But it was not the easy, idle, purposeless life she was now leading that brought the pretty English widow that strange, unacknowledged feeling of entire content with life.

What made existence at Lacville so exciting and so exceptionally interesting to Sylvia Bailey was her friendship with Comte Paul de Virieu.

There is in every woman a passion for romance, and in Sylvia this passion had been baulked, not satisfied, by her first marriage.

Bill Chester loved her well and deeply, but he was her lawyer and trustee as well as her lover.  He had an honest, straightforward nature, and when with her something always prompted Chester to act the part of candid friend, and the part of candid friend fits in very ill with that of lover.  To take but one example of how ill his honesty of purpose served him in the matter, Sylvia had never really forgiven him the “fuss” he had made about her string of pearls.

But with the Comte de Virieu she never quite knew what to be at, and mystery is the food of romance.

At the Villa du Lac the two were almost inseparable, and yet so intelligently and quietly did the Count arrange their frequent meetings—­their long walks and talks in the large deserted garden, their pleasant morning saunters through the little town—­that no one, or so Sylvia believed, was aware of any special intimacy between them.

Sometimes, as they paced up and down the flower-bordered paths of the old kitchen-garden, or when, tired of walking, they made their way into the orangery and sat down on the circular stone bench by the fountain, Sylvia would remember, deep in her heart, the first time Count Paul had brought her there; and how she had been a little frightened, not perhaps altogether unpleasantly so, by his proximity!

She had feared—­but she was now deeply ashamed of having entertained such a thought—­that he might suddenly begin making violent love to her, that he might perhaps try to kiss her!  Were not all Frenchmen of his type rather gay dogs?

But nothing—­nothing of the sort had ever been within measurable distance of happening.  On the contrary, he always treated her with scrupulous respect, and he never—­and this sometimes piqued Sylvia—­made love to her, or attempted to flirt with her.  Instead, he talked to her in that intimate, that confiding fashion which a woman finds so attractive in a man when she has reason to believe his confidences are made to her alone.

When Bill Chester asked her not to do something she desired to do, Sylvia felt annoyed and impatient, but when Count Paul, as she had fallen into the way of calling him, made no secret of his wish that she should give up play, Sylvia felt touched and pleased that he should care.

Early in their acquaintance the Count had warned her against making casual friendships in the Gambling Rooms, and he even did not like her knowing—­this amused Sylvia—­the harmless Wachners.