Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/308

298 but this time she saw that he soused the lettuce-leaves with oil.

At last, "Will you have some salad, Mrs. Bailey?" he said brusquely, and in English. He spoke English far better than did his wife.

"No," she said. "Not to-night, thank you!"

And Sylvia, smiling, looked across at Madame Wachner, expecting to see in the older woman's face a humorous appreciation of the fact that L'Ami Fritz had forgotten her well-known horror of oil.

Mrs. Bailey's dislike of the favourite French salad-dressing ingredient had long been a joke among the three, nay, among the four, for Anna Wolsky had been there the last time Sylvia had had supper with the Wachners. It had been such a merry meal!

To-night no meaning smile met hers; instead she only saw that odd, grave, considering look on her hostess's face.

Suddenly Madame Wachner held out her plate across the table, and L'Ami Fritz heaped it up with the oily salad.

Sylvia Bailey's plate was empty, but Monsieur Wachner did not seem to notice that his guest lacked anything. And at last, to her extreme astonishment, she suddenly saw him take up one of the two pieces of meat remaining on the dish, and, leaning across, drop it on his wife's plate. Then he helped himself to the last remaining morsel.

It was such a trifling thing really, and due of course to her host's singular absent-mindedness; yet, even so, taken in connection with both the Wachners' silence and