The Chink in the Armour | Page 2

of the slightest interest."
Her conscience pricked her a little as she said this, for "Pharaoh" had
certainly predicted a journey which she had then no intention of taking,
and a meeting with a foreign woman. 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 Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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,