Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/220

210 Wolsky left on a Saturday afternoon. As I told you just now, Madame Wachner expected her to supper, but she never came. She went to Paris instead."

The servant looked at her fixedly, and Sylvia's face became what it seldom was—very forbidding in expression. She wished this meddling, familiar woman would go away and leave her alone.

"No doubt Madame knows best! One day is like another to me. I beg Madame's pardon."

The Frenchwoman took up her parasol and laid the house key on the table, then, with a "Bon jour, Madame, et encore merci bien!" she noisily closed the door behind her.

A moment later, Sylvia, with a sense of relief, found herself in sole possession of the Châlet des Muguets.

Even the quietest, the most commonplace house has, as it were, an individuality that sets it apart from other houses. And even those who would deny that proposition must admit that every inhabited dwelling has its own special nationality.

The Châlet des Muguets was typically French and typically suburban; but where it differed from thousands of houses of the same type, dotted round in the countrysides within easy reach of Paris, was that it was let each year to a different set of tenants.

In Sylvia Bailey's eyes the queer little place lacked all the elements which go to make a home; and, sitting there, in that airless, darkened dining-room, she wondered, not for the first time, why the Wachners chose to live in such a comfortless way.