Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/320

310 no power of making her do what I think sensible, or even what I think right. She is absolutely her own mistress."

He stopped abruptly, for he had no wish to discuss Sylvia and Sylvia's affairs with this foreigner, however oddly intimate Mrs. Bailey had allowed herself to get with the Comte de Virieu.

"Lacville is such a very queer place," observed the Count, meditatively. "It is perhaps even queerer than you know or guess it to be, Mr. Chester."

The English lawyer thought the remark too obvious to answer. Of course Lacville was a queer place—to put it plainly, little better than a gambling hell. He knew that well enough! But it was rather strange to hear the Comte de Virieu saying so—a real case, if ever there was one, of Satan rebuking sin.

So at last he answered, irritably, "Of course it is! I can't think what made Mrs. Bailey go there in the first instance." His mind was full of Sylvia. He seemed to go on speaking of her against his will.

"Her going to Lacville was a mere accident," explained Paul de Virieu, quickly. "She was brought there by the Polish lady, Madame Wolsky, of whom you must have heard her speak, whom she met in an hotel in Paris, and who disappeared so mysteriously. It is not a place for a young lady to be at by herself."

Bill Chester tilted back the chair on which he was sitting. Once more he asked himself what on earth the fellow was driving at? Were these remarks a preliminary to the Count's saying that he was not going to Switzerland after all—that he was going back to Lacville in order to take care of Sylvia.