Marie Belloc Lowndes - The Chink in the Armour

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"Oh, Madame, English young ladies do such strange things!"

Sylvia wondered if the Count were not over-particular. Was Lacville the
sort of place in which a woman could not walk a few yards by herself? It
looked such a happy, innocent sort of spot.

"Perhaps I do not make myself clear," went on Count Paul.

He spoke very quickly, and in a low voice, for they were now approaching
the door of the Casino. "Not very long ago a lady had her hand-bag
snatched from her within a few yards of the police-station, in the centre
of the town. Everyone comes here to make or to lose money--"

"But most of the people look so quiet and respectable," she said smiling.

"That is true, but there are the exceptions. Lacville contains more
exceptions than do most places, Madame."

They were now in the hall of the Casino. Yes, there was Anna Wolsky
looking eagerly at the great glass doors.

"Anna? Anna? Here I am! I'm so sorry I'm late!"

Sylvia turned to introduce the Comte de Virieu to Madame Wolsky, but
he was already bowing stiffly, and before she could speak he walked on,
leaving Mrs. Bailey with her friend.

"I see you've already made one acquaintance, Sylvia," said the Polish
lady dryly.

"That's the man who was so kind the last time we were here together. He
is staying at the Villa du Lac," Sylvia answered, a little guiltily. "His
name is Count Paul de Virieu."

"Yes, I am aware of that; I know him by sight quite well," Anna said
quickly.

"And he has offered to propose me as a member of the Club if I wish to
join," added Sylvia.

"_I_ shall propose you--of course!" exclaimed Anna Wolsky. "But I do not
think it is worth worrying about your membership to-night. We can spend
the evening downstairs, in the public Salle des Jeux. I should not care
to leave you alone there, even on a Monday evening."

"You talk as if I were sugar or salt that would melt!" said Sylvia, a
little vexed.

"One has to be very careful in a place like Lacville," said Anna shortly.
"There are all sorts of queer people gathered together here on the
look-out for an easy way of making money." She turned an affectionate
look on her friend. "You are not only very pretty, my dear Sylvia, but
you look what the people here probably regard as being of far more
consequence, that is, opulent."

"So I am," said Sylvia gaily, "opulent and very, very happy, dear Anna!
I am so glad that you brought me here, and first made me acquainted with
this delightful place! I am sure Switzerland would not have been half as
amusing as Lacville--"

* * * * *

The public gambling room was much quieter and emptier than it had been
on the Saturday when Sylvia had first seen it. But all the people playing
there, both those sitting at the table and those who stood in serried
ranks behind them, looked as if they were engaged on some serious
undertaking.

They did not appear, as the casual holiday crowd had done, free from
care. There was comparatively little talking among them, and each round
of the monotonous game was got through far quicker than had been the case
the week before. Money was risked, lost, or gained, with extraordinary
swiftness and precision.

A good many of the people there, women as well as men, glanced idly for
a moment at the two newcomers, but they soon looked away again, intent on
their play.

Sylvia felt keenly interested. She could have stopped and watched the
scene for hours without wanting to play herself; but Anna Wolsky soon
grew restless, and started playing. Even risking a few francs was better
to her than not gambling at all!

"It's an odd thing," she said in a low voice, "but I don't see here any
of the people I'm accustomed to see at Monte Carlo. As a rule, whenever
one goes to this kind of place one meets people one has seen before. We
gamblers are a caste--a sect part!"

"I can't bear to hear you call yourself a gambler," said Sylvia in a low
voice.

Anna laughed good-humouredly.

"Believe me, my dear, there is not the difference you apparently think
there is between a gambler and the man who has never touched a card."

Anna Wolsky looked round her as she spoke with a searching glance, and
then she suddenly exclaimed,

"Yes, I do know someone here after all! That funny-looking couple over
there were at Aix-les-Bains all last summer."

"Which people do you mean?" asked Sylvia eagerly.

"Don't you see that long, thin man who is so queerly dressed--and his
short, fat wife? A dreadful thing happened to them--a great friend of
theirs, a Russian, was drowned in Lac Bourget. It made a great deal of
talk in Aix at the time it happened."

Sylvia Bailey looked across the room. She was able to pick out in a
moment the people Anna meant, and perhaps because she was in good spirits
to-night, she smiled involuntarily at their rather odd appearance.

