Marie Belloc Lowndes - The Chink in the Armour

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"--When you asked me so earnestly to leave Lacville," said Sylvia, trying
to speak lightly. She sat down on the circular stone seat, and, as he had
done on that remembered morning when they were still strangers, he took
his place at the other end of it.

"Well?" he said, looking at her fixedly. "Well, you see I came back after
all!"

Sylvia made no answer.

"I ought not to have done so. It was weak of me." He did not look at her
as he spoke; he was tracing imaginary patterns on the stone floor.

"I came back," he concluded, in a low, bitter tone, "because I could not
stay any longer away from you."

And still Sylvia remained silent.

"Do you not believe that?" he asked, rather roughly.

And then at last she looked up and spoke.

"I think you imagine that to be the case," she said, "but I am sure that
it is not I, alone, who brought you back to Lacville."

"And yet it is you--you alone!" he exclaimed and he jumped up and came
and stood before her.

"God knows I do not wish to deceive you. Perhaps, if I had not come back
here, I should in time--not at once, Madame,--have gone somewhere else,
where I could enjoy the only thing in life which had come to be worth
while living for. But it was you--you alone--that brought me back here,
to Lacville!"

"Why did you go straight to the Casino?" she faltered. "And why?--oh, why
did you risk all that money?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Because I am a fool!" he answered, bitterly--"a fool, and what the
English rightly call 'a dog in the manger!' I ought to rejoice when I
see you with that excellent fellow, Mr. Chester--and as your friend," he
stopped short and then ended his sentence with the words, "I ought to be
happy to know that you will have so excellent a husband!"

Sylvia also got up.

"You are quite mistaken," she said, coldly. "I shall never marry Mr.
Chester."

"I regret to hear you say that," said Count Paul, seriously. "A woman
should not live alone, especially a woman who is young and beautiful,
and--and who has money."

Sylvia shook her head. She was angry--more hurt and angry than she had
ever felt before in her life. She told herself passionately that the
Comte de Virieu was refusing that which had not been offered to him.

"You are very kind," she answered, lightly. "But I have managed very
well up to now, and I think I shall go on managing very well. You need
not trouble yourself about the matter, Count Paul. Mr. Chester and I
thoroughly understand one another--" She waited, and gently she added,
"I wish I could understand you--"

"I wish I understood myself," he said sombrely. "But there is one thing
that I believe myself incapable of doing. Whatever my feeling, nay,
whatever my love, for a woman, I would never do so infamous a thing as to
try and persuade her to join her life to mine. I know too well to what I
should be exposing her--to what possible misery, nay, to what probable
degradation! After all, a man is free to go to the devil alone--but he
has no right to drag a woman there with him!"

His voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper, and he was gazing into Sylvia's
pale face with an anguished look of questioning and of pleading pain.

"I think that is true, Count Paul." Sylvia heard herself uttering gently,
composedly, the words which meant at once so much and so little to them
both. "It is a pity that all men do not feel about this as you do," she
concluded mechanically.

"I felt sure you would agree with me," he answered slowly.

"Ought we not to be going back to the villa? I am expecting Mr. Chester
to lunch, and though I know it is quite early, he has got into the way,
these last few days, of coming early."

Her words stung him in his turn.

"Stop!" he said roughly. "Do not go yet, Mrs. Bailey." He muttered
between his teeth, "Mr. Chester's turn will come!" And then aloud, "Is
this to be the end of everything--the end of our--our friendship? I shall
leave Lacville to-night for I do not care to stay on here after you have
taunted me with having come back to see you!"

Sylvia gave a little cry of protest.

"How unkind you are, Count Paul!" She still tried to speak lightly, but
the tears were now rolling down her cheeks--and then in a moment she
found herself in Paul de Virieu's arms. She felt his heart beating
against her breast.

"Oh, my darling!" he whispered brokenly, in French, "my darling, how I
love you!"

"But if you love me," she said piteously, "what does anything else
matter?"

Her hand had sought his hand. He grasped it for a moment and then let it
go.

"It is because I love you--because I love you more than I love myself
that I give you up," he said, but, being human, he did not give her up
there and then. Instead, he drew her closer to him, and his lips sought
and found her sweet, tremulous mouth.

* * * * *

And Chester? Chester that morning for the first time in his well-balanced
life felt not only ill but horribly depressed. He had come back to the
Pension Malfait the night before feeling quite well, and as cheerful as
his disapproval of Sylvia Bailey's proceedings at the Casino allowed him
to be. And while thoroughly disapproving, he had yet--such being human
nature--been glad that Sylvia had won and not lost!

