Marie Belloc Lowndes - The Chink in the Armour

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In speaking to her as he had forced himself to speak, the Frenchman had
done an unselfish and kindly action. Sylvia's gentle and unsophisticated
charm had touched him deeply, and so he had given her what he knew to be
the best possible advice.

"I am not so foolish as to pretend that the people who come and play in
the Casino of Lacville are all confirmed gamblers," he said, slowly. "We
French take our pleasures lightly, Madame, and no doubt there is many an
excellent Parisian bourgeois who comes here and makes or loses his few
francs, and gets no harm from it. But, still, I swore to myself that I
would warn you of the danger--"

They went out into the bright sunshine again, and Sylvia somehow felt as
if she had made a friend--a real friend--in the Comte de Virieu. It was
a curious sensation, and one that gave her more pleasure than she would
have cared to own even to herself.

Most of the men she had met since she became a widow treated her as an
irresponsible being. Many of them tried to flirt with her for the mere
pleasure of flirting with so pretty a woman; others, so she was
resentfully aware, had only become really interested in her when they
became aware that she had been left by her husband with an income of two
thousand pounds a year. She had had several offers of marriage since her
widowhood, but not one of the men who had come and said he loved her had
confessed as much about himself as this stranger had done.

She was the more touched and interested because the Frenchman's manner
was extremely reserved. Even in the short time she had been at the Villa
du Lac, Sylvia had realised that though the Count was on speaking terms
with most of his fellow-guests, he seemed intimate with none of the
people whose happy chatter had filled the dining-room the night before.

Just before going back into the Villa, Sylvia stopped short; she fixed
her large ingenuous eyes on the Count's face.

"I want to thank you again," she said diffidently, "for your kindness
in giving me this warning. You know we in England have a proverb,
'Forewarned is forearmed.' Well, believe me, I will not forget what you
have said, and--and I am grateful for your confidence. Of course, I
regard it as quite private."

The Count looked at her for a moment in silence, and then he said very
deliberately,

"I am afraid the truth about me is known to all those good enough to
concern themselves with my affairs. I am sure, for instance, that your
Polish friend is well aware of it! You see before you a man who has lost
every penny he owned in the world, who does not know how to work, and who
is living on the charity of relations."

Sylvia had never heard such bitter accents issue from human lips before.

"The horse you saw me ride this morning," he went on in a low tone, "is
not my horse; it belongs to my brother-in-law. It is sent for me every
day because my sister loves me, and she thinks my health will suffer if
I do not take exercise. My brother-in-law did not give me the horse,
though he is the most generous of human beings, for he feared that if
he did I should sell it in order that I might have more money for play."

There was a long, painful pause, then in a lighter tone the Count added,
"And now, au revoir, Madame, and forgive me for having thrust my private
affairs on your notice! It is not a thing I have been tempted ever to do
before with one whom I have the honour of knowing as slightly as I know
yourself."

Sylvia went upstairs to her room. She was touched, moved, excited. It was
quite a new experience with her to come so really near to any man's heart
and conscience.

Life is a secret and a tangled skein, full of loose, almost invisible
threads. This curiously intimate, and yet impersonal conversation with
one who was not only a stranger, but also a foreigner, made her realise
how little we men and women really know of one another. How small was her
knowledge, for instance, of Bill Chester--though, to be sure, of him
there was perhaps nothing to know. How really little also she knew of
Anna Wolsky! They had become friends, and yet Anna had never confided to
her any intimate or secret thing about herself. Why, she did not even
know Anna's home address!

Sylvia felt that there was now a link which hardly anything could break
between herself and this Frenchman, whom she had never seen till a week
ago. Even if they never met again after to-day, she would never forget
that he had allowed her to see into the core of his sad, embittered
heart. He had lifted a corner of the veil which covered his conscience,
and he had done this in order that he might save her, a stranger, from
what he knew by personal experience to be a terrible fate!

CHAPTER VII

Two hours later Sylvia Bailey was having luncheon with Anna Wolsky in the
Pension Malfait.

The two hostelries, hers and Anna's, were in almost absurd contrast the
one to the other. At the Villa du Lac everything was spacious, luxurious,
and quiet. M. Polperro's clients spent, or so Sylvia supposed, much of
their time in their own rooms upstairs, or else in the Casino, while many
of them had their own motors, and went out on long excursions. They were
cosmopolitans, and among them were a number of Russians.

Here at the Pension Malfait, the clientele was French. All was loud
talking, bustle, and laughter. The large house contained several young
men who had daily work in Paris. Others, like Madame Wolsky, were at
Lacville in order to indulge their passion for play, and quite a number
of people came in simply for meals.

