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Updated: June 24, 2025
"They all think," she said at last, "that Anna went to the Casino and lost all her money both the money she made, and the money she brought here; and that then, not liking to tell even me anything about it, she made up her mind to go away." "They all think this?" repeated Count Paul, meaningly. "Whom do you mean by all, Mrs. Bailey?" "I mean the people at the Pension Malfait, and the Wachners "
Early in their acquaintance the Count had warned her against making casual friendships in the Gambling Rooms, and he even did not like her knowing this amused Sylvia the harmless Wachners. When he saw her talking to Madame Wachner in the Club, Count Paul would look across the baccarat table and there would come a little frown over his eyes a frown she alone could see.
And 'e will now be able to play more than ever, for I 'ear a fortune 'as been left to 'im!" Sylvia was startled. She wondered how the Wachners could have come to know of the Count's legacy. She got up, with a nervous, impatient gesture.
"Madame Wachner would be so pleased! She was saying the other day that you had never been to their house." But Count Paul smilingly shook his head. "I have no intention of ever going there," he said deliberately. "You see I do not like them! I suppose I hope" he looked again straight into Sylvia Bailey's ingenuous blue eyes "that the Wachners have never tried to borrow money of you?"
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.
Was it possible that the Wachners, too, were leaving Lacville? If so, how very odd of them not to have told her! As she opened the door of the bed-room Madame Wachner waddled up behind her. "Wait a moment!" she cried. "Or perhaps, dear friend, you do not want a light? You see, we have been rather upset to-day, for L'Ami Fritz has to go away for two or three days, and that is a great affair!
"Then you saw the Wachners to-day?" "I met Madame Wachner as I was going to the Pension Malfait," said Sylvia, "and she went there with me. You see, the Wachners asked Anna to have supper with them yesterday, and they waited for her ever so long, but she never came. That makes it clear that she must have left Lacville some time in the early afternoon.
She and Chester went a drive in the afternoon the expedition had been arranged the day before with the Wachners, and there seemed no valid reason why it should be put off.
She had never seen, she had never imagined, such pomp, such solemn state, as that which greeted her, and there came across her a childish wish that Anna Wolsky and the Wachners could witness the scene the hall hung with tapestries given to an ancestor of the Duc d'Eglemont by Louis the Fourteenth, the line of powdered footmen, and the solemn major-domo who ushered them up the wide staircase, at the head of which there stood a slender, white-clad young woman, with a sweet, eager face.
And as Sylvia gave a long, involuntary, happy sigh, Anna went on: "Of course, I do not regard him with trust or with liking. How could I? On the other hand, I do not go as far as the Wachners; they, it is quite clear, evidently know something very much to the Count's discredit." "I don't believe they do!" cried Sylvia, hotly. "It is mere prejudice on their part!
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