And Sylvia faltered out, “Could you keep your word if I did exact it?”

“Ah, you have learnt to know me too well!”

He walked away, leaving her full of perplexity and pain.

A few moments passed.  They seemed very long moments to Sylvia Bailey. 
Then Count Paul turned and came back.

He sat down, and made a great effort to behave as if nothing unusual or memorable had passed between them.

“And has anything happened here?” he asked.  “Is there any news of your vanished friend?”

Sylvia shook her head gravely.  The Polish woman’s odd, and, to her, inexplicable, conduct still hurt her almost as much as it had done at first.

The Count leant forward, and speaking this time very seriously indeed, he said, in a low voice:—­

“I wish to say something to you, and I am now going to speak as frankly as if you were—­my sister.  You are wrong to waste a moment of your time in regretting Madame Wolsky.  She is an unhappy woman, held tightly in the paws of the tiger—­Play.  That is the truth, my friend!  It is a pity you ever met her, and I am glad she went away without doing you any further mischief.  It was bad enough of her to have brought you to Lacville, and taught you to gamble.  Had she stayed on, she would have tried in time to make you go on with her to Monte Carlo.”

He shook his head expressively

Sylvia looked at him with surprise.  He had never spoken to her of Anna in this way before.  She hesitated, then said a little nervously,

“Tell me, did you ask Madame Wolsky to go away?  Please don’t mind my asking you this?”

“I ask Madame Wolsky to go away?” he repeated, genuinely surprised.  “Such a thought never even crossed my mind.  It would have been very impertinent—­what English people would call ’cheeky’—­of me to do such a thing!  You must indeed think me a hypocrite!  Have I not shared your surprise and concern at her extraordinary disappearance?  And her luggage?  If I had wished her to go away, I should not have encouraged her to leave all her luggage behind her!” he spoke with the sarcastic emphasis of which the French are masters.

Sylvia grew very red.

As a matter of fact, it had been Madame Wachner who had suggested that idea to her.  Only the day before, when Sylvia had been wondering for the thousandth time where Anna could be, the older woman had exclaimed meaningly, “I should not be surprised if that Count de Virieu persuaded your friend to go away.  He wants the field clear for himself.”

And then she had seemed to regret her imprudent words, and she had begged Sylvia not to give the Count any hint of her suspicion.  Even now Sylvia did not mention Madame Wachner.

“Of course, I don’t think you a hypocrite,” she said awkwardly, “but you never did like poor Anna, and you were always telling me that Lacville isn’t a place where a nice woman ought to stay long.  I thought you might have said something of the same kind to Madame Wolsky.”