Among these last, rather to Sylvia's surprise, were Monsieur and Madame
Wachner, the middle-aged couple whom Anna Wolsky had pointed out as
having been at Aix-les-Bains the year before, at the same time as she
was herself.

The husband and wife were now sitting almost exactly opposite Anna and
Sylvia at the narrow table d'hote, and again a broad, sunny smile lit up
the older woman's face when she looked across at the two friends.

"We meet again!" she exclaimed in a guttural voice, and then in French,
addressing Madame Wolsky, "This is not very much like Aix-les-Bains, is
it, Madame?"

Anna shook her head.

"Still it is a pretty place, Lacville, and cheaper than one would think."
She leant across the table, and continued in a confidential undertone:
"As for us--my husband and I--we have taken a small villa; he has grown
so tired of hotels."

"But surely you had a villa at Aix?" said Anna, in a surprised tone.

"Yes, we had a villa there, certainly. But then a very sad affair
happened to us--" she sighed. "You may have heard of it?" and she fixed
her small, intensely bright eyes inquiringly on Anna.

Anna bent her head.

"Yes, I heard all about it" she said gravely. "You mean about your friend
who was drowned in the lake? It must have been a very distressing thing
for you and your husband."

"Yes, indeed! He never can bear to speak of it."

And Sylvia, looking over at the man sitting just opposite to herself, saw
a look of unease come over his sallow face. He was eating his omelette
steadily, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

"Ami Fritz!" cried his wife, turning suddenly to him, and this time she
spoke English, "Say, 'How d'you do,' to this lady! You will remember that
we used to see 'er at Aix, in the Casino there?"

"Ami Fritz" bowed his head, but remained silent.

"Yes," his wife went on, volubly, "that sad affair made Aix very
unpleasant to us! After that we spent the winter in various pensions,
and then, instead of going back to Aix, we came 'ere. So far, I am quite
satisfied with Lacville."

Though she spoke with a very bad accent and dropped her aitches, her
English was quick and colloquial.

"Lacville is a cosy, 'appy place!" she cried, and this time she smiled
full at Sylvia, and Sylvia told herself that the woman's face, if very
plain, was like a sunflower,--so broad, so kindly, so good-humoured!

When dejeuner was over, the four had coffee together, and the melancholy
Monsieur Wachner, who was so curiously unlike his bright, vivacious wife,
at last broke into eager talk, for he and Anna Wolsky had begun to
discuss different gambling systems. His face lighted up; it was easy
to see what interested and stimulated this long, lanky man whose wife
addressed him constantly as "Ami Fritz."

"Now 'e is what the English call 'obby-'orse riding," she exclaimed, with
a loud laugh. "To see 'im in all 'is glory you should see my Fritz at
Monte Carlo!" she was speaking to Sylvia. "There 'as never been a system
invented in connection with that devil-game, Roulette, that L'Ami Fritz
does not know, and that 'e 'as not--at some time or other--played more to
'is satisfaction than to mine!" But she spoke very good-humouredly. "'E
cannot ring many changes on Baccarat, and I do not often allow 'im to
play downstairs. No, no, that is too dangerous! That is for children and
fools!"

Sylvia was still too ignorant of play to understand the full significance
of Madame Wachner's words, but she was vaguely interested, though she
could not understand one word of the eager talk between Anna and the man.

"Let us leave them at it!" exclaimed the older woman, suddenly. "It will
be much nicer in the garden, Madame, for it is not yet too 'ot for out of
doors. By the way, I forgot to tell you my name. That was very rude of
me! My name is Wachner--Sophie Wachner, at your service."

"And my name is Bailey--Sylvia Bailey."

"Ah, I thought so--you are a Mees!"

"No," said Sylvia gravely, "I am a widow."

Madame Wachner's face became very serious.

"Ah," she said, sympathetically, "that is sad--very sad for one so young
and so beautiful!"

Sylvia smiled. Madame Wachner was certainly a kindly, warm-hearted sort
of woman.

They walked out together into the narrow garden, and soon Madame Wachner
began to amuse her companion by lively, shrewd talk, and they spent a
pleasant half hour pacing up and down.

The Wachners seemed to have travelled a great deal about the world and
especially in several of the British Colonies.

It was in New Zealand that Madame Wachner had learnt to speak English:
"My 'usband, 'e was in business there," she said vaguely.

"And you?" she asked at last, fixing her piercing eyes on the pretty
Englishwoman, and allowing them to travel down till they rested on the
milky row of perfectly-matched pearls.

