Nord, waiting for Mrs. Bailey's train, which was due to
arrive from Lacville at eleven o'clock.

Though he looked as if he hadn't a care in the world save the pleasant
care of enjoying the present and looking forward to the future, life was
very grey just now to the young Frenchman.

To a Parisian, Paris in hot weather is a depressing place, even under the
pleasantest of circumstances, and the Count felt an alien and an outcast
in the city where he had spent much of his careless and happy youth.

His sister, the Duchesse d'Eglemont, who had journeyed all the way from
Brittany to see him for two or three days, had received him with that
touch of painful affection which the kindly and the prosperous so often
bestow on those whom they feel to be at once beloved and prodigal.

When with his dear Marie-Anne, Paul de Virieu always felt as though he
had been condemned to be guillotined, and as if she were doing everything
to make his last days on earth as pleasant as possible.

When he had proposed that his sister should ask his new friend, this
English widow he had met at Lacville, to luncheon--nay more, when he had
asked Marie-Anne to lend Mrs. Bailey a riding habit, and to arrange that
one of the Duc's horses should come over every morning in order that he
and Mrs. Bailey might ride together--the kind Duchesse had at once
assented, almost too eagerly, to his requests. And she had asked her
brother no tiresome, indiscreet questions as to his relations with the
young Englishwoman,--whether, for instance, he was really fond of Sylvia,
whether it was conceivably possible that he was thinking of marrying her?

And, truth to tell, Paul de Virieu would have found it very difficult to
give an honest answer to the question. He was in a strange, debatable
state of mind about Sylvia--beautiful, simple, unsophisticated Sylvia
Bailey.

He told himself, and that very often, that the young Englishwoman, with
her absurd, touching lack of worldly knowledge, had no business to be
living in such a place as Lacville, wasting her money at the Baccarat
tables, and knowing such queer people as were--well, yes, even Anna
Wolsky was queer--Madame Wolsky and the Wachners!

But if Sylvia Bailey had no business to be at Lacville, he, Paul de
Virieu, had no business to be flirting with her as he was doing--for
though Sylvia was honestly unaware of the fact, the Count was carrying
on what he well knew to be a very agreeable flirtation with the l