THE CHINK IN THE ARMOUR. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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she might easily run across Anna Wolsky.
M. Girard was a very busy man, yet he always found time for a talk with any foreign client of his hotel.
"I want to know," said Sylvia, smiling in spite of herself, for the hotel-keeper was such a merry-looking little man, and so utterly different from any English hotel-keeper she had ever seen!—"I want to know, M. Girard, which is the best way to a place called Lacville? Have you ever been there?"
"Lacville?" echoed M. Girard delightedly; but there came a rather funny look over his shrewd, round face. "Yes, indeed, I have been there, Madame! Not this season yet, but often last summer, and I shall be going there shortly again. I have a friend there—indeed, he is more than a friend, he is a relation of mine, who keeps the most select hotel at Lacville. It is called the Villa du Lac. Is Madame thinking of going to Lacville instead of to Switzerland?"
Sylvia shook her head. "Oh, no! But Madame Wolsky is there to-day, and I should have gone with her if I had been ready when she came down. It has turned so hot that I feel a few hours in the country would be pleasant, and I am quite likely to meet her, for I suppose Lacville is not a very large place, M. Girard?"
The hotel-keeper hesitated; he found it really difficult to give a true answer to this simple question.
"Lacville?" he repeated; "well—Dame! Lacville is Lacville! It is not like anything Madame has ever seen. On that I would lay my life. First, there is a most beautiful lake—that is, perhaps, the principal attraction;—then the villas of Lacville—ah! they are ravishingly lovely, and then there is also"—he fixed his black eyes on her—"a Casino."
"A Casino?" echoed Sylvia. She scarcely knew what a Casino was.
"But to see the Casino properly Madame must go at night, and it would be well if Madame were accompanied by a gentleman. I do not think Madame should go by herself, but if Madame really desires to see Lacville properly my wife and I will make a great pleasure to ourselves to accompany her there one Sunday night. It is very gay, is Lacville on Sunday night—or, perhaps," added M. Girard quickly, "Madame, being English, would prefer a Saturday night? Lacville is also very gay on Saturday nights."
"But is there anything going on there at night?" asked Sylvia, astonished. "I thought Lacville was a country place."
"There are a hundred and twenty trains daily from the Gare du Nord to Lacville," said the hotel-keeper drily. "A great many Parisians spend the evening there each day. They do not start till nine o'clock in the evening, and they are back, having spent a very pleasant, or sometimes an unpleasant, soirée, before midnight."
"A hundred and twenty trains!" repeated Sylvia, amazed. "But why do so many people want to go to Lacville?"
Again the hotel-keeper stared at her with a questioning look. Was it possible that pretty Madame Bailey did not know what was the real attraction of Lacville? Yet it was not his business to run the place down—as a matter of fact, he and his wife had invested nearly a thousand pounds of their hard-earned savings in their relation's hotel, the Villa du Lac. If Madame Bailey really wanted to leave salubrious, beautiful Paris for the summer, why should she not go to Lacville instead of to dull, puritanical, stupid Switzerland?
These thoughts rushed through the active brain of M. Girard with amazing quickness.
"Many people go to Lacville in order to play baccarat," he said lightly.
And then Sylvia knew why Anna Wolsky had gone to Lacville.
"But apart from the play, Lacville is a little paradise, Madame," he went on enthusiastically. "It is a beauteous spot, just like a scene in an opera. There is the romantic lake, edged with high, shady trees and princely villas—and then the gay, the delightful Casino!"
"And is there a train soon?"
"I will look Madame out a train this moment, and I will also give her one of my cousin Polperro's cards. Madame has, of course, heard of the Empress Eugénie? Well, the Villa du Lac once belonged to one of the Empress's gentlemen-in-waiting. The very highest nobility stay at the Villa du Lac with my cousin. At this very moment he has Count Paul de Virieu, the brother-in-law of a duke, among his clients—"
M. Girard had noticed the British fondness for titles.
"You see, Madame, my cousin was chef to the Emperor of Brazil's sister—this has given him a connection among the nobility. In the winter he has an hotel at Mentone," he was looking up the train while he chatted happily.
"There is a train every ten minutes," he said at last, "from the Gare du Nord. Or, if Madame prefers it, she could walk up from here to the Square of the Trinité and take the tramway; but it is quicker and pleasanter to go by train—unless, indeed, Madame wishes to offer herself the luxury of an automobile. That, alas! I fear would cost Madame twenty to thirty francs."
"Of course I will go by train," said Sylvia, smiling, "and I will lunch at your cousin's hotel, M. Girard."
It would be quite easy to find Anna, or so she thought, for Anna would be at the Casino. Sylvia felt painfully interested in her friend's love of gambling. It was so strange that Anna was not ashamed of it.
And then as she drove to the great railway terminus, from which a hundred and twenty trains start daily for Lacville, it seemed to Sylvia that the whole of Paris was placarded with the name of the place she was now about to visit for the first time!
On every hoarding, on every bare piece of wall, were spread large, flamboyant posters showing a garish but not unattractive landscape. There was the sun sparkling on a wide stretch of water edged with high trees, and gay with little sailing boats, each boat with its human freight of two lovers. Jutting out into the blue lake was a great white building, which Sylvia realised must be the Casino. And under each picture ran the words "Lacville-les-Bains" printed in very black letters.
When she got to the Gare du Nord the same advertisement stared down at her from the walls of the station and of the waiting-rooms.
It was certainly odd that she had never heard of Lacville, and that the place had never been mentioned to her by any of those of her English acquaintances who thought they knew Paris so well.
The Lacville train was full of happy, chattering people. In her first-class carriage she had five fellow-travellers—a man and woman and three children. They looked cheerful, prosperous people, and soon the husband and wife began talking eagerly together.
"I really think," said the lady suddenly, "that we might have chosen some other place than Lacville in which to spend to-day! There are many places the children would have enjoyed more."
"But there is no place," said her husband in a jovial tone, "where I can spend an amusing hour in the afternoon."
"Ah, my friend, I feared that was coming!" exclaimed his wife, shaking her head. "But remember what happened the last time we were at Lacville—I mean the afternoon when you lost seventy francs!"
"But you forget that other afternoon!" answered the man eagerly. "I mean the afternoon when I made a hundred francs, and bought you and the children a number of delightful little gifts with the money!"
Sylvia was amused. How quaint and odd French people were! She could not imagine such an interchange of words between an English husband and wife, especially before a stranger. And then her amusement was further increased, for the youngest child, a boy of about six, cried out that he also wished to go to the Casino with his dear papa.
"No, no, my sweet cabbage, that will happen quite soon enough, when thou art older! If thou art in the least like thy father, there will certainly come a time when thou also wilt go and lose well-earned money at the Tables," said his mother tenderly.
"But if I win, then I shall buy thee a present," said the sweet cabbage coaxingly.
Sylvia looked out of the window. These happy, chattering people made her feel lonely, and even a little depressed.
The country through which the train was passing was very flat and ugly—in fact, it could scarcely be called country at all. And when at last they drew up into the large station of what was once a quiet,