Standing just behind the _croupier_--whose task it is to rake in and to
deal out the money--was a short, stout, dark woman, dressed in a bright
purple gown, and wearing a pale blue bonnet particularly unbecoming to
her red, massive face. She was not paying much attention to the play,
though now and again she put a five-franc piece onto the green baize.
Instead, her eyes were glancing round restlessly this way and that,
almost as if she were seeking for someone.

Behind her, in strong contrast to herself, was a tall, thin, lanky man,
to Sylvia's English eyes absurdly as well as unsuitably dressed in a grey
alpaca suit and a shabby Panama hat. In his hand he held open a small
book, in which he noted down all the turns of the game. Unlike his short,
stout wife, this tall, thin man seemed quite uninterested in the people
about him, and Sylvia could see his lips moving, his brows frowning, as
if he were absorbed in some intricate and difficult calculation.

The couple looked different from the people about them; in a word, they
did not look French.

"The man--their name is Wachner--only plays on a system," whispered Anna.
"He is in fact what I call a System Maniac. That is why he keeps noting
down the turns in his little book. That sort of gambler ought never to
leave Monte Carlo. It is only at Monte Carlo--that is to say, at
Roulette--that such a man ever gets a real chance of winning anything.
I should have expected them to belong to the Club, and not to trouble
over this kind of play!"

Even as she spoke, Anna slightly inclined her head, and the woman at whom
they were both looking smiled broadly, showing her strong white teeth as
she did so; and then, as her eyes travelled from Anna Wolsky to Anna's
companion, they became intent and questioning.

Madame Wachner, in spite of her unwieldy form, and common, showy clothes,
was fond of beautiful things, and especially fond of jewels. She was
wondering whether the pearls worn by the lovely young Englishwoman
standing opposite were real or sham.

The two friends did not stay very long in the Casino on that first
evening. Sylvia drove Anna to the Pension Malfait, and then she came back
alone to the Villa du Lac.

* * * * *

Before drawing together the curtains of her bed-room windows, Sylvia
Bailey stood for some minutes looking out into the warm moonlit night.

On the dark waters of the lake floated miniature argosies, laden with
lovers seeking happiness--ay, and perhaps finding it, too.

The Casino was outlined with fairy lamps; the scene was full of glamour,
and of mysterious beauty. More than ever Sylvia was reminded of an
exquisite piece of scene painting, and it seemed to her as if she were
the heroine of a romantic opera--and the hero, with his ardent eyes and
melancholy, intelligent face, was Count Paul de Virieu.

She wondered uneasily why Anna Wolsky had spoken of the Count as she had
done--was it with dislike or only contempt?

Long after Sylvia was in bed she could hear the tramping made by the feet
of those who were leaving the Casino and hurrying towards the station;
but she did not mind the sound. All was so strange, new, and delightful,
and she fell asleep and dreamt pleasant dreams.

CHAPTER VI

On waking the next morning, Sylvia Bailey forgot completely for a moment
where she was.

She looked round the large, airy room, which was so absolutely unlike the
small bed-room she had occupied in the Hotel de l'Horloge, with a sense
of bewilderment and surprise.

And then suddenly she remembered! Why of course she was at Lacville; and
this delightful, luxurious room had been furnished and arranged for the
lady-in-waiting and friend of the Empress Eugenie. The fact gave an added
touch of romance to the Hotel du Lac.

A ray of bright sunlight streamed in through the curtains she had pinned
together the night before. And her travelling clock told her that it was
not yet six. But Sylvia jumped out of bed, and, drawing back the
curtains, she looked out, and across the lake.

The now solitary expanse of water seemed to possess a new beauty in the
early morning sunlight, and the white Casino, of which the minarets were
reflected in its blue depths, might have been a dream palace. Nothing
broke the intense stillness but the loud, sweet twittering of the birds
in the trees which surrounded the lake.

But soon the spell was broken. When the six strokes of the hour chimed
out from the old parish church which forms the centre of the town of
Lacville, as if by enchantment there rose sounds of stir both indoors and
out.

A woman came out of the lodge of the Villa du Lac, and slowly opened the
great steel and gilt gates.

Sylvia heard the rush of bath water, even the queer click-click of a
shower bath. M. Polperro evidently insisted on an exceptional standard of
cleanliness for his household.

Sylvia felt fresh and well. The languor induced by the heat of Paris had
left her. There seemed no reason why she should not get up too, and even
go out of doors if so the fancy pleased her.

She had just finished dressing when there came curious sounds from the
front of the Villa, and again she went over to her window.