The Wachners had offered to drive him back to his pension, and he had
accepted, for it was very late, and Madame Wachner, in spite of her
Fritz's losses, had insisted on taking a carriage home.

And then, though he had begun by going to sleep, Chester had waked at the
end of an hour to feel himself encompassed, environed, oppressed by the
_perception_--it was far more than a sensation--that he was no longer
alone.

He sat up in bed and struck a match, at once longing and fearing to see
a form,--the semblance of a human being--rise out of the darkness.

But all he saw, when he had lighted the candle which stood on the table
by his bed, was the barely furnished room which, even in this poor and
wavering light, had so cheerful and commonplace an appearance.

Owing no doubt to his excellent physical condition, as well as to his
good conscience, Chester was a fearless man. A week ago he would have
laughed to scorn the notion that the dead ever revisit the earth, as so
many of us believe they do, but the four nights he had spent at the
Pension Malfait, had shaken his conviction that "dead men rise up never."

Most reluctantly he had come to the conclusion that the Pension Malfait
was haunted.

And the feeling of unease did not vanish even after he had taken his bath
in the queer bath-room, of which the Malfaits were so proud, or later,
when he had eaten the excellent breakfast provided for him. On the
contrary, the thought of going up to his bed-room, even in broad
daylight, filled him with a kind of shrinking fear.

He told himself angrily that this kind of thing could not go on. The
sleepless nights made him ill--he who never was ill; also he was losing
precious days of his short holiday, while doing no good to himself and no
good to Sylvia.

Sending for the hotel-keeper, he curtly told him that he meant to leave
Lacville that evening.

M. Malfait expressed much sorrow and regret. Was M'sieur not comfortable?
Was there anything he could do to prolong his English guest's stay?

No, M'sieur had every reason to be satisfied, but--but had M. Malfait
ever had any complaints of noises in the bed-room occupied by his English
guest?

The Frenchman's surprise and discomfiture seemed quite sincere; but
Chester, looking into his face, suspected that the wondering protests,
the assertion that this particular bed-room was the quietest in the
house, were not sincere. In this, however he wronged poor M. Malfait.

Chester went upstairs and packed. There seemed to be a kind of finality
in the act. If she knew he was ready to start that night, Sylvia would
not be able to persuade him to stay on, as she probably would try to do.

At the Villa du Lac he was greeted with, "Madame Bailey is in the garden
with the Comte de Virieu"--and he thought he saw a twinkle in merry
little M. Polperro's eyes.

Poor Sylvia! Poor, foolish, wilful Sylvia! Was it conceivable that after
what she had seen the night before she still liked, she still respected,
that mad French gambler?

He looked over the wide lawn; no, there was no sign of Sylvia and the
Count. Then, all at once, coming through a door which gave access, as he
knew, to the big kitchen-garden of the villa, he saw Mrs. Bailey's
graceful figure; a few steps behind her walked Count Paul.

Chester hurried towards them. How odd they both looked--and how ill at
ease! The Comte de Virieu looked wretched, preoccupied, and gloomy--as
well he might do, considering the large sum of money he had lost last
night. As for Sylvia--yes, there could be no doubt about it--she had been
crying! When she saw Chester coming towards her, she instinctively tilted
her garden hat over her face to hide her reddened eyelids. He felt at
once sorry for, and angry with, her.

"I came early in order to tell you," he said abruptly, "that I find I
must leave Lacville to-day! The man whom I am expecting to join me in
Switzerland is getting impatient, so I've given notice to the Pension
Malfait--in fact, I've already packed."

Sylvia gave him a listless glance, and made no comment on his news.

Chester felt rather nettled. "You, I suppose, will be staying on here for
some time?" he said.

"I don't know," she answered in a low voice. "I haven't made up my mind
how long I shall stay here."

"I also am leaving Lacville," said the Comte de Virieu.

And then, as he saw, or fancied he saw, a satirical expression pass over
the Englishman's face, he added rather haughtily:

"Strange to say, my luck turned last night--I admit I did not deserve
it--and I left off with a good deal to the good. However, I feel I have
played enough for a while, and, as I have been telling Mrs. Bailey, I
think it would do me good to go away. In fact"--and then Count Paul gave
an odd little laugh--"I also am going to Switzerland! In old days I was a
member of our Alpine Club."

