The Chink in the Armour Part 11

Before drawing together the curtains of her bed-room windows, Sylvia Bailey stood for some minutes looking out into the warm moonlit night.

On the dark waters of the lake floated miniature argosies, laden with lovers seeking happiness--ay, and perhaps finding it, too.

The Casino was outlined with fairy lamps; the scene was full of glamour, and of mysterious beauty. More than ever Sylvia was reminded of an exquisite piece of scene painting, and it seemed to her as if she were the heroine of a romantic opera--and the hero, with his ardent eyes and melancholy, intelligent face, was Count Paul de Virieu.

She wondered uneasily why Anna Wolsky had spoken of the Count as she had done--was it with dislike or only contempt?

Long after Sylvia was in bed she could hear the tramping made by the feet of those who were leaving the Casino and hurrying towards the station; but she did not mind the sound. All was so strange, new, and delightful, and she fell asleep and dreamt pleasant dreams.

CHAPTER VI

On waking the next morning, Sylvia Bailey forgot completely for a moment where she was.

She looked round the large, airy room, which was so absolutely unlike the small bed-room she had occupied in the Hotel de l'Horloge, with a sense of bewilderment and surprise.

And then suddenly she remembered! Why of course she was at Lacville; and this delightful, luxurious room had been furnished and arranged for the lady-in-waiting and friend of the Empress Eugenie. The fact gave an added touch of romance to the Hotel du Lac.

A ray of bright sunlight streamed in through the curtains she had pinned together the night before. And her travelling clock told her that it was not yet six. But Sylvia jumped out of bed, and, drawing back the curtains, she looked out, and across the lake.

The now solitary expanse of water seemed to possess a new beauty in the early morning sunlight, and the white Casino, of which the minarets were reflected in its blue depths, might have been a dream palace. Nothing broke the intense stillness but the loud, sweet twittering of the birds in the trees which surrounded the lake.

But soon the spell was broken. When the six strokes of the hour chimed out from the old parish church which forms the centre of the town of Lacville, as if by enchantment there rose sounds of stir both indoors and out.

A woman came out of the lodge of the Villa du Lac, and slowly opened the great steel and gilt gates.

Sylvia heard the rush of bath water, even the queer click-click of a shower bath. M. Polperro evidently insisted on an exceptional standard of cleanliness for his household.

Sylvia felt fresh and well. The languor induced by the heat of Paris had left her. There seemed no reason why she should not get up too, and even go out of doors if so the fancy pleased her.

She had just finished dressing when there came curious sounds from the front of the Villa, and again she went over to her window.

A horse was being walked up and down on the stones of the courtyard in front of the horseshoe stairway which led up to the hall door. It was not yet half-past six. Who could be going to ride at this early hour of the morning?

Soon her unspoken question was answered; for the Comte de Virieu, clad in riding breeches and a black jersey, came out of the house, and close on his heels trotted M. Polperro, already wearing his white chef's cap and ap.r.o.n.

Sylvia could hear his "M'sieur le Comte" this, and "M'sieur le Comte"

that, and she smiled a little to herself. The owner of the Hotel du Lac was very proud of his n.o.ble guest.

The Comte de Virieu was also laughing and talking; he was more animated than she had yet seen him. Sylvia told herself that he looked very well in his rather odd riding dress.

Waving a gay adieu to mine host, he vaulted into the saddle, and then rode out of the gates, and so sharply to the left.

Sylvia wondered if he were going for a ride in the Forest of Montmorency, which, in her lying guide-book, was mentioned as the princ.i.p.al attraction of Lacville.

There came a knock at the door, and Sylvia, calling out "Come in!" was surprised, and rather amused, to see that it was M. Polperro himself who opened it.

"I have come to ask if Madame has slept well," he observed, "and also to know if she would like an English breakfast? If yes, it shall be laid in the dining-room, unless Madame would rather have it up here."

"I would much rather come downstairs to breakfast," said Sylvia; "but I do not want anything yet, M. Polperro. It will do quite well if I have breakfast at half-past eight or nine."

She unpacked her trunks, and as she put her things away it suddenly struck her that she meant to stay at Lacville for some time. It was an interesting, a new, even a striking experience, this of hers; and though she felt rather lost without Anna Wolsky's constant presence and companionship, she was beginning to find it pleasant to be once more her own mistress.

She sat down and wrote some letters--the sort of letters that can be written or not as the writer feels inclined. Among them was a duty letter to her trustee, Bill Chester, telling him of her change of address, and of her change of plan.

The people with whom she had been going to Switzerland were friends of Bill Chester too, and so it was doubtful now whether he would go abroad at all.

And all the time Sylvia was writing there was at the back of her mind a curious, unacknowledged feeling that she was waiting for something to happen, that there was something pleasant for her to look forward to....

And when at last she went down into the dining-room, and Paul de Virieu came in, Sylvia suddenly realised, with a sense of curious embarra.s.sment, what it was she had been waiting for and looking forward to. It was her meeting with the Comte de Virieu.

"I hope my going out so early did not disturb you," he said, in his excellent English. "I saw you at your window."

Sylvia shook her head, smiling.

"I had already been awake for at least half an hour," she answered.

"I suppose you ride? Most of the Englishwomen I knew as a boy rode, and rode well."

"My father was very anxious I should ride, and as a child I was well taught, but I have not had much opportunity of riding since I grew up."

Sylvia reddened faintly, for she fully expected the Count to ask her if she would ride with him, and she had already made up her mind to say "No," though to say "Yes" would be very pleasant!

But he did nothing of the sort. Even at this early hour of their acquaintance it struck Sylvia how unlike the Comte de Virieu's manner to her was to that of the other young men she knew. While his manner was deferential, even eager, yet there was not a trace of flirtation in it.

Also the Count had already altered all Sylvia Bailey's preconceived notions of Frenchmen.

Sylvia had supposed a Frenchman's manner to a woman to be almost invariably familiar, in fact, offensively familiar. She had had the notion that a pretty young woman--it would, of course, have been absurd for her to have denied, even to herself, that she was very pretty--must be careful in her dealing with foreigners, and she believed it to be a fact that a Frenchman always makes love to an attractive stranger, even on the shortest acquaintance!

This morning, and she was a little piqued that it was so, Sylvia had to admit to herself that the Comte de Virieu treated her much as he might have done some old lady in whom he took a respectful interest....

And yet twice during the half-hour her breakfast lasted she looked up to see his blue eyes fixed full on her with an earnest, inquiring gaze, and she realised that it was not at all the kind of gaze Paul de Virieu would have turned on an old lady.

They got up from their respective tables at the same moment. He opened the door for her, and then, after a few minutes, followed her out into the garden.

"Have you yet visited the _potager_?" he asked, deferentially.

Sylvia looked at him, puzzled. "_Potager_" was quite a new French word to her.

"I think you call it the kitchen-garden." A smile lit up his face. "The people who built the Villa du Lac a matter of fifty years ago were very fond of gardening. I think it might amuse you to see the _potager_. Allow me to show it you."

They were now walking side by side. It was a delicious day, and the dew still glistened on the gra.s.s and leaves. Sylvia thought it would be very pleasant, and also instructive, to see a French kitchen-garden.

"Strange to say when I was a child I was often at the Villa du Lac, for the then owner was a distant cousin of my mother. He and his kind wife allowed me to come here for my convalescence after a rather serious illness when I was ten years old. My dear mother did not like me to be far from Paris, so I was sent to Lacville."