On the morning after her visit to Madame Cagliostra, Sylvia Bailey woke
later than usual. She had had a disturbed night, and it was pleasant to
feel that she could spend a long restful day doing nothing, or only
taking part in one of the gay little expeditions which make Paris to
a stranger the most delightful of European capitals.
She opened wide both the windows of her room, and from outside there
floated in a busy, happy murmur, for Paris is an early city, and nine
o'clock there is equivalent to eleven o'clock in London.
She heard the picturesque street cries of the flower-sellers in the
Avenue de l'Opéra--"Beflower yourselves, gentlemen and ladies, beflower
yourselves!"
The gay, shrill sounds floated in to her, and, in spite of her bad night
and ugly dreams, she felt extraordinarily well and happy.
Cities are like people. In some cities one feels at home at once; others
remain, however well acquainted we become with them, always strangers.
Sylvia Bailey, born, bred, married, widowed in an English provincial
town, had always felt strange in London. But with Paris,--dear,
delightful, sunny Paris,--she had become on the closest, the most
affectionately intimate terms from the first day. She had only been
here a month, and yet she already knew with familiar knowledge the
quarter in which was situated her quiet little hotel, that wonderful
square mile--it is not more--which has as its centre the Paris Opera
House, and which includes the Rue de la Paix and the beginning of
each of the great arteries of modern Paris.
And that was not all. Sylvia Bailey knew something of the France of the
past. The quiet, clever, old-fashioned Frenchwoman by whom she had been
educated had seen to that. She could wander through the narrow streets
on the other side of the Seine, and reconstitute the amazing, moving,
tragic things which happened there during the great Revolution.
She was now half sorry to think that in ten days or so she had promised
to join some acquaintances in Switzerland. Luckily her trustee and
would-be lover, Bill Chester, proposed to come out and join the party
there. That was something to look forward to, for Sylvia was very fond
of him, though he sometimes made her angry by his fussy ways. Chester had
not approved of her going to Paris by herself, and he would certainly
have shaken his head had he known of yesterday's visit to Madame
Cagliostra.
And then Sylvia Bailey began to think of her new friend: of Anna Wolsky.
She was sorry, very sorry, that they were going to part so soon. If only
Anna would consent to come on with her to Switzerland! But alas! there
was no chance of that, for there are no Casinos, no gambling, in the land
of William Tell.
There came a knock at the door, and Madame Wolsky walked in. She was
dressed for a journey.
"I have to go out of town this morning," she said, "but the place I am
going to is quite near, and I shall be back this afternoon."
"Where are you going?" asked Sylvia, naïvely. "Or is it a secret?"
"No, it is not a secret." Anna smiled provokingly. "I am going to go to a
place called Lacville. I do not suppose you have ever heard of Lacville,
Sylvia?"
The other shook her head.
"I thought not," cried Anna, suddenly bursting out laughing. Then,
"Good-bye!" she exclaimed, and she was gone before Sylvia could say
anything else.
Lacville? There had been a sparkle, a look of life, of energy in Anna's
face. Why was Anna Wolsky going to Lacville? There was something about
the place concerning which she had chosen to be mysterious, and yet she
had made no secret of going there.
Mrs. Bailey jumped out of bed, and dressed rather more quickly than
usual.
It was a very hot day. In fact, it was unpleasantly hot. How delightful
it would be to get into the country even for an hour. Why should she not
also make her way to Lacville?
She opened the "Guide-Book to Paris and its Environs," of which she had
made such good use in the last month, and looked up "Lacville" in the
index.
Situated within a drive of the beautiful Forest of Montmorency, the
pretty little town of Lacville is still famed for its healing springs
and during the summer months of the year is much frequented by
Parisians. There are frequent trains from the Gare du Nord.
No kind fairy whispered the truth to Sylvia--namely that this account is
only half, nay, a quarter, or an eighth, of the truth.
Lacville is the spendthrift, the gambler--the austere would call her
the chartered libertine--of the group of pretty country towns which
encircle Paris; for Lacville is in the proud possession of a Gambling
Concession which has gradually turned what was once the quietest of
inland watering-places into a miniature Monte Carlo.
