lost more money than they could
afford at the Casino; but even in England people betted--the poor, so
she had been told, risked all their spare pence on horse racing, and the
others, those who could afford it, went to Monte Carlo, or stayed at home
and played bridge!

After all, where was the difference? But, of course, Bill Chester, with
his tiresome, old-fashioned views of life, would think there was a great
difference; he would certainly disapprove of the way she was now spending
her money....

Something told her, and the thought was not wholly unpleasing to her,
that Bill Chester and the Comte de Virieu would not get on well together.
She wondered if Count Paul had ever been jealous--if he were capable of
jealousy? It would be rather interesting to see if anything or anyone
could make him so!

And then her mind travelled on, far, far away, to a picture with which
she had been familiar from her girlhood, for it hung in the drawing-room
of one of her father's friends at Market Dalling. It was called "The
Gambler's Wife." She had always thought it a very pretty and pathetic
picture; but she no longer thought it so; in fact, it now appeared to her
to be a ridiculous travesty of life. Gamblers were just like other
people, neither better nor worse--and often infinitely more lovable
than were some other people....

At last Sylvia got up, and slowly made her way out of the wood. She did
not go back through the Wachners' garden; instead, she struck off to the
left, on to a field path, which finally brought her to the main road.

As she was passing the Pension Malfait the landlady came out to the gate.

"Madame!" she cried out loudly, "I have had news of Madame Wolsky at
last! Early this afternoon I had a telegram from her asking me to send
her luggage to the cloak-room of the Gare du Nord."

Sylvia felt very glad--glad, and yet once more, perhaps unreasonably,
hurt. Then Anna had been in Paris all the time? How odd, how really
unkind of her not to have written and relieved the anxiety which she must
have known her English friend would be feeling about her!

"I have had Madame Wolsky's room beautifully prepared for the English
gentleman," went on Madame Malfait amiably. She was pleased that Mrs.
Bailey was giving her a new guest, and it also amused her to observe
what prudes Englishwomen could be.

Fancy putting a man who had come all the way from England to see one, in
a pension situated at the other end of the tow