Chester made a sudden resolve, and, what was rare in one so constitutionally prudent, acted on it at once.

“If you are really going to Switzerland,” he said quietly, “then why should we not travel together?  I meant to go to-night, but if you prefer to wait till to-morrow, Count, I can alter my arrangements.”

The Comte de Virieu remained silent for what seemed to the two waiting for his answer a very long time.

“This evening will suit me just as well as to-morrow,” he said at last.

He did not look at Sylvia.  He had not looked her way since Chester had joined them.  With a hand that shook a little he took his cigarette-case out of his pocket, and held it out to the other man.

The die was cast.  So be it.  Chester, prig though he might be, was right in his wish to remove Sylvia from his, Paul de Virieu’s, company.  The Englishman was more right than he would ever know.

How amazed Chester would have been had he been able to see straight into Paul de Virieu’s heart!  Had he divined the other’s almost unendurable temptation to take Sylvia Bailey at her word, to impose on her pathetic ignorance of life, to allow her to become a gambler’s wife.

Had the woman he loved been penniless, the Comte de Virieu would probably have yielded to the temptation which now came in the subtle garb of jealousy—­keen, poisoned-fanged jealousy of this fine looking young Englishman who stood before them both.

Would Sylvia ever cling to this man as she had clung to him—­would she ever allow Chester to kiss her as she had allowed Paul to kiss her, and that after he had released the hand she had laid in his?

But alas! there are kisses and kisses—­clingings and clingings.  Chester, so the Frenchman with his wide disillusioned knowledge of life felt only too sure, would win Sylvia in time.

“Shall we go in and find out the time of the Swiss express?” he asked the other man, “or perhaps you have already decided on a train?”

“No, I haven’t looked one out yet.”

They strolled off together towards the house, and Sylvia walked blindly on to the grass and sat down on one of the rocking-chairs of which M. Polperro was so proud.

She looked after the two men with a sense of oppressed bewilderment.  Then they were both going away—­both going to leave her?

After to-day—­how strange, how utterly unnatural the parting seemed—­she would probably never see Paul de Virieu again.

* * * * *

The day went like a dream—­a fantastic, unreal dream.

Sylvia did not see Count Paul again alone.  She and Chester went a drive in the afternoon—­the expedition had been arranged the day before with the Wachners, and there seemed no valid reason why it should be put off.

And then Madame Wachner with her usual impulsive good nature, on hearing that both Chester and the Comte de Virieu were going away, warmly invited Sylvia to supper at the Chalet des Muguets for that same night, and Sylvia listlessly accepted.  She did not care what she did or where she went.