A horse was being walked up and down on the stones of the courtyard in
front of the horseshoe stairway which led up to the hall door. It was not
yet half-past six. Who could be going to ride at this early hour of the
morning?

Soon her unspoken question was answered; for the Comte de Virieu, clad in
riding breeches and a black jersey, came out of the house, and close on
his heels trotted M. Polperro, already wearing his white chef's cap and
apron.

Sylvia could hear his "M'sieur le Comte" this, and "M'sieur le Comte"
that, and she smiled a little to herself. The owner of the Hotel du Lac
was very proud of his noble guest.

The Comte de Virieu was also laughing and talking; he was more animated
than she had yet seen him. Sylvia told herself that he looked very well
in his rather odd riding dress.

Waving a gay adieu to mine host, he vaulted into the saddle, and then
rode out of the gates, and so sharply to the left.

Sylvia wondered if he were going for a ride in the Forest of Montmorency,
which, in her lying guide-book, was mentioned as the principal attraction
of Lacville.

There came a knock at the door, and Sylvia, calling out "Come in!" was
surprised, and rather amused, to see that it was M. Polperro himself who
opened it.

"I have come to ask if Madame has slept well," he observed, "and also to
know if she would like an English breakfast? If yes, it shall be laid in
the dining-room, unless Madame would rather have it up here."

"I would much rather come downstairs to breakfast," said Sylvia; "but I
do not want anything yet, M. Polperro. It will do quite well if I have
breakfast at half-past eight or nine."

She unpacked her trunks, and as she put her things away it suddenly
struck her that she meant to stay at Lacville for some time. It was
an interesting, a new, even a striking experience, this of hers; and
though she felt rather lost without Anna Wolsky's constant presence and
companionship, she was beginning to find it pleasant to be once more her
own mistress.

She sat down and wrote some letters--the sort of letters that can be
written or not as the writer feels inclined. Among them was a duty letter
to her trustee, Bill Chester, telling him of her change of address, and
of her change of plan.

The people with whom she had been going to Switzerland were friends of
Bill Chester too, and so it was doubtful now whether he would go abroad
at all.

And all the time Sylvia was writing there was at the back of her mind
a curious, unacknowledged feeling that she was waiting for something to
happen, that there was something pleasant for her to look forward to....

And when at last she went down into the dining-room, and Paul de Virieu
came in, Sylvia suddenly realised, with a sense of curious embarrassment,
what it was she had been waiting for and looking forward to. It was her
meeting with the Comte de Virieu.

"I hope my going out so early did not disturb you," he said, in his
excellent English. "I saw you at your window."

Sylvia shook her head, smiling.

"I had already been awake for at least half an hour," she answered.

"I suppose you ride? Most of the Englishwomen I knew as a boy rode, and
rode well."

"My father was very anxious I should ride, and as a child I was well
taught, but I have not had much opportunity of riding since I grew up."

Sylvia reddened faintly, for she fully expected the Count to ask her if
she would ride with him, and she had already made up her mind to say
"No," though to say "Yes" would be very pleasant!

But he did nothing of the sort. Even at this early hour of their
acquaintance it struck Sylvia how unlike the Comte de Virieu's manner
to her was to that of the other young men she knew. While his manner was
deferential, even eager, yet there was not a trace of flirtation in it.
Also the Count had already altered all Sylvia Bailey's preconceived
notions of Frenchmen.

Sylvia had supposed a Frenchman's manner to a woman to be almost
invariably familiar, in fact, offensively familiar. She had had the
notion that a pretty young woman--it would, of course, have been absurd
for her to have denied, even to herself, that she was very pretty--must
be careful in her dealing with foreigners, and she believed it to be a
fact that a Frenchman always makes love to an attractive stranger, even
on the shortest acquaintance!

This morning, and she was a little piqued that it was so, Sylvia had to
admit to herself that the Comte de Virieu treated her much as he might
have done some old lady in whom he took a respectful interest....

And yet twice during the half-hour her breakfast lasted she looked up to
see his blue eyes fixed full on her with an earnest, inquiring gaze, and
she realised that it was not at all the kind of gaze Paul de Virieu would
have turned on an old lady.

They got up from their respective tables at the same moment. He opened
the door for her, and then, after a few minutes, followed her out into
the garden.

"Have you yet visited the _potager_?" he asked, deferentially.

Sylvia looked at him, puzzled. "_Potager_" was quite a new French word to
her.

