She opened the gate, and with boisterous heartiness welcomed Chester and Sylvia into the neglected garden.

Chester looked round him with an involuntary surprise.  The Wachners’ home was entirely unlike what he had expected to find it.  He had thought to see one of those trim, neat little villas surrounded by gay, exquisitely tended little gardens which are the pride of the Parisian suburban dweller.

Madame Wachner caught his glance, and the thought crossed her mind uncomfortably that she had perhaps made a mistake, a serious mistake, in asking this priggish-looking Englishman to come to the Chalet des Muguets.  He evidently did not like the look of the place.

“You wonder to see our garden so untidy,” she exclaimed, regretfully.  “Well, it is the owner’s fault, not ours!  You would not believe such a thing of a Frenchman, but ’e actually made us promise that we would do nothing—­no, nothing at all, to ’is garden.  ’E spoke of sending a man once a week to see after it, but no, ’e never did so.”

“I have often wondered,” broke in Sylvia frankly, “why you allowed your garden to get into such a state, but now, of course, I understand.  What a very odd person your landlord must be, Madame Wachner!  It might be such a delightful place if kept in good order.  But I’m glad you have had the grass cut.  I remember the first time I came here the grass was tremendously high, both in front and behind the house.  Yesterday I saw that you have had it cut.”

“Yes,” said Madame Wachner, glancing at her, “yes, we had the grass cut a few days ago.  Fritz insisted on it.”

“If it had been as high as it was the first time I came here, I could never have made my way through it to the delightful little wood that lies over there, behind the chalet,” went on Sylvia.  “I don’t think I told you that I went over there yesterday and waited a while, hoping that you would come back.”

“You went into the wood!” echoed Madame Wachner in a startled tone.  “You should not have done that,” she shook her head gravely.  “We are forbidden to go into the wood.  We ’ave never gone into the wood.”

L’Ami Fritz stood waiting for his visitors in the narrow doorway.  He looked more good-tempered than usual, and as they walked in he chatted pleasantly to Chester.

“This way,” he said, importantly.  “Do not trouble to go into the salon, Madame!  We shall have tea here, of course.”

And Sylvia Bailey was amused, as well as rather touched, to see the preparations which had been made in the little dining-room for the entertainment of Bill Chester and of herself.

In the middle of the round table which had looked so bare yesterday was a bowl of white roses—­roses that had never grown in the untidy garden outside.  Two dessert dishes were heaped up with delicious cakes—­the cakes for which French pastrycooks are justly famed.  There was also a basin full of the Alpine strawberries which Sylvia loved, and of which she always ordered a goodly supply at the Villa du Lac.  Madame Wachner had even remembered to provide the thick cream, which, to a foreign taste, spoils the delicate flavour of strawberries.