The Chink in the Armour | Page 2

Yet here she was in Paris, and here was the foreign woman standing close to her!
Nay more, Anna Wolsky had become--it was really rather odd that it should be so--the first intimate friend of her own sex Sylvia had made since she was a grown-up woman.
"I do believe in fortune-tellers," said Madame Wolsky deliberately, "and that being so I shall spend my afternoon in going up to Montmartre, to the Rue Jolie, to hear what this Cagliostra has to say. It will be what you in England call 'a lark'! And I do not see why I should not give myself so cheap a lark as a five-franc lark!"
"Oh, if you really mean to go, I think I will go too!" cried Sylvia, gaily.
She was beginning to feel less tired, and the thought of a long lonely afternoon spent indoors and by herself lacked attraction.
Linking her arm through her friend's, she went downstairs and into the barely furnished dining-room, which was so very unlike an English hotel dining-room. In this dining-room the wallpaper simulated a vine-covered trellis, from out of which peeped blue-plumaged birds, and on each little table, covered by an unbleached table-cloth, stood an oil and vinegar cruet and a half-bottle of wine.
The H?tel de l'Horloge was a typical French hotel, and foreigners very seldom stayed there. Sylvia had been told of the place by the old French lady who had been her governess, and who had taught her to speak French exceptionally well.
Several quiet Frenchmen, who had offices in the neighbourhood, were "en pension" at the H?tel de l'Horloge, and as the two friends came in many were the steady, speculative glances cast in their direction.
To the average Frenchman every woman is interesting; for every Frenchman is in love with love, and in each fair stranger he sees the possible heroine of a romance in which he may play the agreeable part of hero. So it was that Sylvia Bailey and Anna Wolsky both had their silent admirers among those who lunched and dined in the narrow green and white dining-room of the H?tel de l'Horloge.
Only a Frenchman would have given a second look at the Polish lady while Sylvia was by, but a Frenchman, being both a philosopher and a logician by nature, is very apt to content himself with the second-best when he knows the best is not for him.
The two friends were in entire contrast to one another. Madame Wolsky was tall, dark, almost swarthy; there was a look of rather haughty pride and reserve on her strong-featured face. She dressed extremely plainly, the only ornament ever worn by her being a small gold horseshoe, in the centre of which was treasured--so, not long ago, she had confided to Sylvia, who had been at once horrified and thrilled--a piece of the rope with which a man had hanged himself at Monte Carlo two years before! For Madame Wolsky--and she made no secret of the fact to her new friend--was a gambler.
Anna Wolsky was never really happy, she did not feel more than half alive, when away from the green cloth. She had only left Monte Carlo when the heat began to make the place unbearable to one of her northern temperament, and she was soon moving on to one of the French watering-places, where gambling of sorts can be indulged in all the summer through.
Different in looks, in temperament, and in tastes were the two young widows, and this, perhaps, was why they got on so excellently well together.
Sylvia Bailey was the foreign ideal of a beautiful Englishwoman. Her hair was fair, and curled naturally. Her eyes were of that blue which looks violet in the sunlight; and she had a delicate, rose leaf complexion.
Married when only nineteen to a man much older than herself, she was now at twenty-five a widow, and one without any intimate duties or close ties to fill her existence. Though she had mourned George Bailey sincerely, she had soon recovered all her normal interest and pleasure in life.
Mrs. Bailey was fond of dress and able to indulge her taste; but, even so, good feeling and the standard of propriety of the English country town of Market Dalling where she had spent most of her life, perhaps also a subtle instinct that nothing else would ever suit her so well, made her remain rigidly faithful to white and black, pale grey, and lavender. She also wore only one ornament, but it was a very becoming and an exceedingly costly ornament, for it consisted of a string of large and finely-matched pearls.
As the two friends went upstairs after luncheon Madame Wolsky said earnestly, "If I were you, Sylvia, I would certainly leave your pearls in the office this afternoon. Where is the use of wearing them on such an expedition