Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/49

Rh open, and when she was half-way up the horseshoe stone-staircase which led to the front door, a man, dressed in the white dress of a French chef, and bearing an almost ludicrous resemblance to M. Girard, came hurrying out.

"Madame Bailey?" he exclaimed joyously, and bowing very low. "Have I the honour of greeting Madame Bailey? My cousin telephoned to me that you might be coming, Madame, to déjeuner!" And as Sylvia smiled in assent: "I am delighted, I am honoured, by the visit of Madame Bailey!"

Sylvia laughed outright. She really could not help it! It was very nice and thoughtful of M. Girard to have telephoned to his cousin. But how dreadful it would have been if she had gone straight back to Paris from the station. All these kind people would have had their trouble for nothing.

M. Polperro was a shrewd Southerner, and he had had the sense to make but few alterations to the Villa du Lac. It therefore retained something of the grand air it had worn in the days when it had been the property of a Court official. The large, cool, circular hall into which the hotel-keeper ushered Sylvia was charming, as were the long, finely decorated reception-rooms on either side.

The dining-room, filled with small oval tables, to which M. Polperro next led his honoured guest, had been built out since the house had become an hotel. It commanded a view of the lake on the one side, and of the large, shady garden of the villa on the other.

"I have arranged for Madame a little table in what we call the lake window," observed M. Polperro. "As