"Oh, this is my first visit to France," answered Sylvia, "and I am
enjoying it very much indeed."

"Then you 'ave not gambled for money yet?" observed Madame Wachner. "In
England they are too good to gamble!" She spoke sarcastically, but Sylvia
did not know that.

"I never in my life played for money till last week, and then I won
thirty francs!"

"Ah! Then now surely you will join the Club?"

"Yes," said Sylvia a little awkwardly. "I suppose I shall join the Club.
You see, my friend is so fond of play."

"I believe you there!" cried the other, familiarly. "We used to watch
Madame Wolsky at Aix--my 'usband and I. It seems so strange that there
we never spoke to 'er, and that now we seem to know 'er already so
much better than we did in all the weeks we were together at Aix! But
there"--she sighed a loud, heaving sigh--"we 'ad a friend--a dear young
friend--with us at Aix-les-Bains."

"Yes, I know," said Sylvia, sympathisingly.

"You know?" Madame Wachner looked at her quickly. "What is it that you
know, Madame?"

"Madame Wolsky told me about it. Your friend was drowned, was he not? It
must have been very sad and dreadful for you and your husband."

"It was terrible!" said Madame Wachner vehemently. "Terrible!"

* * * * *

The hour in the garden sped by very quickly, and Sylvia was rather sorry
when it came to be time to start for the Casino.

"Look here!" cried Madame Wachner suddenly. "Why should not L'Ami Fritz
escort Madame Wolsky to the Casino while you and I take a pretty drive?
I am so tired of that old Casino--and you will be so tired of it soon,
too!" she exclaimed in an aside to Sylvia.

Sylvia looked questioningly at Anna.

"Yes, do take a drive, dear. You have plenty of time, for I intend to
spend all this afternoon and evening at the Casino," said Madame Wolsky,
quickly, in answer to Sylvia's look. "It will do quite well if you come
there after you have had your tea. My friend will never go without her
afternoon tea;" she turned to Madame Wachner.

"I, too, love afternoon tea!" cried Madame Wachner, in a merry tone.
"Then that is settled! You and I will take a drive, and then we will 'ave
tea and then go to the Casino."

Mrs. Bailey accompanied her friend upstairs while Anna put on her things
and got out her money.

"You will enjoy a drive on this hot day, even with that funny old woman,"
said Madame Wolsky, affectionately. "And meanwhile I will get your
membership card made out for the Club. If you like to do so, you might
have a little gamble this evening. But I do not want my sweet English
friend to become as fond of play as I am myself"--there crept a sad note
into her voice. "However, I do not think there is any fear of that!"

When the two friends came downstairs again, they found Monsieur and
Madame Wachner standing close together and speaking in a low voice. As
she came nearer to them Sylvia saw that they were so absorbed in each
other that they did not see her, and she heard the man saying in a low,
angry voice, in French: "There is nothing to be done here at all, Sophie!
It is foolish of us to waste our time like this!" And then Madame Wachner
answered quickly, "You are always so gloomy, so hopeless! I tell you
there _is_ something to be done. Leave it to me!"

Then, suddenly becoming aware that Sylvia was standing beside her, the
old woman went on: "My 'usband, Madame, always says there is nothing to
be done! You see, 'e is tired of 'is last system, and 'e 'as not yet
invented another. But, bah! I say to 'im that no doubt luck will come
to-day. 'E may find Madame Wolsky a mascot." She was very red and looked
disturbed.

"I 'ave asked them to telephone for an open carriage," Madame Wachner
added, in a better-humoured tone. "It will be here in three or four
minutes. Shall we drive you first to the Casino?" This question she asked
of her husband.

"No," said Monsieur Wachner, harshly, "certainly not! I will walk in any
case."

"And I will walk too," said Anna, who had just come up. "There is no need
at all for us to take you out of your way. You had better drive at once
into the open country, Sylvia."

And so they all started, Madame Wolsky and her tall, gaunt, morose
companion, walking, while Sylvia and Madame Wachner drove off in the
opposite direction.

The country immediately round Lacville is not pretty; the little open
carriage was rather creaky, and the horse was old and tired, and yet
Sylvia Bailey enjoyed her drive very much.

Madame Wachner, common-looking, plain, almost grotesque in appearance
though she was, possessed that rare human attribute, vitality.

