The Chink in the Armour Read online

  CHAPTER XI

  During much of the night that followed Sylvia lay awake, her mind full ofthe Comte de Virieu, and of the strange friendship which had sprung upbetween them.

  Their brief meeting at the door of the Casino had affected her verypainfully. As he had passed her with a distant bow, a look of shame, ofmiserable unease, had come over Count Paul's face.

  Yes, Madame Wachner had summed him up very shrewdly, if unkindly. He wasashamed, not only of the way in which he was wasting his life, but alsoof the company into which his indulgence of his vice of gambling broughthim.

  And Sylvia--it was a bitter thought--was of that company. That fact mustbe faced by her. True, she was not a gambler in the sense that most ofthe people she met and saw daily at the Casino were gamblers, but thatwas simply because the passion of play did not absorb her as it did them.It was her good fortune, not any virtue in herself, that set her apartfrom Anna Wolsky.

  And now she asked herself--or rather her conscience asked her--whethershe would not do well to leave Lacville; to break off this strangeand--yes, this dangerous intimacy with a man of whom she knew so verylittle, apart from the great outstanding fact that he was a confirmedgambler, and that he had given up all that makes life worth living tosuch a man as he, in order to drag on a dishonoured, purposeless life atone or other of the great gambling centres of the civilised world?

  And yet the thought of going away from Lacville was already intolerableto Sylvia. There had arisen between the Frenchman and herself a kind ofclose, wordless understanding and sympathy which she, at any rate, stillcalled "friendship." But she would probably have assented to Meredith'swords, "Friendship, I fancy, means one heart between two."

  At last she fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamt a disturbing dream.

  She found herself wandering about the Chalet des Muguets, trying to finda way out of the locked and shuttered building. The ugly little roomswere empty. It was winter, and she was shivering with cold. Someone musthave locked her in by mistake. She had been forgotten....

  "Toc, toc, toc!" at the door. And Sylvia sat up in bed relieved of hernightmare. It was eight o'clock! She had overslept herself. Felicie wasbringing in her tea, and on the tray lay a letter addressed in ahandwriting Sylvia did not know, and on which was a French stamp.

  She turned the pale-grey envelope over doubtfully, wondering if it wasreally meant for her. But yes--of that there could be no doubt, for itwas addressed, "Madame Bailey, Villa du Lac, Lacville-les-Bains."

  She opened it to find that the note contained a gracefully-wordedinvitation to dejeuner for the next day, and the signatureran--"Marie-Anne d'Eglemont."

  Why, it must be Paul de Virieu's sister! How very kind of her, and--andhow very kind of _him_.

  The letter must have been actually written when Count Paul was in Pariswith his sister--and yet, when they had passed one another the eveningbefore, he had bowed as distantly, as coldly, as he might have done tothe most casual of acquaintances.

  Sylvia got up, filled with a tumult of excited feeling which this simpleinvitation to luncheon scarcely warranted.

  But Paul de Virieu came in from his ride also eager, excited, smiling.

  "Have you received a note from my sister?" he asked, hurrying towards herin the dining-room which they now had to themselves each morning. "When Itold her how you and I had become"--he hesitated a moment, and then addedthe words, "good friends, she said how much she would like to meet you. Iknow that you and my dear Marie-Anne would like one another--"

  "It is very kind of your sister to ask me to come and see her," saidSylvia, a little stiffly.

  "I am going back to Paris this evening," he went on, "to stay with mysister for a couple of nights. So if you can come to-morrow to lunch, asI think my sister has asked you to do, I will meet you at the station."

  After breakfast they went out into the garden, and when they were free ofthe house Count Paul said suddenly,

  "I told Marie-Anne that you were fond of riding, and, with yourpermission, she proposes to send over a horse for you every morning.And, Madame--forgive me--but I told her I feared you had no riding habit!You and she, however, are much the same height, and she thinks that shemight be able to lend you one if you will honour her by accepting theloan of it during the time you are at Lacville."

  Sylvia was bewildered, she scarcely knew how to accept so much kindness.

  "If you will write a line to my sister some time to-day," continued theCount, "I will be the bearer of your letter."

  * * * * *

  That day marked a very great advance in the friendship of Sylvia Baileyand Paul de Virieu.

  Till that day, much as he had talked to her about himself and his life,and the many curious adventures he had had, for he had travelled a greatdeal, and was a cultivated man, he had very seldom spoken to her of hisrelations.

  But to-day he told her a great deal about them, and she found herselftaking a very keen, intimate interest in this group of French people whomshe had never seen--whom, perhaps, with one exception, she never wouldsee.

  How unlike English folk they must be--these relations of Count Paul! Forthe matter of that, how unlike any people Sylvia had ever seen or heardof.

  First, he told her of the sweet-natured, pious young duchess who was tobe her hostess on the morrow--the sister whom Paul loved so dearly, andto whom he owed so much.

  Then he described, in less kindly terms, her proud narrow-minded, ifgenerous, husband, the French duke who still lived--thanks to thefact that his grandmother had been the daughter of a great Russianbanker--much as must have lived the nobles in the Middle Ages--apart,that is, from everything that would remind him that there was anythingin the world of which he disapproved or which he disliked.

  The Duc d'Eglemont ignored the fact that France was a Republic; he stilltalked of "the King," and went periodically into waiting on the Duke ofOrleans.

  Count Paul also told Sylvia of his great-uncle and godfather, theCardinal, who lived in Italy, and who had--or so his family liked tobelieve--so nearly become Pope.

  Then there were his three old maiden great-aunts, who had all desired tobe nuns, but who apparently had not had the courage to do so when it cameto the point. They dwelt together in a remote Burgundian chateau, andthey each spent an hour daily in their chapel praying that their dearnephew Paul might be rescued from the evils of play.

  And as Paul de Virieu told Sylvia Bailey of all these curious old-worldfolk of his, Sylvia wondered more and more why he led the kind ofexistence he was leading now.

  * * * * *

  For the first time since Sylvia had come to Lacville, neither she norCount Paul spent any part of that afternoon at the Casino. They were bothat that happy stage of--shall we say friendship?--when a man and a womancannot see too much of one another; when time is as if it were not; whennothing said or done can be wrong in the other's sight; when Love isstill a soft and an invisible presence, with naught about him of theexacting tyrant he will so soon become.

  Count Paul postponed his departure for Paris till after dinner, and nottill she went up to dress did Sylvia sit down to write her answer to theDuchesse d'Eglemont.

  For a long while she held her pen in her hand. How was she to addressPaul de Virieu's sister? Must she call her "Dear Madame"? Should she callher "Dear Duchesse"? It was really an unimportant matter, but it appearedvery important to Sylvia Bailey. She was exceedingly anxious not tocommit any social solecism.

  And then, while she was still hesitating, still sitting with the penpoised in her hand, there came a knock at the door.

  The maid handed her a note; it was from Count Paul, the first letter hehad ever written to her.

  "Madame,"--so ran the note--"it occurs to me that you might like toanswer my sister in French, and so I venture to send you the sort ofletter that you might perhaps care to write. Each country has its ownusages in these matters--that must be my excuse for my apparentimpertinence."

&
nbsp; And then there followed a prettily-turned little epistle which Sylviacopied, feeling perhaps a deeper gratitude than a far greater servicewould have won him from her.