THE CHINK IN THE ARMOUR. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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rather haughtily. Still, she was grateful for his intervention.
"We thank you, Monsieur," she said stiffly. "But I think we have been here quite long enough."
He bowed, and again sat down.
"I will now take you a drive, Sylvia. We have had sufficient of this!"
Anna walked towards the door, and many were the curious glances now turned after the two friends.
"It will amuse you to see something of Lacville. As that gentleman said, I do not suppose you will ever come here again. And, as I shall spend most of my time in the Casino, I can very well afford to spare a little while out of it to-day!"
They made their way out of the great white building, Sylvia feeling oppressed, almost bewildered, by her first taste of gambling.
It was three o'clock, and very hot. They hailed one of the little open carriages which are among the innocent charms of Lacville.
"First you will go round the lake," said Madame Wolsky to the driver, "and then you will take us to the Pension Malfait, in l'Avenue des Acacias."
Under shady trees, bowling along sanded roads lined with pretty villas and châlets, they drove all round the lake, and more and more the place impressed Sylvia as might have done a charming piece of scene-painting.
All the people they passed on the road, in carriages, in motor-cars, and on foot, looked happy, prosperous, gay, and without a care in the world; and where in the morning there had been one boat, there were now five sailing on the blue, gleaming waters fringed with trees and flowering shrubs.
At last they once more found themselves close to the Casino. A steady stream of people was now pouring in through the great glass doors.
"This sort of thing will go on up till about nine this evening!" said Anna, smiling grimly. "Think, my dear—a hundred and twenty trains daily! That room in the Casino where I first saw you will be crammed to suffocation within an hour, and even the Club will be well filled, though I fancy the regular habitués of the club are rather apt to avoid Saturday and Sunday at Lacville. I myself, when living here, shall try to do something else on those two days. By the way—how dreadful that I should forget!—have you had a proper déjeuner?" she looked anxiously at Sylvia.
Sylvia laughed, and told something of her adventures at the Villa du Lac.
"The Villa du Lac? I have heard of it, but surely it's an extremely expensive hotel? The place I've chosen for myself is farther away from the Casino; but the distance will force me to take a walk every day, and that will be a very good thing. Last time I was at Monte Carlo I had a lodging right up in Monaco, and I found that a very much healthier plan than to live close to the Casino," Anna spoke quite seriously. "The Pension Malfait is really extraordinarily cheap for a place near Paris. I am only going to pay fifty-five francs a week, tout compris!"
They had now turned from the road encircling the lake, and were driving through leafy avenues which reminded Sylvia of a London suburb where she had once stayed.
The châlets and villas by which they passed were not so large nor so prosperous-looking as those that bordered the lake, but still many of them were pretty and fantastic-looking little houses, and the gardens were gay with flowers.
"I suppose no one lives here in the winter!" said Sylvia suddenly.
She had noticed, for in some ways she was very observant though in other ways strangely unseeing, that all the flowers were of the bedding-out varieties; there were luxuriant creepers, but not a single garden that she passed had that indefinable look of being an old or a well-tended garden.
"In the winter? Why, in the winter Lacville is an absolute desert," said Anna laughing. "You see, the Casino only has a summer Concession; it cannot open till April 15. Of course there are people who will tell you that Lacville is the plague-pit of Paris, but that's all nonsense! Lacville is neither better nor worse than other towns near the capital!"
The carriage had now drawn up before a large, plain, white house, across which was painted in huge, black letters, "Hôtel-Pension Malfait."
"This is the place I have found!" exclaimed Anna. "Would you care to come in and see the room I've engaged from next Monday week?"
Sylvia followed her into the house with curiosity and interest. Somehow she did not like the Pension Malfait, though it was clear that it had once been a handsome private mansion standing in large grounds of its own. The garden, however, had now been cut down to a small strip, and the whole place formed a great contrast to the gay and charming Villa du Lac.
What garden there was seemed uncared for, though an attempt had been made to make it look pretty with the aid of a few geraniums and marguerites.
M. Malfait, the proprietor of the Pension, whom Sylvia had already seen with Anna at the Casino, now came forward in the hall, and Sylvia compared him greatly to his disadvantage, to the merry M. Polperro.
"Madame has brought her friend?" he said eagerly, and staring at Sylvia as he spoke. "I hope that Madame's friend will come and stay with us too? I have a charming room which I could give this lady; but later on we shall be very full—full all the summer! The hot weather is a godsend for Lacville; for it drives the Parisians out from their unhealthy city."
He beckoned to his wife, a disagreeable-looking woman who was sitting in a little glass cage made in an angle of the square hall.
"Madame Wolsky has brought this good lady to see our Pension!" he exclaimed, "and perhaps she is also coming to stay with us—"
In vain Sylvia smilingly shook her head. She was made to go all over the large, rather gloomy house, and to peep into each of the bare, ugly bed-rooms.
That which Anna had engaged had a window looking over the back of the house; Sylvia thought it singularly cheerless. There was, however, a good arm-chair and a writing-table on which lay a new-looking blotter. It was the only bed-room containing such a luxury.
"An English lady was staying here not very long ago," observed M. Malfait, "and she bought that table and left it to me as a little gift when she went away. That was very gracious on her part!"
They glanced into the rather mournful-looking salon, of which the windows opened out on the tiny garden. And then M. Malfait led them proudly into the dining-room, with its one long table, running down the middle, on which at intervals were set dessert dishes filled with the nuts, grapes, and oranges of which Sylvia had already become so weary at the Hôtel de l'Horloge.
"My clientèle," said M. Malfait gravely, "is very select and chic. Those of my guests who frequent the Casino all belong to the Club!"
He stated the fact proudly, and Sylvia was amused to notice that in this matter he and mine host at the Villa du Lac apparently saw eye to eye. Both were eager to dissociate themselves from the ordinary gambler who lost or won a few francs in those of the gambling rooms open to the general public.
"Well," said Anna at last, "I suppose we had better leave now, but we might as well go on driving for about an hour, and then, when it is a little cooler, we will go back to Paris and be there in time for tea."
The driver was as good-natured as everyone else at Lacville seemed to be. He drove his fares away from the town, and so to the very outskirts of Lacville, where there were many charming bits of wild woodland and gardens up for sale.
"Even five years ago," he said, "much of this was forest, Mesdames; but now—well, Dame!—you can understand people are eager to sell. There are rumours that the Concession may be withdrawn from the Casino—that would be terrible, some say it would kill Lacville! It would be all the same to me, I should always find work elsewhere. But it makes everyone eager to sell—those, I mean, who have land at Lacville. There are others," continued the man—he had turned round on his seat, and the horse was going at a foot's pace—"who declare that it would be far better for the town—that there would be a more solid population established here—you understand, Mesdames, what I mean? The Lacville tradesmen would be as pleased, quite as pleased, or so some of them say; but, all the same, they are selling their