Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/272

 The two following days dragged themselves uneventfully away. Sylvia did her best to be kind to Bill Chester, but she felt ill at ease, and could not help showing it.

And then she missed the excitement and interest of the Casino. Bill had not suggested that they should go there, and she would not be the one to do so.

The long motoring expeditions they took each afternoon gave her no pleasure. Her heart was far away, in Brittany; in imagination she was standing by a grave surrounded by a shadowy group of men and women, mourning the old Marquise who had left Count Paul the means to become once more a self-respecting and respected member of the world to which he belonged by right of birth. …

Had it not been for the Wachners, these two days of dual solitude with Chester would have been dreary indeed, but Madame Wachner was their companion on more than one long excursion and wherever Madame Wachner went there reigned a kind of jollity and sense of cheer.

Sylvia wondered if the Comte de Virieu was indeed coming back as he had said he would do. And yet she knew that were he to return now, at once, to his old ways, his family, those who loved him, would have the right to think him incorrigible.

As is the way with a woman when she loves, Sylvia 262