“Yes,” said Sylvia, “but do not forget”—­she spoke with a certain gravity; death was a very real thing to her, for she had seen in the last two years two deathbeds, that of her father, that of her husband—­“do not forget, Anna, that she told you you would not live long if you went away.”

“She was quite safe in saying that to me,” replied the other hastily.  “People who play—­those who get the gambling fever into their system when they are still young—­do not, as a rule, live very long.  Their emotions are too strong, too often excited!  Play should be reserved for the old—­the old get so quickly deadened, they do not go through the terrible moments younger people do!”

CHAPTER III

On the morning after her visit to Madame Cagliostra, Sylvia Bailey woke later than usual.  She had had a disturbed night, and it was pleasant to feel that she could spend a long restful day doing nothing, or only taking part in one of the gay little expeditions which make Paris to a stranger the most delightful of European capitals.

She opened wide both the windows of her room, and from outside there floated in a busy, happy murmur, for Paris is an early city, and nine o’clock there is equivalent to eleven o’clock in London.

She heard the picturesque street cries of the flower-sellers in the Avenue de l’Opera—­“Beflower yourselves, gentlemen and ladies, beflower yourselves!”

The gay, shrill sounds floated in to her, and, in spite of her bad night and ugly dreams, she felt extraordinarily well and happy.

Cities are like people.  In some cities one feels at home at once; others remain, however well acquainted we become with them, always strangers.

Sylvia Bailey, born, bred, married, widowed in an English provincial town, had always felt strange in London.  But with Paris,—­dear, delightful, sunny Paris,—­she had become on the closest, the most affectionately intimate terms from the first day.  She had only been here a month, and yet she already knew with familiar knowledge the quarter in which was situated her quiet little hotel, that wonderful square mile—­it is not more—­which has as its centre the Paris Opera House, and which includes the Rue de la Paix and the beginning of each of the great arteries of modern Paris.

And that was not all.  Sylvia Bailey knew something of the France of the past.  The quiet, clever, old-fashioned Frenchwoman by whom she had been educated had seen to that.  She could wander through the narrow streets on the other side of the Seine, and reconstitute the amazing, moving, tragic things which happened there during the great Revolution.

She was now half sorry to think that in ten days or so she had promised to join some acquaintances in Switzerland.  Luckily her trustee and would-be lover, Bill Chester, proposed to come out and join the party there.  That was something to look forward to, for Sylvia was very fond of him, though he sometimes made her angry by his fussy ways.  Chester had not approved of her going to Paris by herself, and he would certainly have shaken his head had he known of yesterday’s visit to Madame Cagliostra.