"I think you call it the kitchen-garden." A smile lit up his face. "The
people who built the Villa du Lac a matter of fifty years ago were very
fond of gardening. I think it might amuse you to see the _potager_. Allow
me to show it you."

They were now walking side by side. It was a delicious day, and the dew
still glistened on the grass and leaves. Sylvia thought it would be very
pleasant, and also instructive, to see a French kitchen-garden.

"Strange to say when I was a child I was often at the Villa du Lac, for
the then owner was a distant cousin of my mother. He and his kind wife
allowed me to come here for my convalescence after a rather serious
illness when I was ten years old. My dear mother did not like me to be
far from Paris, so I was sent to Lacville."

"What a curious place to send a child to!" exclaimed Sylvia.

"Ah, but Lacville was extremely different from what it is now, Madame.
True, there was the lake, where Parisians used to come out each Sunday
afternoon to fish and boat in a humble way, and there were a few villas
built round the lake. But you must remember that in those prehistoric
days there was no Casino! It is the Casino which has transformed Lacville
into what we now see."

"Then we have reason to bless the Casino!" cried Sylvia, gaily.

They had now left behind them the wide lawn immediately behind the Villa
du Lac, and were walking by a long, high wall. The Count pushed open a
narrow door set in an arch in the wall, and Sylvia walked through into
one of the largest and most delightful kitchen-gardens she had ever seen.

It was brilliant with colour and scent; the more homely summer flowers
filled the borders, while, at each place where four paths met, a round,
stone-rimmed basin, filled with water to the brim, gave a sense of
pleasant coolness.

The farther end of the walled garden was bounded by a stone orangery, a
building dating from the eighteenth century, and full of the stately
grace of a vanished epoch.

"What a delightful place!" Sylvia exclaimed. "But this garden must cost
M. Polperro a great deal of money to keep up--"

The Comte de Virieu laughed.

"Far from it! Our clever host hires out his _potager_ to a firm of market
gardeners, part of the bargain being that they allow him to have as much
fruit and vegetables as he requires throughout the year. Why, the
_potager_ of the Villa du Lac supplies the whole of Lacville with fruit
and flowers! When I was a child I thought this part of the garden
paradise, and I spent here my happiest hours."

"It must be very odd for you to come back and stay in the Villa now that
it is an hotel."

"At first it seemed very strange," he answered gravely. "But now I have
become quite used to the feeling."

They walked on for awhile along one of the narrow flower-bordered paths.

"Would you care to go into the orangery?" he said. "There is not much to
see there now, for all the orange-trees are out of doors. Still, it is a
quaint, pretty old building."

The orangery of the Villa du Lac was an example of that at once
artificial and graceful eighteenth-century architecture which, perhaps
because of its mingled formality and delicacy, made so distinguished
and attractive a setting to feminine beauty. It remained, the only
survival of the dependencies of a chateau sacked and burned in the Great
Revolution, more than half a century before the Villa du Lac was built.

The high doors were wide open, and Sylvia walked in. Though all the
pot-plants and half-hardy shrubs were sunning themselves in the open-air,
the orangery did not look bare, for every inch of the inside walls had
been utilised for growing grapes and peaches.

There was a fountain set in the centre of the stone floor, and near the
fountain was a circular seat.

"Let us sit down," said Paul de Virieu suddenly. But when Sylvia Bailey
sat down he did not come and sit by her, instead he so placed himself
that he looked across at her slender, rounded figure, and happy smiling
face.

"Are you thinking of staying long at Lacville, Madame?" he asked
abruptly.

"I don't know," she answered hesitatingly. "It will depend on my friend
Madame Wolsky's plans. If we both like it, I daresay we shall stay three
or four weeks."

There fell what seemed to Sylvia a long silence between them. The
Frenchman was gazing at her with a puzzled, thoughtful look.

Suddenly he got up, and after taking a turn up and down the orangery, he
came and stood before her.

"Mrs. Bailey!" he exclaimed. "Will you permit me to be rather
impertinent?"

Sylvia reddened violently. The question took her utterly by surprise. But
the Comte de Virieu's next words at once relieved, and yes, it must be
admitted, chagrined her.

"I ask you, Madame, to leave Lacville! I ask permission to tell you
frankly and plainly that it is not a place to which you ought to have
been brought."

He spoke with great emphasis.

Sylvia looked up at him. She was bewildered, and though not exactly
offended, rather hurt.

"But why?" she asked plaintively. "Why should I not stay at Lacville?"

