“Yes!  He might easily give up that life for the sake of a beloved woman.  But would he remain always faithful in his renunciation?  That is the question which none, least of all himself, can answer!”

The victoria was now crossing one of the bridges which are, perhaps, the noblest possession of outdoor Paris.

Count Paul changed the subject.  He had seen with mingled pain and joy how much his last honest words had troubled her.

“My brother-in-law has never cared to move west, as so many of his friends have done,” he observed.  “He prefers to remain in the old family house that was built by his great-grandfather before the French Revolution.”

Soon they were bowling along a quiet, sunny street, edged with high walls overhung with trees.  The street bore the name of Babylon.

And indeed there was something almost Babylonian, something very splendid in the vast courtyard which formed the centre of what appeared, to Sylvia’s fascinated eyes, a grey stone palace.  The long rows of high, narrow windows which now encompassed her were all closed, but with the clatter of the horses’ hoofs on the huge paving-stones the great house stirred into life.

The carriage drew up.  Count Paul jumped out and gave Sylvia his hand.  Huge iron doors, that looked as if they could shut out an invading army, were flung open, and after a moment’s pause, Paul de Virieu led Sylvia Bailey across the threshold of the historic Hotel d’Eglemont.

She had never seen, she had never imagined, such pomp, such solemn state, as that which greeted her, and there came across her a childish wish that Anna Wolsky and the Wachners could witness the scene—­the hall hung with tapestries given to an ancestor of the Duc d’Eglemont by Louis the Fourteenth, the line of powdered footmen, and the solemn major-domo who ushered them up the wide staircase, at the head of which there stood a slender, white-clad young woman, with a sweet, eager face.

This was the first time Sylvia Bailey had met a duchess, and she was perhaps a little surprised to see how very unpretentious a duchess could be!

Marie-Anne d’Eglemont spoke in a low, almost timid voice, her English being far less good than her brother’s, and yet how truly kind and highly-bred she at once showed herself, putting Sylvia at her ease, and appearing to think there was nothing at all unusual in Mrs. Bailey’s friendship with Paul de Virieu!

And then, after they had lunched in an octagon room of which each panel had been painted by Van Loo, and which opened on a garden where the green glades and high trees looked as if they must be far from a great city, there suddenly glided in a tiny old lady, dressed in a sweeping black gown and little frilled lace cap.

Count Paul bowing low before her, kissed her waxen-looking right hand.

“My dear godmother, let me present to you Mrs. Bailey,” and Sylvia felt herself being closely, rather pitilessly, inspected by shrewd though not unkindly eyes—­eyes sunken, dimmed by age, yet seeing more, perhaps, than younger eyes would have seen.