M. Girard was a very busy man, yet he always found time for a talk with any foreign client of his hotel.

“I want to know,” said Sylvia, smiling in spite of herself, for the hotel-keeper was such a merry-looking little man, and so utterly different from any English hotel-keeper she had ever seen!—­“I want to know, M. Girard, which is the best way to a place called Lacville?  Have you ever been there?”

“Lacville?” echoed M. Girard delightedly; but there came a rather funny look over his shrewd, round face.  “Yes, indeed, I have been there, Madame!  Not this season yet, but often last summer, and I shall be going there shortly again.  I have a friend there—­indeed, he is more than a friend, he is a relation of mine, who keeps the most select hotel at Lacville.  It is called the Villa du Lac.  Is Madame thinking of going to Lacville instead of to Switzerland?”

Sylvia shook her head.  “Oh, no!  But Madame Wolsky is there to-day, and I should have gone with her if I had been ready when she came down.  It has turned so hot that I feel a few hours in the country would be pleasant, and I am quite likely to meet her, for I suppose Lacville is not a very large place, M. Girard?”

The hotel-keeper hesitated; he found it really difficult to give a true answer to this simple question.

“Lacville?” he repeated; “well—­Dame!  Lacville is Lacville!  It is not like anything Madame has ever seen.  On that I would lay my life.  First, there is a most beautiful lake—­that is, perhaps, the principal attraction;—­then the villas of Lacville—­ah! they are ravishingly lovely, and then there is also”—­he fixed his black eyes on her—­“a Casino.”

“A Casino?” echoed Sylvia.  She scarcely knew what a Casino was.

“But to see the Casino properly Madame must go at night, and it would be well if Madame were accompanied by a gentleman.  I do not think Madame should go by herself, but if Madame really desires to see Lacville properly my wife and I will make a great pleasure to ourselves to accompany her there one Sunday night.  It is very gay, is Lacville on Sunday night—­or, perhaps,” added M. Girard quickly, “Madame, being English, would prefer a Saturday night?  Lacville is also very gay on Saturday nights.”

“But is there anything going on there at night?” asked Sylvia, astonished.  “I thought Lacville was a country place.”

“There are a hundred and twenty trains daily from the Gare du Nord to Lacville,” said the hotel-keeper drily.  “A great many Parisians spend the evening there each day.  They do not start till nine o’clock in the evening, and they are back, having spent a very pleasant, or sometimes an unpleasant, soiree, before midnight.”

“A hundred and twenty trains!” repeated Sylvia, amazed.  “But why do so many people want to go to Lacville?”