The vast majority of intelligent, cultivated English and American
visitors to Paris remain quite unaware that there is, within half an hour
of the French capital, such a spot; the minority, those tourists who do
make their way to the alluring little place, generally live to regret it.
But Sylvia knew nothing, nay, less than nothing, of all this, and even if
she had known, it would not have stayed her steps to-day.
She put on her hat and hurried down to the office. There M. Girard would
doubtless tell her of a good train to Lacville, and if it were a small
place she might easily run across Anna Wolsky.
M. Girard was a very busy man, yet he always found time for a talk with
any foreign client of his hotel.
"I want to know," said Sylvia, smiling in spite of herself, for the
hotel-keeper was such a merry-looking little man, and so utterly
different from any English hotel-keeper she had ever seen!--"I want to
know, M. Girard, which is the best way to a place called Lacville? Have
you ever been there?"
"Lacville?" echoed M. Girard delightedly; but there came a rather funny
look over his shrewd, round face. "Yes, indeed, I have been there,
Madame! Not this season yet, but often last summer, and I shall be going
there shortly again. I have a friend there--indeed, he is more than a
friend, he is a relation of mine, who keeps the most select hotel at
Lacville. It is called the Villa du Lac. Is Madame thinking of going to
Lacville instead of to Switzerland?"
Sylvia shook her head. "Oh, no! But Madame Wolsky is there to-day, and I
should have gone with her if I had been ready when she came down. It has
turned so hot that I feel a few hours in the country would be pleasant,
and I am quite likely to meet her, for I suppose Lacville is not a very
large place, M. Girard?"
The hotel-keeper hesitated; he found it really difficult to give a true
answer to this simple question.
"Lacville?" he repeated; "well--Dame! Lacville is Lacville! It is not
like anything Madame has ever seen. On that I would lay my life. First,
there is a most beautiful lake--that is, perhaps, the principal
attraction;--then the villas of Lacville--ah! they are ravishingly
lovely, and then there is also"--he fixed his black eyes on her--"a
Casino."
"A Casino?" echoed Sylvia. She scarcely knew what a Casino was.
"But to see the Casino properly Madame must go at night, and it would be
well if Madame were accompanied by a gentleman. I do not think Madame
should go by herself, but if Madame really desires to see Lacville
properly my wife and I will make a great pleasure to ourselves to
accompany her there one Sunday night. It is very gay, is Lacville on
Sunday night--or, perhaps," added M. Girard quickly, "Madame, being
English, would prefer a Saturday night? Lacville is also very gay on
Saturday nights."
"But is there anything going on there at night?" asked Sylvia,
astonished. "I thought Lacville was a country place."
"There are a hundred and twenty trains daily from the Gare du Nord to
Lacville," said the hotel-keeper drily. "A great many Parisians spend the
evening there each day. They do not start till nine o'clock in the
evening, and they are back, having spent a very pleasant, or sometimes
an unpleasant, soirée, before midnight."
"A hundred and twenty trains!" repeated Sylvia, amazed. "But why do so
many people want to go to Lacville?"
Again the hotel-keeper stared at her with a questioning look. Was it
possible that pretty Madame Bailey did not know what was the real
attraction of Lacville? Yet it was not his business to run the place
down--as a matter of fact, he and his wife had invested nearly a thousand
pounds of their hard-earned savings in their relation's hotel, the Villa
du Lac. If Madame Bailey really wanted to leave salubrious, beautiful
Paris for the summer, why should she not go to Lacville instead of to
dull, puritanical, stupid Switzerland?
These thoughts rushed through the active brain of M. Girard with amazing
quickness.
"Many people go to Lacville in order to play baccarat," he said lightly.
And then Sylvia knew why Anna Wolsky had gone to Lacville.
"But apart from the play, Lacville is a little paradise, Madame," he went
on enthusiastically. "It is a beauteous spot, just like a scene in an
opera. There is the romantic lake, edged with high, shady trees and
princely villas--and then the gay, the delightful Casino!"
"And is there a train soon?"
