She hurried out the half-truth with a curious feeling of guilt.
“Yes, do come!” cried Anna eagerly. “You can stay with me while the carriage takes the Wachners on home, and then it can call for you on the way back. I should not like you to walk to the Villa du Lac alone at this time of night.”
“Ah, but I’m not like you; I haven’t won piles of money!” said Sylvia, smiling.
“No, but that makes very little difference in a place like this—”
And then Monsieur and Madame Wachner joined them. L’Ami Fritz looked quite moved out of himself. He seized Anna by the hand. “I congratulate you!” he said heartily. “What a splendid thing to go on winning like that. I wish I had been there, for I might have followed your luck!”
They all four walked out of the Casino. It was a very dark night.
“And what will you do with all that money?” Monsieur Wachner solicitously inquired. “It is a great sum to carry about, is it not?”
“It is far better to carry about one’s money than to trust it to anyone but to a well-managed bank,” exclaimed his wife, before Anna could answer the question. “As for the hotelkeepers, I would not trust them with one penny. What happened to a friend of ours, eh, Fritz, tell them that?”
They were now packed into an open carriage, and driving towards the Pension Malfait.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said her husband, crossly.
“Yes, you do! That friend of ours who was boarding in one of those small houses in the Condamine at Monte Carlo, and who one day won a lot of money. He gave his winnings to his hotelkeeper to keep for the night. Next day the man said his safe had been broken open by a foreign waiter who had disappeared. Our friend had no redress—none at all! Malfait may be a very good sort of man, but I would not give him your money—” she turned to Anna.
“No, of course not,” said Madame Wolsky. “I should never think of entrusting a really large sum of money to a man of whom I know nothing. It is, as you say, very much better to keep one’s money on one’s person. It’s the plan I’ve always followed. Then, if it is stolen, or if one loses it, one has only oneself to blame.”
“It is very exciting taking the Bank,” she added, after a pause. “I think I shall take the Bank again next time I play.”
The short drive was soon over, and as Anna and Sylvia were going into the Pension Malfait, Madame Wachner called out, “Will you both come to supper tomorrow?”
Sylvia shook her head.
“I am going into Paris for the day,” she said, “and I shall feel tired when I get back. But many thanks, all the same.”
“Then you must come”—Madame Wachner addressed Anna Wolsky. “We also will have a rest from the Casino.”
“Very well! I accept gratefully your kind invitation.”
“Come early. Come at six, and we can ’ave a cosy chat first.”
“Yes, I will!”
After giving directions that they were to be told when the carriage had come back from the Châlet des Muguets, the two friends went up to Anna Wolsky’s bedroom.
Sylvia sat down by the open window.
“You need not light a candle, Anna,” she said. “It’s so pleasant just now, so quiet and cool, and the light would only attract those horrid midges. They seem to me the only things I have to find fault with in Lacville!”
Anna Wolsky came and sat down in the darkness close to the younger woman.
“Sylvia,” she said, “dear little Sylvia! Sometimes I feel uneasy at having brought you to Lacville.” She spoke in a thoughtful and very serious tone.
“Indeed, you need feel nothing of the kind.”
Sylvia Bailey put out her hand and took the other woman’s hand in her own. She knew in her heart what Anna meant, but she wilfully pretended to misunderstand her.
“You need never think that I run the slightest risk of becoming a gambler,” she went on, a little breathlessly. “I was looking at my account-book today, and I find that since I have been here I have lost seventy francs. Two days ago I had won a hundred and ten francs. So you see it is not a very serious matter, is it? Just think of all the fun I’ve had! It’s well worth the money I’ve lost. Besides, I shall probably win it all back—”
“I was not thinking of the money,” said Anna Wolsky slowly.
Sylvia made a restless movement, and took her hand out of Anna’s affectionate clasp.
“I’m afraid that you are becoming very fond of the Comte de Virieu,” went on Anna, in a low voice but very deliberately. “You must forgive me, Sylvia, but I am older than you are. Have you thought of the consequences of this friendship of yours? I confess that at the beginning I credited that man with the worst of motives, but now I feel afraid that he is in love—in fact I feel sure that he is madly in love with you. Do you know that he never takes his eyes off you in the Club? Often he forgets to pick up his winnings …”
Sylvia’s heart began to beat. She wondered if Anna was indeed telling the truth. She almost bent forward and kissed her friend in her gratitude—but all she said was, and that defiantly,
“You can believe me when I say that he has never said a word of love to me. He has never even flirted with me. I give you my word that that is so!”
“Ah, but it is just that fact that makes me believe that he cares. Flirtation is an English art, not a French art, my dear Sylvia. A Frenchman either loves—and when he loves he adores on his knees—or else he has no use, no use at all, for what English people mean by flirtation—the make-believe of love!