Sometimes she spoke in French, sometimes in English, changing from the
one to the other with perfect ease; and honestly pleased at having
escaped a long, dull, hot afternoon in the Casino, the older woman set
herself to please and amuse Sylvia. She thoroughly succeeded. A clever
gossip, she seemed to know a great deal about all sorts of interesting
people, and she gave Sylvia an amusing account of Princess Mathilde
Bonaparte, whose splendid chateau they saw from their little carriage.

Madame Wachner also showed the most sympathetic interest in Sylvia and
Sylvia's past life. Soon the Englishwoman found herself telling her new
acquaintance a great deal about her childhood and girlhood--something
even of her brief, not unhappy, married life. But she shrank back, both
mentally and physically, when Madame Wachner carelessly observed, "Ah,
but soon you will marry again; no doubt you are already engaged?"

"Oh, no!" Sylvia shook her head.

"But you are young and beautiful. It would be a crime for you not to get
married again!" Madame Wachner persisted; and then, "I love beauty," she
cried enthusiastically. "You did not see me, Madame, last week, but I saw
you, and I said to my 'usband, 'There is a very beautiful person come to
Lacville, Fritz!' 'E laughed at me. 'Now you will be satisfied--now you
will 'ave something to look at,' 'e says. And it is quite true! When I
come back that night I was very sorry to see you not there. But we will
meet often now," she concluded pleasantly, "for I suppose, Madame, that
you too intend to play?"

That was the second time she had asked the question.

"I shall play a little," said Sylvia, blushing, "but of course I do not
want to get into the habit of gambling."

"No, indeed, that would be terrible! And then there are not many who can
afford to gamble and to lose their good money." She looked inquiringly at
Sylvia. "But, there," she sighed--her fat face became very grave--"it is
extraordinary 'ow some people manage to get money--I mean those 'oo are
determined to play!"

And then, changing the subject, Madame Wachner suddenly began to tell
her new acquaintance all about the tragic death by drowning of her and
her husband's friend at Aix-les-Bains the year before. She now spoke in
French, but with a peculiar guttural accent.

"I never talk of it before Fritz," she said quickly, "but, of course,
we both often think of it still. Oh, it was a terrible thing! We were
devoted to this young Russian friend of ours. He and Fritz worked an
excellent system together--the best Fritz ever invented--and for a little
while they made money. But his terribly sad death broke our luck"--she
shook her head ominously.

"How did it happen?" said Sylvia sympathetically.

And then Madame Wachner once again broke into her h-less English.

"They went together in a boat on Lake Bourget--it is a real lake, that
lake, not like the little fishpond 'ere. A storm came on, and the boat
upset. Fritz did his best to save the unfortunate one, but 'e could not
swim. You can imagine my sensations? I was in a summer-'ouse, trembling
with fright. Thunder, lightning, rain, storm, all round! Suddenly I see
Fritz, pale as death, wet through, totter up the path from the lake.
'Where is Sasha?' I shriek out to 'im. And 'e shake 'is 'ead
despairingly--Sasha was in the lake!"

The speaker stared before her with a look of vivid terror on her face. It
was almost as if she saw the scene she was describing--nay, as if she saw
the pale, dead face of the drowned man. It gave her companion a cold
feeling of fear.

"And was it long before they found him?" asked Sylvia in a low tone.

"They never did find 'im," said Madame Wachner, her voice sinking to a
whisper. "That was the extraordinary thing--Sasha's body was never found!
Many people thought the money 'e 'ad on 'is person weighed 'im down, kept
'im entangled in the weeds at the bottom of the lake. Did not your friend
tell you it made talk?"

"Yes," said Sylvia.

"'E 'ad not much money on 'is person," repeated Madame Wachner, "but
still there was a good deal more than was found in 'is bed-room. That, of
course, was 'anded over to the authorities. They insisted on keeping it."

"But I suppose his family got it in the end?" said Sylvia.

"No. 'E 'ad no family. You see, our friend was a Russian nobleman, but
he had also been a Nihilist, so 'e 'ad concealed 'is identity. It was
fortunate for us that we 'ad got to know an important person in the
police; but for that we might 'ave 'ad much worry"--she shook her head.
"They were so much annoyed that poor Sasha 'ad no passport. But, as I
said to them--for Fritz quite lost 'is 'ead, and could say nothing--not
'alf, no, not a quarter of the strangers in Aix 'as passports, though, of
course, it is a good and useful thing to 'ave one. I suppose, Madame,
that _you_ 'ave a passport?"

She stopped short, and looked at Sylvia with that eager, inquiring look
which demands an answer even to the most unimportant question.

"A passport?" repeated Sylvia Bailey, surprised. "No, indeed! I've never
even seen one. Why should I have a passport?"