Chester made a sudden resolve, and, what was rare in one so
constitutionally prudent, acted on it at once.

"If you are really going to Switzerland," he said quietly, "then why
should we not travel together? I meant to go to-night, but if you prefer
to wait till to-morrow, Count, I can alter my arrangements."

The Comte de Virieu remained silent for what seemed to the two waiting
for his answer a very long time.

"This evening will suit me just as well as to-morrow," he said at last.

He did not look at Sylvia. He had not looked her way since Chester had
joined them. With a hand that shook a little he took his cigarette-case
out of his pocket, and held it out to the other man.

The die was cast. So be it. Chester, prig though he might be, was right
in his wish to remove Sylvia from his, Paul de Virieu's, company. The
Englishman was more right than he would ever know.

How amazed Chester would have been had he been able to see straight into
Paul de Virieu's heart! Had he divined the other's almost unendurable
temptation to take Sylvia Bailey at her word, to impose on her pathetic
ignorance of life, to allow her to become a gambler's wife.

Had the woman he loved been penniless, the Comte de Virieu would probably
have yielded to the temptation which now came in the subtle garb of
jealousy--keen, poisoned-fanged jealousy of this fine looking young
Englishman who stood before them both.

Would Sylvia ever cling to this man as she had clung to him--would she
ever allow Chester to kiss her as she had allowed Paul to kiss her, and
that after he had released the hand she had laid in his?

But alas! there are kisses and kisses--clingings and clingings. Chester,
so the Frenchman with his wide disillusioned knowledge of life felt only
too sure, would win Sylvia in time.

"Shall we go in and find out the time of the Swiss express?" he asked the
other man, "or perhaps you have already decided on a train?"

"No, I haven't looked one out yet."

They strolled off together towards the house, and Sylvia walked blindly
on to the grass and sat down on one of the rocking-chairs of which M.
Polperro was so proud.

She looked after the two men with a sense of oppressed bewilderment. Then
they were both going away--both going to leave her?

After to-day--how strange, how utterly unnatural the parting seemed--she
would probably never see Paul de Virieu again.

* * * * *

The day went like a dream--a fantastic, unreal dream.

Sylvia did not see Count Paul again alone. She and Chester went a drive
in the afternoon--the expedition had been arranged the day before with
the Wachners, and there seemed no valid reason why it should be put off.

And then Madame Wachner with her usual impulsive good nature, on hearing
that both Chester and the Comte de Virieu were going away, warmly invited
Sylvia to supper at the Chalet des Muguets for that same night, and
Sylvia listlessly accepted. She did not care what she did or where she
went.

At last came the moment of parting.

"I'll go and see you off at the station," she said, and Chester, rather
surprised, raised one or two objections. "I'm determined to come," she
cried angrily. "What a pity it is, Bill, that you always try and manage
other people's business for them!"

And she did go to the station--only to be sorry for it afterwards.

Paul de Virieu, holding her hand tightly clasped in his for the last
time, had become frightfully pale, and as she made her way back to the
Casino, where the Wachners were actually waiting for her, Sylvia was
haunted by his reproachful, despairing eyes.

CHAPTER XXIV

It was nearly nine o'clock, and for the moment the Casino was very empty,
for the afternoon players had left, and the evening _serie_, as M.
Polperro contemptuously called them--the casual crowd of night visitors
to Lacville--had not yet arrived from Paris.

"And now," said Madame Wachner, suddenly, "is it not time for us to go
and 'ave our little supper?"

The "citizeness of the world" had been watching her husband and Sylvia
playing at Baccarat; both of them had won, and Sylvia had welcomed,
eagerly, the excitement of the tables.

Count Paul's muttered farewell echoed in her ears, and the ornately
decorated gambling room seemed full of his presence.

She made a great effort to put any intimate thought of him away. The
next day, so she told herself, she would go back to England, to Market
Dalling. There she must forget that such a place as Lacville existed;
there she must banish Paul de Virieu from her heart and memory. Yes,
there was nothing now to keep her here, in this curious place, where she
had eaten, in more than one sense, of the bitter fruit of the tree of
knowledge.

With a deep, involuntary sigh, she rose from the table.

She looked at the green cloth, at the people standing round it, with an
odd feeling that neither the table nor the people round her were quite
real. Her heart and thoughts were far away, with the two men both of whom
loved her in their very different ways.

