The letter must have been actually written when Count Paul was in Paris with his sister—­and yet, when they had passed one another the evening before, he had bowed as distantly, as coldly, as he might have done to the most casual of acquaintances.

Sylvia got up, filled with a tumult of excited feeling which this simple invitation to luncheon scarcely warranted.

But Paul de Virieu came in from his ride also eager, excited, smiling.

“Have you received a note from my sister?” he asked, hurrying towards her in the dining-room which they now had to themselves each morning.  “When I told her how you and I had become”—­he hesitated a moment, and then added the words, “good friends, she said how much she would like to meet you.  I know that you and my dear Marie-Anne would like one another—­”

“It is very kind of your sister to ask me to come and see her,” said Sylvia, a little stiffly.

“I am going back to Paris this evening,” he went on, “to stay with my sister for a couple of nights.  So if you can come to-morrow to lunch, as I think my sister has asked you to do, I will meet you at the station.”

After breakfast they went out into the garden, and when they were free of the house Count Paul said suddenly,

“I told Marie-Anne that you were fond of riding, and, with your permission, she proposes to send over a horse for you every morning.  And, Madame—­forgive me—­but I told her I feared you had no riding habit!  You and she, however, are much the same height, and she thinks that she might be able to lend you one if you will honour her by accepting the loan of it during the time you are at Lacville.”

Sylvia was bewildered, she scarcely knew how to accept so much kindness.

“If you will write a line to my sister some time to-day,” continued the Count, “I will be the bearer of your letter.”

* * * * *

That day marked a very great advance in the friendship of Sylvia Bailey and Paul de Virieu.

Till that day, much as he had talked to her about himself and his life, and the many curious adventures he had had, for he had travelled a great deal, and was a cultivated man, he had very seldom spoken to her of his relations.

But to-day he told her a great deal about them, and she found herself taking a very keen, intimate interest in this group of French people whom she had never seen—­whom, perhaps, with one exception, she never would see.

How unlike English folk they must be—­these relations of Count Paul!  For the matter of that, how unlike any people Sylvia had ever seen or heard of.

First, he told her of the sweet-natured, pious young duchess who was to be her hostess on the morrow—­the sister whom Paul loved so dearly, and to whom he owed so much.

Then he described, in less kindly terms, her proud narrow-minded, if generous, husband, the French duke who still lived—­thanks to the fact that his grandmother had been the daughter of a great Russian banker—­much as must have lived the nobles in the Middle Ages—­apart, that is, from everything that would remind him that there was anything in the world of which he disapproved or which he disliked.