Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/249

Rh "Yes," said Chester, shortly. "Your landlord very kindly said he would see to its being sent on."

They were now close to the Villa du Lac. "Of course, I shall expect you to lunch to-morrow," said Sylvia. "Twelve o'clock is the time. You'll want a good rest after your long day."

And then Chester started off with his two strange companions. How very unlike this evening had been to what he had pictured it would be! Years before, as a boy, he had spent a week at a primitive seaside hotel near Dieppe. He had thought Lacville would be like that. He had imagined himself arriving at a quiet, rural, little country inn, and had seen himself kindly, if a little shyly, welcomed by Sylvia. He could almost have laughed at the contrast between the place his fancy had painted and the place he had found, at what he had thought would happen, and at what had happened!

As they trudged along, Chester, glancing to his right, saw that there were still a great many boats floating on the lake. Did Lacville folk never go to bed?

"Yes," said Madame Wachner, quickly divining his thoughts, "some of the people 'ere—why, they stay out on the water all night! Then they catch the early train back to Paris in the morning, and go and work all day. Ah, yes, it is indeed a splendid thing to be young!"

She sighed, a long, sentimental sigh, and looked across, affectionately, at L'Ami Fritz.

"I do not feel my youth to be so very far away," she said. "But then, the people in my dear country are not cynical as are the French!"