Then she turned with an unmirthful smile to her companions. It would not
be fair to let her private griefs sadden the kindly Wachners. It was
really good of them to have asked her to come back to supper at the
Chalet des Muguets. She would have found it terribly lonely this evening
at the Villa du Lac....

"I am quite ready," she said, addressing herself more particularly to
Madame Wachner; and the three walked out of the Club rooms.

"Shall we take a carriage?" Sylvia asked diffidently; she knew her stout
friend disliked walking.

"No, no," said Monsieur Wachner shortly. "There is no need to take a
carriage to-night; it is so fine, and, besides, it is not very far."

He so seldom interfered or negatived any suggestion that Sylvia felt a
little surprised, the more so that it was really a long walk from the
Casino to the lonely Chalet des Muguets. But as Madame Wachner had nodded
assent to her husband's words, their English guest said no more.

They started out into the moonlit night, Sylvia with her light, springing
step keeping pace with L'Ami Fritz, while his wife lagged a step behind.
But, as was usual with him, M. Wachner remained silent, while his
companions talked.

To-night, however, Madame Wachner did not show her usual tact; she began
discussing the two travellers who were now well started, no doubt, on
their way to Switzerland, and she expressed contemptuous surprise that
the Comte de Virieu had left Lacville.

"I am glad 'e 'as gone away," she said cheerfully, "for the Count is what
English people call so supercilious--so different to that excellent Mr.
Chester! I wonder Mr. Chester was willing for the Count's company. But
you 'ave not lost 'im, my pretty Sylvia! 'E will soon be back!"

As she spoke she laughed coarsely, and Sylvia made no answer. She thought
it probable that she would never see the Comte de Virieu again, and the
conviction hurt intolerably. It was painful to be reminded of him now,
in this way, and by a woman who she knew disliked and despised him.

She suddenly felt sorry that she had accepted the Wachner's invitation.

To-night the way to the Chalet des Muguets seemed longer than usual--far
longer than it had seemed the last time Sylvia had walked there, when
Count Paul had been her companion. It seemed as if an immense time had
gone by since then....

Sylvia was glad when at last the three of them came within sight of the
familiar white gate. How strangely lonely the little house looked,
standing back in the twilit darkness of a summer night.

"I wonder"--Sylvia Bailey looked up at her silent companion, L'Ami Fritz
had not opened his lips once during the walk from the Casino, "I wonder
that you and Madame Wachner are not afraid to leave the chalet alone for
so many hours of each day! Your servant always goes away after lunch,
doesn't she?"

"There is nothing to steal," he answered shortly. "We always carry all
our money about with us--all sensible people do so at Lacville and at
Monte Carlo."

Madame Wachner was now on Sylvia's other side.

"Yes," she interposed, rather breathlessly, "that is so; and I 'ope that
you, dear friend, followed the advice we gave you about the matter? I
mean, I 'ope you do not leave your money in the hotel?"

"Of course I don't," said Sylvia, smiling. "Ever since you gave me those
pretty little leather pouches I always carry all my money about with me,
strapped round my waist. At first it wasn't very comfortable, but I have
got quite used to it now."

"That is right," said Madame Wachner, heartily, "that is quite right!
There are rogues everywhere, perhaps even in the Villa du Lac, if we knew
everything!" and Sylvia's hostess laughed in the darkness her hearty,
jovial laugh.

Suddenly she bent forward and addressed her husband. "By the way, Ami
Fritz, have you written that letter to the Villa du Lac?" She nodded,
explaining to Sylvia, "We are anxious to get a room in your beautiful
pension for a rich friend of ours."

Sylvia had the instant feeling--she could not have told why--that his
wife's question had greatly annoyed Monsieur Wachner.

"Of course I have written the letter!" he snapped out. "Do I ever forget
anything?"

"But I'm afraid there is no room vacant in the Villa du Lac," said
Sylvia. "And yet--well, I suppose they have not yet had time to let the
Comte de Virieu's room. They only knew he was going this morning. But you
need not have troubled to write a letter, Monsieur Wachner. I could have
given the message when I got back to-night. In any case let me take your
letter."

"Ah! but the person in question may arrive before you get back," said
Madame Wachner. "No, no, we have arranged to send the letter by a cabman
who will call for it."

Monsieur Wachner pushed opened the white gate, and all three began
walking up through the garden. The mantle of night now draped every
straggling bush, every wilted flower, and the little wilderness was
filled with delicious, pungent night scents.

When they reached the front door L'Ami Fritz stooped down, and began
looking under the mat.

