Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/288

278 "Do you not believe that?" he asked, rather roughly.

And then at last she looked up and spoke.

"I think you imagine that to be the case," she said, "but I am sure that it is not I, alone, who brought you back to Lacville."

"And yet it is you—you alone!" he exclaimed and he jumped up and came and stood before her.

"God knows I do not wish to deceive you. Perhaps, if I had not come back here, I should in time—not at once, Madame,—have gone somewhere else, where I could enjoy the only thing in life which had come to be worth while living for. But it was you—you alone—that brought me back here, to Lacville!"

"Why did you go straight to the Casino?" she faltered. "And why?—oh, why did you risk all that money?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Because I am a fool!" he answered, bitterly—"a fool, and what the English rightly call 'a dog in the manger!' I ought to rejoice when I see you with that excellent fellow, Mr. Chester—and as your friend," he stopped short and then ended his sentence with the words, "I ought to be happy to know that you will have so excellent a husband!"

Sylvia also got up.

"You are quite mistaken," she said, coldly. "I shall never marry Mr. Chester."

"I regret to hear you say that," said Count Paul, seriously. "A woman should not live alone, especially a woman who is young and beautiful, and—and who has money."