"Oh, well, there can be no harm in your staying on a few days if you
are desirous of doing so. But Lacville is not a place where I should
care for my own sister to come and stay." He went on, speaking much
quicker--"Indeed, I will say more! I will tell you that Lacville may
seem a paradise to you, but that it is a paradise full of snakes."

"Snakes?" repeated Sylvia slowly. "You mean, of course, human snakes?"

He bowed gravely.

"Every town where reigns the Goddess of play attracts reptiles, Madame,
as the sun attracts lizards! It is not the game that does so, or even the
love of play in the Goddess's victims; no, it is the love of gold!"

Sylvia noticed that he had grown curiously pale.

"Lacville as a gambling centre counts only next to Monte Carlo. But
whereas many people go to Monte Carlo for health, and for various forms
of amusement, people only come here in order to play, and to see others
play. The Casino, which doubtless appears to you a bright, pretty place,
has been the scene and the cause of many a tragedy. Do you know how Paris
regards Lacville?" he asked searchingly.

"No--yes," Sylvia hesitated. "You see I never heard of Lacville till
about a week ago." Innate honesty compelled her to add, "But I have heard
that the Paris trades-people don't like Lacville."

"Let me tell you one thing," the Count spoke with extraordinary
seriousness. "Every tradesman in Paris, without a single exception,
has signed a petition imploring the Government to suspend the Gambling
Concession!"

"What an extraordinary thing!" exclaimed Sylvia, and she was surprised
indeed.

"Pardon me, it is not at all extraordinary. A great deal of the money
which would otherwise go into the pockets of these tradesmen goes now to
enrich the anonymous shareholders of the Casino of Lacville! Of course,
Paris hotel-keepers are not in quite the same position as are the other
Parisian trades-people. Lacville does not do them much harm, for the
place is so near Paris that foreigners, if they go there at all,
generally go out for the day. Only the most confirmed gambler cares
actually to _live_ at Lacville."

He looked significantly at Sylvia, and she felt a wave of hot colour
break over her face.

"Yes, I know what you must be thinking, and it is, indeed, the shameful
truth! I, Madame, have the misfortune to be that most miserable and most
God-forsaken of living beings, a confirmed gambler."

The Count spoke in a tone of stifled pain, almost anger, and Sylvia gazed
up at his stern, sad face with pity and concern filling her kind heart.

"I will tell you my story in a few words," he went on, and then he sat
down by her, and began tracing with his stick imaginary patterns on the
stone floor.

"I was destined for what I still regard as the most agreeable career in
the world--that of diplomacy. You see how I speak English? Well, Madame,
I speak German and Spanish equally well. And then, most unhappily for me,
my beloved mother died, and I inherited from her a few thousand pounds.
I felt very miserable, and I happened to be at the moment idle. A friend
persuaded me to go to Monte Carlo. That fortnight, Madame, changed my
life--made me what the English call 'an idle good-for-nothing.' Can you
wonder that I warn you against staying at Lacville?"

Sylvia was touched, as well as surprised, by his confidences. His words
breathed sincerity, and the look of humiliation and pain on his face had
deepened. He looked white and drawn.

"It is very kind of you to tell me this, and I am very much obliged to
you for your warning," she said in a low tone.

But the Comte de Virieu went on as if he hardly heard her words.

"The lady with whom you first came to Lacville--I mean the Polish
lady--is well known to me by sight. For the last three years I have
seen her at Monte Carlo in the winter, and at Spa and Aix-les-Bains in
the summer. Of course I was not at all surprised to see her turn up here,
but I confess, Madame, that I was very much astonished to see with her
a"--he hesitated a moment--"a young English lady. You would, perhaps, be
offended if I were to tell you exactly what I felt when I saw you at the
Casino!"

"I do not suppose I should be offended," said Sylvia softly.

"I felt, Madame, as if I saw a lily growing in a field of high, rank,
evil-smelling--nay, perhaps I should say, poisonous--weeds."

"But I cannot go away now!" cried Sylvia. She was really impressed--very
uncomfortably impressed--by his earnest words. "It would be most unkind
to my friend, Madame Wolsky. Surely, it is possible to stay at Lacville,
and even to play a little, without anything very terrible happening?" She
looked at him coaxingly, anxiously, as a child might have done.

But Sylvia was not a child; she was a very lovely young woman. Comte Paul
de Virieu's heart began to beat.

But, bah! This was absurd! His day of love and love-making lay far, far
behind him. He rose and walked towards the door.

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