Sylvia smiled in the darkness; there seemed something so primitive, so
simple, in keeping the key of one's front door outside under the mat! And
yet foolish, prejudiced people spoke of Lacville as a dangerous spot, as
the plague pit of Paris.

Suddenly the door was opened by the day-servant. And both the husband and
wife uttered an involuntary exclamation of surprise and displeasure.

"What are you doing here?" asked Madame Wachner harshly. There was a note
of dismay, as well as of anger, in her voice.

The woman began to excuse herself volubly. "I thought I might be of some
use, Madame. I thought I might help you with all the last details."

"There was no necessity--none at all--for doing anything of the kind,"
said her mistress, in a low, quick voice. "You had been paid! You had had
your present! However, as you _are_ here, you may as well lay a third
place in the dining-room, for, as you see, we have brought Madame Bailey
back to have a little supper. She will only stay a very few moments, as
she has to be at the Villa du Lac by ten o'clock."

The woman turned and threw open the door of the dining-room. Then she
struck a match, and lighted a lamp which stood on the table.

Sylvia, as is often the case with those who have been much thrown with
French people, could understand French much better than she could speak
it, and what Madame Wachner had just hissed out in rapid, mumbling tones,
surprised and puzzled her.

It was quite untrue that she, Sylvia, had to be back at the Villa du Lac
by ten o'clock--for the matter of that, she could stay out as long and as
late as she liked.

Then, again, although the arrangement that she should come to supper
at the Chalet des Muguets to-night had been made that afternoon, the
Wachners had been home, but they had evidently forgotten to tell their
servant that they were expecting a visitor, for only two places were laid
in the little dining-room into which they all three walked on entering
the house.

Propped up against the now lighted lamp was a letter addressed to
Monsieur Polperro in a peculiar, large handwriting. L'Ami Fritz, again
uttering that queer guttural exclamation, snatched up the envelope, and
hurriedly put it into his breast-pocket.

"I brought that letter out of M'sieur's bed-room," observed the
day-servant, cringingly. "I feared M'sieur had forgotten it! Would
M'sieur like me to take it to the Villa du Lac on my way home?"

"No," said Monsieur Wachner, shortly. "There is no need for you to do
that; Madame Bailey will kindly take it for me."

And again Sylvia felt surprised. Surely he had said--or was it Madame
Wachner?--that they had arranged for a man to call for it.

His wife shouted out his name imperiously from the dark passage, "Fritz!
Fritz! Come here a moment; I want you."

He hurried out of the room, and Sylvia and the servant were thus left
alone together for a few moments in the dining-room.

The woman went to the buffet and took up a plate; she came and placed it
noisily on the table, and, under cover of the sound she made, "Do not
stay here, Madame," she whispered, thrusting her wrinkled, sharp-featured
face close to the Englishwoman's. "Come away with me! Say you want me to
wait a bit and conduct you back to the Villa du Lac."

Sylvia stared at her distrustfully. This _femme de menage_ had a
disagreeable face; there was a cunning, avaricious look in her eyes,
or so Mrs. Bailey fancied; no doubt she remembered the couple of francs
which had been given to her, or rather extorted by her, on the occasion
of the English lady's last visit to the Chalet des Muguets.

"I will not say more," the servant went on, speaking very quickly, and
under her breath. "But I am an honest woman, and these people frighten
me. Still, I am not one to want embarrassments with the police."

And Sylvia suddenly remembered that those were exactly the words which
had been uttered by Anna Wolsky's landlady in connection with Anna's
disappearance. How frightened French people seemed to be of the police!

There came the sound of steps in the passage, and the Frenchwoman moved
away quickly from Sylvia's side. She took up the plate she had just
placed on the table, and to Sylvia's mingled disgust and amusement began
rubbing it vigorously with her elbow.

Monsieur Wachner entered the room.

"That will do, that will do, Annette," he said patronisingly. "Come here,
my good woman! Your mistress and I desire to give you a further little
gift as you have shown so much zeal to-day, so here is twenty francs."

"_Merci, M'sieur._"

Without looking again at Sylvia the woman went out of the room, and a
moment later the front door slammed behind her.

"My wife discovered that it is Annette's fete day to-morrow, and gave her
a trifle. But she was evidently not satisfied, and no doubt that was why
she stayed on to-night," observed Monsieur Wachner solemnly.

Madame Wachner now came in. She had taken off her bonnet and changed her
elastic-sided boots for easy slippers.

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