spend the mornings together--"

"--And I, too, could join the Club at the Casino," interjected Sylvia,
smiling.

"No, no, I don't want you to do that!" exclaimed Anna hastily.

And then Sylvia, for some unaccountable reason, felt rather irritated. It
was absurd of Anna to speak to her like that! Bill Chester, her trustee,
and sometime lover, always treated her as if she was a child, and a
rather naughty child, too; she would not allow Anna Wolsky to do so.

"I don't see why not!" she cried. "You yourself say that there is no harm
in gambling if one can afford it."

* * * * *

This was how Sylvia Bailey came to find herself an inmate of the Villa du
Lac at Lacville; and when once the owner of the Hotel de l'Horloge had
understood that in any case she meant to leave Paris, he had done all in
his power to make her going to his relation, mine host of the Villa du
Lac, easy and agreeable.

Sylvia learnt with surprise that she would have to pay very little more
at the Villa du Lac than she had done at the Hotel de l'Horloge; on the
other hand, she could not there have the use of a sitting-room, for the
good reason that there were no private sitting-rooms in the villa. But
that, so she told herself, would be no hardship, and she could spend
almost the whole of the day in the charming garden.

The two friends arrived at Lacville late in the afternoon, and on a
Monday, that is on the quietest day of the week. And when Anna had
left Sylvia at the Villa du Lac, driving off alone to her own humbler
_pension_, the young Englishwoman, while feeling rather lonely, realised
that M. Polperro had not exaggerated the charm of his hostelry.

Proudly mine host led Mrs. Bailey up the wide staircase into the
spacious, airy room which had been prepared for her. "This was the
bed-chamber of Madame la Comtesse de Para, the friend of the Empress
Eugenie" he said.

The windows of the large, circular room, mirror-lined, and still
containing the fantastic, rather showy decorations which dated from the
Second Empire, overlooked the broad waters of the lake. Even now, though
it was still daylight, certain romantic-natured couples had lit paper
lanterns and hung them at the prows of their little sailing-boats.

The scene had a certain fairy-like beauty and stillness.

"Madame will find the Villa du Lac far more lively now" exclaimed M.
Polperro cheerfully. "Last week I had only M. le Comte Paul de Virieu--no