul de Virieu would have found it very difficult to give an honest answer to the question. He was in a strange, debatable state of mind about Sylvia--beautiful, simple, unsophisticated Sylvia Bailey.

He told himself, and that very often, that the young Englishwoman, with her absurd, touching lack of worldly knowledge, had no business to be living in such a place as Lacville, wasting her money at the Baccarat tables, and knowing such queer people as were--well, yes, even Anna Wolsky was queer--Madame Wolsky and the Wachners!

But if Sylvia Bailey had no business to be at Lacville, he, Paul de Virieu, had no business to be flirting with her as he was doing--for though Sylvia was honestly unaware of the fact, the Count was carrying on what he well knew to be a very agreeable flirtation with the lady he called in his own mind his "_pet.i.te amie Anglaise_," and very much he was enjoying the experience--when his conscience allowed him to enjoy it.

Till the last few weeks Paul de Virieu had supposed himself to have come to that time of life when a man can no longer feel the delicious tremors of love. Now no man, least of all a Frenchman, likes to feel that this time has come, and it was inexpressibly delightful to him to know that he had been mistaken--that he could still enjoy the most absorbing and enchanting sensation vouchsafed to poor humanity.

He was in love! In love for the first time for many years, and with a sweet, happy-natured woman, who became more intimately dear to him every moment that went by. Indeed, he knew that the real reason why he had felt so depressed last night and even this morning was because he was parted from Sylvia.

But where was it all to end? True, he had told Mrs. Bailey the truth about himself very early in their acquaintance--in fact, amazingly soon, and he had been prompted to do so by a feeling which defied a.n.a.lysis.

But still, did Sylvia, even now, realise what that truth was? Did she in the least understand what it meant for a man to be bound and gagged, as he was bound and gagged, lashed to the chariot of the G.o.ddess of Chance?

No, of course she did not realise it--how could such a woman as was Sylvia Bailey possibly do so?

Walking up and down the long platform, chewing the cud of bitter reflection, Paul de Virieu told himself that the part of an honest man, to say nothing of that of an honourable gentleman, would be to leave Lacville before matters had gone any further between them. Yes, that was what he was bound to do by every code of honour.

And then, just as he had taken the heroic resolution of going back to Brittany with his sister, as Marie-Anne had begged him to do only that morning, the Lacville train steamed into the station--and with the sight of Sylvia's lovely face all his good resolutions flew to the winds.

She stepped down from the high railway carriage, and looked round her with a rather bewildered air, for a crowd of people were surging round her, and she had not yet caught sight of Count Paul.

Wearing a pinkish mauve cotton gown and a large black tulle hat, Sylvia looked enchantingly pretty. And if the Count's critical French eyes objected to the alliance of a cotton gown and tulle hat, and to the wearing of a string of large pearls in the morning, he was in the state of mind when a man of fastidious taste forgives even a lack of taste in the woman to whom he is acting as guide, philosopher, and friend.

He told himself that Sylvia Bailey could not be left alone in a place like Lacville, and that it was his positive duty to stay on there and look after her....

Suddenly their eyes met. Sylvia blushed--Heavens! how adorable she looked when there came that vivid rose-red blush over her rounded cheeks. And she was adorable in a simple, unsophisticated way, which appealed to Paul de Virieu as nothing in woman had ever appealed to him before.

He could not help enjoying the thought of how surprised his sister would be. Marie-Anne had doubtless pictured Mrs. Bailey as belonging to the rather hard, self-a.s.sertive type of young Englishwoman of whom Paris sees a great deal. But Sylvia looked girlishly simple, timid, and confiding.

As he greeted her, Paul de Virieu's manner was serious, almost solemn.

But none the less, while they walked side by side in a quiet, leisurely fas.h.i.+on through the great grey station, Sylvia felt as if she had indeed pa.s.sed through the s.h.i.+ning portals of fairyland.

In the covered courtyard stood the d.u.c.h.esse's carriage. Count Paul motioned the footman aside and stood bareheaded while Sylvia took her place in the victoria. As he sat down by her side he suddenly observed, "My brother-in-law does not like motor-cars," and Sylvia felt secret, shame-faced grat.i.tude to the Duc d'Eglemont, for, thanks to this prejudice of his, the moments now being spent by her alone with Count Paul were trebled.

As the carriage drove with swift, gondola-like motion through the hot streets, Sylvia felt more than ever as if she were in a new, enchanted country--that dear country called Romance, and, as if to prolong the illusion, the Count began to talk what seemed to her the language of that country.

"Every Frenchman," he exclaimed, abruptly, "is in love with love, and when you hear--as you may do sometimes, Madame--that a Frenchman is rarely in love with his own wife, pray answer that this is quite untrue!

For it often happens that in his wife a Frenchman discovers the love he has sought elsewhere in vain."

He looked straight before him as he added: "As for marriage--well, marriage is in my country regarded as a very serious matter indeed! No Frenchman goes into marriage as light-heartedly as does the average Englishman, and as have done, for instance, so many of my own English schoolfellows. No, to a Frenchman his marriage means everything or nothing, and if he loved a woman it would appear to him a dastardly action to ask her to share his life if he did not believe that life to be what would be likely to satisfy her, to bring her honour and happiness."

Sylvia turned to him, and, rather marvelling at her own temerity, she asked a fateful question:

"But would love ever make the kind of Frenchman you describe give up a way of life that was likely to make his wife unhappy?"