Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/328

318 For Chester was staring at him with puzzled, wrathful eyes.

"Ah! what a charming lady, M'sieur; Madame Polperro and I shall miss her greatly. We hoped to keep Madame Bailey all the summer. But perhaps she will come back—now that M'sieur has returned." He really could not resist that last thrust.

"Left Lacville!" repeated Chester incredulously. "But that's impossible! It isn't more than three hours since we said good-bye to her at the station. She had no intention of leaving Lacville then. Do you say you've received a letter from her?"

"Yes, M'sieur."

"Will you please show it me?"

"Certainly, M'sieur."

M. Polperro, followed closely by the Englishman, trotted off into his office, a funny little hole of a place which had been contrived under the staircase. It was here that Madame Polperro was supposed to spend her busy days.

M. Polperro felt quite lost without his wife. Slowly, methodically, he began to turn over the papers on the writing-table, which, with one chair, filled up all the place.

There had evidently been a lovers' quarrel between these two peculiar English people. What a pity that the gentleman, who had very properly returned to beg the lady's pardon, had found his little bird flown—in such poetic terms did the landlord in his own mind refer to Sylvia Bailey.

The pretty Englishwoman's presence in the Villa du