Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/137

Rh A sudden feeling of discomfort came over Sylvia. Then the stout, jolly-looking woman was not without private anxieties and cares? There had been something so weary as well as so angry in the tone in which Madame Wachner spoke to her beloved "Ami Fritz."

A moment later he was hurrying towards the gate.

"Sophie," he cried out from the garden, "the carriage is here! Come along—we have wasted too much time already"

Like Anna Wolsky, Monsieur Wachner grudged every moment spent away from the tables.

Madame Wachner hurried her two guests into her bed-room to put on their hats.

Anna Wolsky walked over to the window.

"What a strange, lonely place to live in!" she said, and drew the lace shawl she was wearing a little more closely about her thin shoulders. "And that wood over there—I should be afraid to live so near a wood! I should think that there might be queer people concealed there."

"Bah! Why should we be frightened, even if there were queer people there!"

"Well, but sometimes you must have a good deal of money in this house."

Madame Wachner laughed.

"When we have so much money that we cannot carry it about, and that, alas! is not very often—but still, when Fritz makes a big win, we go into Paris and bank the money."

"I do not trouble to do that," said Anna, "for I always carry all my money about with me. What do you do?" she turned to Sylvia Bailey.