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She felt vaguely touched by the fact that the Wachners had kept her friend's last letter; they alone, so she reminded herself, had been really sorry and concerned at Anna's sudden departure from the place. They also, like Sylvia herself, had been pained that Madame Wolsky had not cared to say good-bye to them.
She looked across at her husband, and there burst from her lips a torrent of words, uttered in the uncouth tongue which the Wachners used for secrecy. Sylvia tried desperately to understand, but she could make nothing of the strange, rapid-spoken syllables until there fell on her ear, twice repeated, the name Wolsky....
I'm going on to Switzerland. How long I stay will a little bit depend on Mrs. Bailey's plans. I haven't had time to ask her anything yet. What sort of a place is the Villa du Lac?" He asked the question abruptly; he was already full of dislike and suspicion of everything, though not of everybody, at Lacville. These Wachners were certainly nice, simple people.
"Most certainly I will do so; you will not move no, not a single step without me," said Monsieur Wachner solemnly. And then Madame Wachner burst out into a sudden peal of laughter laughter which was infectious. Sylvia smiled too, and sat down again. After all, as Paul de Virieu had truly said, not once, but many times, the Wachners were not refined people but they were kind and very good-natured.
It would not be fair to let her private griefs sadden the kindly Wachners. It was really good of them to have asked her to come back to supper at the Châlet des Muguets. She would have found it terribly lonely this evening at the Villa du Lac.... "I am quite ready," she said, addressing herself more particularly to Madame Wachner; and the three walked out of the Club rooms.
Madame Wachner was certainly a kindly, warm-hearted sort of woman. They walked out together into the narrow garden, and soon Madame Wachner began to amuse her companion by lively, shrewd talk, and they spent a pleasant half hour pacing up and down. The Wachners seemed to have travelled a great deal about the world and especially in several of the British Colonies.
How amazingly their relation to one another had altered in the last half-hour! For the moment they were enemies, and it was the enemy in Sylvia that next spoke. "I think I shall go and have tea with the Wachners. They never go to the Casino on Saturday afternoons." A heavy cloud came over Count Paul's face. "I can't think what you see to like in that vulgar old couple," he exclaimed irritably.
They had been kind, tender words, and though Anna did not approve of Sylvia's friendship for Paul de Virieu, she had spoken in a very understanding, sympathetic way, almost as a loving mother might have spoken. It was odd of Anna not to have left word she was going to Paris for the day. In any case, the Wachners would know when Anna would be back.
As Sylvia drove away alone from the station, she felt exceedingly troubled and unhappy. It was all very well for Madame Wachner to take the matter of Anna Wolsky's disappearance from Lacville so philosophically. The Wachners' acquaintance with Madame Wolsky had been really very slight, and they naturally knew nothing of the Polish woman's inner nature and temperament.
While her hostess was away, Sylvia looked round her with some curiosity. What an extraordinary mode of life these people had chosen for themselves! If the Wachners were rich enough to gamble, surely they had enough money to live more comfortably than they were now doing? It was clear that they hardly used the dining-room and drawing-room of the little villa at all.
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