Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/66

56 strip, and the whole place formed a great contrast to the gay and charming Villa du Lac.

What garden there was seemed uncared for, though an attempt had been made to make it look pretty with the aid of a few geraniums and marguerites.

M. Malfait, the proprietor of the Pension, whom Sylvia had already seen with Anna at the Casino, now came forward in the hall, and Sylvia compared him greatly to his disadvantage, to the merry M. Polperro.

"Madame has brought her friend?" he said eagerly, and staring at Sylvia as he spoke. "I hope that Madame's friend will come and stay with us too? I have a charming room which I could give this lady; but later on we shall be very full—full all the summer! The hot weather is a godsend for Lacville; for it drives the Parisians out from their unhealthy city."

He beckoned to his wife, a disagreeable-looking woman who was sitting in a little glass cage made in an angle of the square hall.

"Madame Wolsky has brought this good lady to see our Pension!" he exclaimed, "and perhaps she is also coming to stay with us"

In vain Sylvia smilingly shook her head. She was made to go all over the large, rather gloomy house, and to peep into each of the bare, ugly bed-rooms.

That which Anna had engaged had a window looking over the back of the house; Sylvia thought it singularly cheerless. There was, however, a good arm-chair and a writing-table on which lay a new-looking blotter. It was the only bed-room containing such a luxury.

"An English lady was staying here not very long ago,"