Fortunately there were many things to distract Sylvia’s thoughts from Anna Wolsky.  She now began each morning with a two hours’ ride with Paul de Virieu.  She had a graceful seat, and had been well taught; only a little practice, so the Count assured her, was needed to make her into a really good horsewoman, the more so that she was very fearless.

Leaving the flat plain of Lacville far behind them, they would make their way into the Forest of Montmorency, and through to the wide valley, which is so beautiful and so little known to most foreign visitors to Paris.

The Duchesse d’Eglemont had sent her maid to Lacville with the riding habit she was lending Sylvia, and by a word M. Polperro let fall, the Englishwoman realised, with mingled confusion and amusement, that the hotel-keeper supposed her to be an old and intimate friend of Count Paul’s sister.

The other people in the hotel began to treat her with marked cordiality.

And so it came to pass that outwardly the Polish lady’s disappearance came to be regarded even by Sylvia as having only been a ripple on the pleasant, lazy, agreeable life she, Count Paul, and last, not least, the Wachners, were all leading at Lacville.

In fact, as the days went on, only Mrs. Bailey herself and that kindly couple, Madame Wachner and her silent husband, seemed to remember that Anna had ever been there.  During the first days, when Sylvia had been really very anxious and troubled, she had had cause to be grateful to the Wachners for their sympathy; for whereas Paul de Virieu seemed only interested in Anna Wolsky because she, Sylvia, herself was interested, both Madame Wachner and her morose, silent husband showed real concern and distress at the mysterious lack of news.

Whenever Sylvia saw them, and she saw them daily at the Casino, either Madame Wachner or L’Ami Fritz would ask her in an eager, sympathetic voice, “Have you had news of Madame Wolsky?”

And then, when she shook her head sadly, they would express—­and especially Madame Wachner would express—­increasing concern and surprise at Anna’s extraordinary silence.

“If only she had come to us as she arranged to do!” the older woman exclaimed more than once in a regretful tone.  “Then, at any rate, we should know something; she would not have concealed her plans from us entirely; we were, if new friends, yet on such kind, intimate terms with the dear soul!”

And now, as had been the case exactly a week ago, Sylvia was resting in her room.  She was sitting just as she had then sat, in a chair drawn up close to the window.  There had been no ride that morning, for Paul de Virieu had been obliged to go into Paris for the day.

Sylvia felt dull and listless.  She had never before experienced that aching longing for the presence of another human being which in our civilised life is disguised under many names, but which in this case, Sylvia herself called by that of “friendship.”