Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/297

 It was nearly nine o'clock, and for the moment the Casino was very empty, for the afternoon players had left, and the evening serie, as M. Polperro contemptuously called them—the casual crowd of night visitors to Lacville—had not yet arrived from Paris.

"And now," said Madame Wachner, suddenly, "is it not time for us to go and 'ave our little supper?"

The "citizeness of the world" had been watching her husband and Sylvia playing at Baccarat; both of them had won, and Sylvia had welcomed, eagerly, the excitement of the tables.

Count Paul's muttered farewell echoed in her ears, and the ornately decorated gambling room seemed full of his presence.

She made a great effort to put any intimate thought of him away. The next day, so she told herself, she would go back to England, to Market Dalling. There she must forget that such a place as Lacville existed; there she must banish Paul de Virieu from her heart and memory. Yes, there was nothing now to keep her here, in this curious place, where she had eaten, in more than one sense, of the bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge.

With a deep, involuntary sigh, she rose from the table.

She looked at the green cloth, at the people standing round it, with an odd feeling that neither the table nor the people round her were quite real. Her heart and 287