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The happy-looking people who passed her laughing and talking together, and the more silent couples who floated by on the water in the quaint miniature sailing boats with which the surface of the lake was now dotted, were none of them alone. Suddenly the old parish church of Lacville chimed out the hour it was only one o'clock amazingly early still! Someone coming across the road lifted his hat.
She had seen him long before Sylvia had done so, and had watched him with some attention, guessing almost at once that he must be the man for whom Mrs. Bailey had waited dinner. "I suppose that this is your first visit to Lacville?" she observed smiling. "Very few of your countrymen come 'ere, sir, but it is an interesting and curious place more really curious than is Monte Carlo."
"You are not only very pretty, my dear Sylvia, but you look what the people here probably regard as being of far more consequence, that is, opulent." "So I am," said Sylvia gaily, "opulent and very, very happy, dear Anna! I am so glad that you brought me here, and first made me acquainted with this delightful place! I am sure Switzerland would not have been half as amusing as Lacville "
The question took her utterly by surprise. But the Comte de Virieu's next words at once relieved, and yes, it must be admitted, chagrined her. "I ask you, Madame, to leave Lacville! I ask permission to tell you frankly and plainly that it is not a place to which you ought to have been brought." He spoke with great emphasis. Sylvia looked up at him.
He wondered if he could persuade Sylvia to leave Lacville soon. In any case he would himself stay on here three or four days he had meant only to stay twenty-four hours, for he was on his way to join a friend whose Swiss holiday was limited. The sensible thing for Sylvia to do would be to go back to England.
Chester's voice unwittingly became far more cordial; if the Frenchman did not wish to see Sylvia, why had he insisted on coming back, too, to Lacville. The hall of the Villa du Lac was brightly lit up, and as the victoria swept up the short drive to the stone horseshoe stairway, the Comte de Virieu suddenly grasped the other's hand. "Good luck!" he exclaimed, "Good luck, fortunate man!
But I suppose you have got to know quite a number of people in the hotel?" "Well, no ," she stopped abruptly. She certainly had come to know the Comte de Virieu, but he was the exception, not the rule. "You see, Bill, Lacville is the sort of place where everyone thinks everyone else rather queer!
He and his family lived on here long after the war, in fact" he lowered his voice "till the Concession was granted to the Casino. You know what I mean? The Gambling Concession. Since then the world of Lacville has become rather mixed, as I have reason to know, for my wife and I have lived here fifteen years. The Marquis de Para sold his charming villa.
If ever you know anyone who wishes to come to Lacville you may safely recommend them I say it with my hands on my heart," and he suited his action to his words "to the Villa du Lac." How delightful it all was to Sylvia Bailey! No wonder her feeling of depression and loneliness vanished.
What can possibly have made her want to leave Lacville in such a hurry? She was actually engaged to have dinner with our friends, Monsieur and Madame Wachner. Did she not send them any sort of message, Madame Malfait? I wish you would try and remember what she said when she went out." The Frenchwoman looked at her with a curious stare.
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