Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/163

Rh it would appear to him a dastardly action to ask her to share his life if he did not believe that life to be what would be likely to satisfy her, to bring her honour and happiness."

Sylvia turned to him, and, rather marvelling at her own temerity, she asked a fateful question:

"But would love ever make the kind of Frenchman you describe give up a way of life that was likely to make his wife unhappy?"

Count Paul looked straight into the blue eyes which told him so much more than their owner knew they told.

"Yes! He might easily give up that life for the sake of a beloved woman. But would he remain always faithful in his renunciation? That is the question which none, least of all himself, can answer!"

The victoria was now crossing one of the bridges which are, perhaps, the noblest possession of outdoor Paris.

Count Paul changed the subject. He had seen with mingled pain and joy how much his last honest words had troubled her.

"My brother-in-law has never cared to move west, as so many of his friends have done," he observed. "He prefers to remain in the old family house that was built by his great-grandfather before the French Revolution."

Soon they were bowling along a quiet, sunny street, edged with high walls overhung with trees. The street bore the name of Babylon.

And indeed there was something almost Babylonian, something very splendid in the vast courtyard which formed the centre of what appeared, to Sylvia's fascinated eyes, a grey stone palace. The long rows of