The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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vice of gambling.
When, a little breathless, she joined him in the garden, she found that he had already taken two rocking-chairs into a shady corner which was out of sight of the white villa and of its inquisitive windows.
"Something very serious has happened," said Count Paul slowly.
He took both her hands in his and looked down into her face. With surprise and concern she saw that his eyelids were red. Was it possible that Count Paul had been crying? He almost looked as if he had.
The idea of a grown-up man allowing himself to give way to emotion of that sort would have seemed absurd to Sylvia a short time ago, but somehow the thought that Paul de Virieu had shed tears made her feel extraordinarily moved.
"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Has anything happened to your sister?"
"Thank God—no!" he answered hastily. "But something else, something which was to be expected, but which I did not expect, has happened—"
And then, very gravely, and at last releasing her hands, he added, "My kind godmother, the little Marquise you met last week, died last night."
Sylvia felt the sudden sense of surprise, almost of discomfiture, the young always feel in the neighbourhood of death.
"How dreadful! She seemed quite well when we saw her that day—"
She could still hear echoing in her ears the old lady's half-mocking but kindly compliments.
"Ah! but she was very, very old—over ninety! Why, she was supposed to be aged when she became my godmother thirty odd years ago!"
He waited a moment, and then added, quietly, "She has left me in her will two hundred thousand francs."
"Oh, I am glad!"
Sylvia stretched out both hands impulsively, and the Comte de Virieu took first one and then the other and raised them to his lips.
"Eight thousand pounds? Does it seem a fortune to you, Madame?"
"Of course it does!" exclaimed Sylvia.
"It frees me from the necessity of being a pensioner on my brother-in-law," he said slowly, and Sylvia felt a little chill of disappointment. Was that his only pleasure in his legacy?
"You will not play with this money?" she said, in a low voice.
"It is no use my making a promise, especially to you, that I might not be able to keep—"
He got up, and stood looking down at her.
"But I promise that I will not waste or risk this money if I can resist the temptation to do so."
Sylvia smiled, though she felt more inclined to cry.
He seemed stung by her look.
"Do you wish me to give you my word of honour that I will not risk any of this money at the tables?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
Sylvia's heart began to beat. Count Paul had become very pale. There was a curious expression on his face—an expression of revolt, almost of anger.
"Do you exact it?" he repeated, almost violently.
And Sylvia faltered out, "Could you keep your word if I did exact it?"
"Ah, you have learnt to know me too well!"
He walked away, leaving her full of perplexity and pain.
A few moments passed. They seemed very long moments to Sylvia Bailey. Then Count Paul turned and came back.
He sat down, and made a great effort to behave as if nothing unusual or memorable had passed between them.
"And has anything happened here?" he asked. "Is there any news of your vanished friend?"
Sylvia shook her head gravely. The Polish woman's odd, and, to her, inexplicable, conduct still hurt her almost as much as it had done at first.
The Count leant forward, and speaking this time very seriously indeed, he said, in a low voice:—
"I wish to say something to you, and I am now going to speak as frankly as if you were—my sister. You are wrong to waste a moment of your time in regretting Madame Wolsky. She is an unhappy woman, held tightly in the paws of the tiger—Play. That is the truth, my friend! It is a pity you ever met her, and I am glad she went away without doing you any further mischief. It was bad enough of her to have brought you to Lacville, and taught you to gamble. Had she stayed on, she would have tried in time to make you go on with her to Monte Carlo."
He shook his head expressively
Sylvia looked at him with surprise. He had never spoken to her of Anna in this way before. She hesitated, then said a little nervously,
"Tell me, did you ask Madame Wolsky to go away? Please don't mind my asking you this?"
"I ask Madame Wolsky to go away?" he repeated, genuinely surprised. "Such a thought never even crossed my mind. It would have been very impertinent—what English people would call 'cheeky'—of me to do such a thing! You must indeed think me a hypocrite! Have I not shared your surprise and concern at her extraordinary disappearance? And her luggage? If I had wished her to go away, I should not have encouraged her to leave all her luggage behind her!" he spoke with the sarcastic emphasis of which the French are masters.
Sylvia grew very red.
As a matter of fact, it had been Madame Wachner who had suggested that idea to her. Only the day before, when Sylvia had been wondering for the thousandth time where Anna could be, the older woman had exclaimed meaningly, "I should not be surprised if that Count de Virieu persuaded your friend to go away. He wants the field clear for himself."
And then she had seemed to regret her imprudent words, and she had begged Sylvia not to give the Count any hint of her suspicion. Even now Sylvia did not mention Madame Wachner.
"Of course, I don't think you a hypocrite," she said awkwardly, "but you never did like poor Anna, and you were always telling me that Lacville isn't a place where a nice woman ought to stay long. I thought you might have said something of the same kind to Madame Wolsky."
"And do you really suppose," Count Paul spoke with a touch of sharp irony in his voice, "that your friend would have taken my advice? Do you think that Madame Wolsky would look either to the right or the left when the Goddess of Chance beckoned?"—and he waved his hand in the direction where the white Casino lay.
"But the Goddess of Chance did not beckon to her to leave Lacville!" Sylvia exclaimed. "Why, she meant to stay on here till the middle of September—"
"You asked me a very indiscreet question just now"—the Count leant forward, and looked straight into Mrs. Bailey's eyes.
His manner had again altered. He spoke far more authoritatively than he had ever spoken before, and Sylvia, far from resenting this new, possessive attitude, felt thrilled and glad. When Bill Chester spoke as if he had authority over her, it always made her indignant, even angry.
"Did I?" she said nervously.
"Yes! You asked me if I had persuaded Madame Wolsky to leave Lacville. Well, now I ask you, in my turn, whether it has ever occurred to you that the Wachners know more of your Polish friend's departure than they admit? I gathered that impression the only time I talked to your Madame Wachner about the matter. I felt sure she knew more than she would say! Of course, it was only an impression."
Sylvia hesitated.
"At first Madame Wachner seemed annoyed that I made a fuss about it," she said thoughtfully. "But later she seemed as surprised and sorry as I am myself. Oh, no, Count, I am sure you are wrong—why you forget that Madame Wachner walked up to the Pension Malfait that same evening—I mean the evening of the day Anna left Lacville. In fact, it was Madame Wachner who first found out that Anna had not come home. She went up to her bed-room to look for her."
"Then it was Madame Wachner who found the letter?" observed the Count interrogatively.
"Oh,