“And do you really suppose,” Count Paul spoke with a touch of sharp irony in his voice, “that your friend would have taken my advice?  Do you think that Madame Wolsky would look either to the right or the left when the Goddess of Chance beckoned?”—­and he waved his hand in the direction where the white Casino lay.

“But the Goddess of Chance did not beckon to her to leave Lacville!” Sylvia exclaimed.  “Why, she meant to stay on here till the middle of September—­”

“You asked me a very indiscreet question just now”—­the Count leant forward, and looked straight into Mrs. Bailey’s eyes.

His manner had again altered.  He spoke far more authoritatively than he had ever spoken before, and Sylvia, far from resenting this new, possessive attitude, felt thrilled and glad.  When Bill Chester spoke as if he had authority over her, it always made her indignant, even angry.

“Did I?” she said nervously.

“Yes!  You asked me if I had persuaded Madame Wolsky to leave Lacville.  Well, now I ask you, in my turn, whether it has ever occurred to you that the Wachners know more of your Polish friend’s departure than they admit?  I gathered that impression the only time I talked to your Madame Wachner about the matter.  I felt sure she knew more than she would say!  Of course, it was only an impression.”

Sylvia hesitated.

“At first Madame Wachner seemed annoyed that I made a fuss about it,” she said thoughtfully.  “But later she seemed as surprised and sorry as I am myself.  Oh, no, Count, I am sure you are wrong—­why you forget that Madame Wachner walked up to the Pension Malfait that same evening—­I mean the evening of the day Anna left Lacville.  In fact, it was Madame Wachner who first found out that Anna had not come home.  She went up to her bed-room to look for her.”

“Then it was Madame Wachner who found the letter?” observed the Count interrogatively.

“Oh, no, it was not Madame Wachner who found it.  Anna’s letter was discovered the next morning by the chambermaid in a blotting-book on the writing table.  No one had thought of looking there.  You see they were all expecting her back that night.  Madame Malfait still thinks that poor Anna went to the Casino in the afternoon, and after having lost her money came back to the pension, wrote the letter, and then went out and left for Paris without saying anything about it to anyone!”

“I suppose something of that sort did happen,” observed the Comte de Virieu thoughtfully.

“And now,” he said, getting up from his chair, “I think I will take a turn at the Casino after all!”

Sylvia’s lip quivered, but she was too proud to appeal to him to stay.  Still, she felt horribly hurt.

“You see what I am like,” he said, in a low, shamed voice.  “I wish you had made me give you my word of honour.”

She got up.  It was cruel, very cruel, of him to say that to her.  How amazingly their relation to one another had altered in the last half-hour!