"When you are abroad it is always a good thing to 'ave a passport," said
Madame Wachner quickly. "You see, it enables you to be identified. It
gives your address at 'ome. But I do not think that you can get one
now--no, it is a thing that one must get in one's own country, or, at any
rate," she corrected herself, "in a country where you 'ave resided a long
time."

"What is your country, Madame?" asked Sylvia. "Are you French? I suppose
Monsieur Wachner is German?"

Madame Wachner shook her head.

"Oh, 'e would be cross to 'ear that! No, no, Fritz is Viennese--a gay
Viennese! As for me, I am"--she waited a moment--"well, Madame, I am what
the French call '_une vraie cosmopolite_'--oh, yes, I am a true
citizeness of the world."

CHAPTER VIII

They had been driving a considerable time, and at last the coachman,
turning round on his seat, asked where they wished to go next.

"I ask you to come and 'ave tea with me," said Madame Wachner turning to
Sylvia. "We are not very far from the Chalet des Muguets, and I 'ave some
excellent tea there. We will 'ave a rest, and tell the man to come back
for us in one hour. What do you think of that, Madame?"

"It is very kind of you," said Sylvia gratefully; and, indeed, she did
think it very kind. It would be pleasant to rest a while in the Wachner's
villa and have tea there.

Sylvia was in the mood to enjoy every new experience, however trifling,
and she had never been in a French private house.

"Au Chalet des Muguets," called out Madame Wachner to the driver.

He nodded and turned his horse round.

Soon they were making their way along newly-made roads, cut through what
had evidently been, not so very long before, a great stretch of forest
land.

"The good people of Lacville are in a hurry to make money," observed
Madame Wachner in French. "I am told that land here has nearly trebled in
value the last few years, though houses are still cheap."

"It seems a pity they should destroy such beautiful woods," said Sylvia
regretfully, remembering what the Comte de Virieu had said only that
morning.

The other shrugged her shoulders, "I do not care for scenery--no, not at
all!" she exclaimed complacently.

The carriage drew up with a jerk before a small white gate set in low,
rough, wood palings. Behind the palings lay a large, straggling, and
untidy garden, relieved from absolute ugliness by some high forest trees
which had been allowed to remain when the house in the centre of the plot
of ground was built.

Madame Wachner stepped heavily out of the carriage, and Sylvia followed
her, feeling amused and interested. She wondered very much what the
inside of the funny little villa she saw before her would be like. In any
case, the outside of the Chalet des Muguets was almost ludicrously unlike
the English houses to which she was accustomed.

Very strange, quaint, and fantastic looked the one-storey building,
standing far higher than any bungalow Sylvia had ever seen, in a lawn
of high, rank grass.

The walls of the Chalet des Muguets were painted bright pink, picked out
with sham brown beams, which in their turn were broken at intervals by
large blue china lozenges, on which were painted the giant branches of
lilies-of-the-valley which gave the villa its inappropriate name!

The chocolate-coloured row of shutters were now closed to shut out the
heat, for the sun beat down pitilessly on the little house, and the whole
place had a curiously deserted, unlived-in appearance.

Sylvia secretly wondered how the Wachners could bear to leave the garden,
which might have been made so pretty with a little care, in such a state
of neglect and untidiness. Even the path leading up to the side of the
house, where jutted out a mean-looking door, was covered with weeds.

But Madame Wachner was evidently very pleased with her temporary home,
and quite satisfied with its surroundings.

"It is a pretty 'ouse, is it not?" she asked in English, and smiling
broadly. "And only one thousand francs, furnished, for the 'ole season!"

Sylvia quickly made a mental calculation. Forty pounds? Yes, she supposed
that was very cheap--for Lacville.

"We come in May, and we may stay till October," said Madame Wachner,
still speaking in a satisfied tone. "I made a bargain with a woman from
the town. She comes each morning, cooks what I want, and does the
'ousework. Often we 'ave our dejeuner out and dine at 'ome, or we dine
close to the Casino--just as we choose. Food is so dear in France, it
makes little difference whether we stay at 'ome or not for meals."

They were now close to the chocolate-coloured door of the Chalet, and
Madame Wachner, to Sylvia Bailey's surprise and amusement, lifted a
corner of the shabby outside mat, and took from under it a key. With
it she opened the door. "Walk in," she said familiarly, "and welcome,
Madame, to my 'ome!"

Sylvia found herself in a bare little hall, so bare indeed that there was
not even a hat and umbrella stand there.

Her hostess walked past her and opened a door which gave into a darkened
room.

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