The letter must have been actually written when Count Paul was in Paris with his sister—and yet, when they had passed one another the evening before, he had bowed as distantly, as coldly, as he might have done to the most casual of acquaintances.
Sylvia got up, filled with a tumult of excited feeling which this simple invitation 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 her in the dining-room which they now had to themselves each morning. "When I told her how you and I had become"—he hesitated a moment, and then added the words, "good friends, she said how much she would like to meet you. I know 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," said Sylvia, a little stiffly.
"I am going back to Paris this evening," he went on, "to stay with my sister for a couple of nights. So if you can come to-morrow to lunch, as I 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 of the house Count Paul said suddenly,
"I told Marie-Anne that you were fond of riding, and, with your permission, 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 she might be able to lend you one if you will honour her by accepting the loan 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 the Count, "I will be the bearer of your letter."
That day marked a very great advance in the friendship of Sylvia Bailey and 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 great deal, and was a cultivated man, he had very seldom spoken to her of his relations.
But to-day he told her a great deal about them, and she found herself taking a very keen, intimate interest in this group of French people whom she had never seen—whom, perhaps, with one exception, she never would see.
How unlike English folk they must be—these relations of Count Paul! For the matter of that, how unlike any people Sylvia had ever seen or heard of.
First, he told her of the sweet-natured, pious young duchess who was to be her hostess on the morrow—the sister whom Paul loved so dearly, and to whom he owed so much.
Then he described, in less kindly terms, her proud narrow-minded, if generous, husband, the French duke who still lived—thanks to the fact that his grandmother had been the daughter of a great Russian banker—much as must have lived the nobles in the Middle Ages—apart, that is, from everything that would remind him that there was anything in the world of which he disapproved or which he disliked.
The Duc d'Eglemont ignored the fact that France was a Republic; he still talked of "the King," and went periodically into waiting on the Duke of Orleans.
Count Paul also told Sylvia of his great-uncle and godfather, the Cardinal, who lived in Italy, and who had—or so his family liked to believe—so nearly become Pope.
Then there were his three old maiden great-aunts, who had all desired to be nuns, but who apparently had not had the courage to do so when it came to the point. They dwelt together in a remote Burgundian château, and they each spent an hour daily in their chapel praying that their dear nephew Paul might be rescued from the evils of play.
And as Paul de Virieu told Sylvia Bailey of all these curious old-world folk of his, Sylvia wondered more and more why he led the kind of existence he was leading now.
For the first time since Sylvia had come to Lacville, neither she nor Count Paul spent any part of that afternoon at the Casino. They were both at that happy stage of—shall we say friendship?—when a man and a woman cannot see too much of one another; when time is as if it were not; when nothing said or done can be wrong in the other's sight; when Love is still a soft and an invisible presence, with naught about him of the exacting tyrant he will so soon become.
Count Paul postponed his departure for Paris till after dinner, and not till she went up to dress did Sylvia sit down to write her answer to the Duchesse d'Eglemont.
For a long while she held her pen in her hand. How was she to address Paul de Virieu's sister? Must she call her "Dear Madame"? Should she call her "Dear Duchesse"? It was really an unimportant matter, but it appeared very important to Sylvia Bailey. She was exceedingly anxious not to commit any social solecism.
And then, while she was still hesitating, still sitting with the pen poised in her hand, there came a knock at the door.
The maid handed her a note; it was from Count Paul, the first letter he had ever written to her.
"Madame,"—so ran the note—"it occurs to me that you might like to answer my sister in French, and so I venture to send you the sort of letter that you might perhaps care to write. Each country has its own usages in these matters—that must be my excuse for my apparent impertinence."
And then there followed a prettily-turned little epistle which Sylvia copied, feeling perhaps a deeper gratitude than a far greater service would have won him from her.
Chapter XII
A couple of hours later Sylvia and Count Paul parted at the door of the Casino. He held her hand longer than was usual with him when bidding her good-night; then, dropping it, he lifted his hat and hurried off towards the station.
Sylvia stood in the dusk and looked after him till a turn in the short road hid his hurrying figure from her sight.
She felt very much moved, touched to the core of her heart. She knew just as well as if he had told her why the Comte de Virieu had given up his evening's play to-night. He had left Lacville, and arranged to meet her in Paris the next day, in order that their names might not be coupled—as would have certainly been the case if they had travelled together into Paris the next morning—by M. Polperro and the good-natured, but rather vulgar Wachners.
As she turned and walked slowly through the Casino, moving as in a dream, Sylvia suddenly felt herself smartly tapped on the shoulder.
She turned round quickly—then she smiled. It was Madame Wachner.
"Why 'ave you not come before?" her friend exclaimed. "Madame Wolsky is making such a sensation! Come quick—quick!" and she hurried the unresisting Sylvia towards the Club rooms. "I come downstairs to see if I could find you," went on Madame Wachner breathlessly.
What could be happening? Sylvia felt the other's excitement to be contagious. As she entered the gambling room she saw that a large crowd was gathered round the centre Baccarat table.
"A party of young men out from Paris," explained Madame Wachner in a low tone, "are throwing about their money. It might have been terrible. But no, it is a great piece of good fortune for Madame Wolsky!"
And still Sylvia did not understand.
They walked together up to the table, and then, with amazement and a curious feeling of fear clutching at her heart, Sylvia Bailey saw that Anna Wolsky was holding the Bank.
It was the first time she had ever seen a lady in the Banker's seat.
A thick bundle of notes, on which were arranged symmetrical piles of gold lay in front of Madame Wolsky, and as was always the case when she was really excited, Anna's face had become very pale, and her eyes glistened feverishly.
The