"I will look Madame out a train this moment, and I will also give her
one of my cousin Polperro's cards. Madame has, of course, heard of the
Empress Eugénie? Well, the Villa du Lac once belonged to one of the
Empress's gentlemen-in-waiting. The very highest nobility stay at the
Villa du Lac with my cousin. At this very moment he has Count Paul de
Virieu, the brother-in-law of a duke, among his clients--"
M. Girard had noticed the British fondness for titles.
"You see, Madame, my cousin was chef to the Emperor of Brazil's
sister--this has given him a connection among the nobility. In the winter
he has an hotel at Mentone," he was looking up the train while he chatted
happily.
"There is a train every ten minutes," he said at last, "from the Gare du
Nord. Or, if Madame prefers it, she could walk up from here to the Square
of the Trinité and take the tramway; but it is quicker and pleasanter to
go by train--unless, indeed, Madame wishes to offer herself the luxury of
an automobile. That, alas! I fear would cost Madame twenty to thirty
francs."
"Of course I will go by train," said Sylvia, smiling, "and I will lunch
at your cousin's hotel, M. Girard."
It would be quite easy to find Anna, or so she thought, for Anna would be
at the Casino. Sylvia felt painfully interested in her friend's love of
gambling. It was so strange that Anna was not ashamed of it.
And then as she drove to the great railway terminus, from which a hundred
and twenty trains start daily for Lacville, it seemed to Sylvia that the
whole of Paris was placarded with the name of the place she was now about
to visit for the first time!
On every hoarding, on every bare piece of wall, were spread large,
flamboyant posters showing a garish but not unattractive landscape. There
was the sun sparkling on a wide stretch of water edged with high trees,
and gay with little sailing boats, each boat with its human freight of
two lovers. Jutting out into the blue lake was a great white building,
which Sylvia realised must be the Casino. And under each picture ran the
words "Lacville-les-Bains" printed in very black letters.
When she got to the Gare du Nord the same advertisement stared down at
her from the walls of the station and of the waiting-rooms.
It was certainly odd that she had never heard of Lacville, and that the
place had never been mentioned to her by any of those of her English
acquaintances who thought they knew Paris so well.
The Lacville train was full of happy, chattering people. In her
first-class carriage she had five fellow-travellers--a man and woman
and three children. They looked cheerful, prosperous people, and soon
the husband and wife began talking eagerly together.
"I really think," said the lady suddenly, "that we might have chosen some
other place than Lacville in which to spend to-day! There are many places
the children would have enjoyed more."
"But there is no place," said her husband in a jovial tone, "where I can
spend an amusing hour in the afternoon."
"Ah, my friend, I feared that was coming!" exclaimed his wife,
shaking her head. "But remember what happened the last time we were
at Lacville--I mean the afternoon when you lost seventy francs!"
"But you forget that other afternoon!" answered the man eagerly. "I
mean the afternoon when I made a hundred francs, and bought you and
the children a number of delightful little gifts with the money!"
Sylvia was amused. How quaint and odd French people were! She could
not imagine such an interchange of words between an English husband and
wife, especially before a stranger. And then her amusement was further
increased, for the youngest child, a boy of about six, cried out that he
also wished to go to the Casino with his dear papa.
"No, no, my sweet cabbage, that will happen quite soon enough, when thou
art older! If thou art in the least like thy father, there will certainly
come a time when thou also wilt go and lose well-earned money at the
Tables," said his mother tenderly.
"But if I win, then I shall buy thee a present," said the sweet cabbage
coaxingly.
Sylvia looked out of the window. These happy, chattering people made her
feel lonely, and even a little depressed.
The country through which the train was passing was very flat and
ugly--in fact, it could scarcely be called country at all. And when at
last they drew up into the large station of what was once a quiet, remote
village where Parisian invalids, too poor to go elsewhere, came to take
medicinal waters, she felt a pang of disappointment. Lacville, as seen
from the railway, is an unattractive place.
"Is this Madame's first visit to Lacville?" asked her fellow-traveller,
helping her out of the railway carriage. "If so, Madame would doubtless
like to make her way to the lake. Would she care to accompany us
thither?"
Sylvia hesitated. She almost felt inclined to go back to Paris by the
next train. She told herself that there was no hope of finding Anna in
such a large place, and that it was unlikely that this dreary-looking
town would offer anything in the least pleasant or amusing on a very
hot day.
But "It will be enchanting by the lake!" she heard some one say eagerly.
And this chance remark made up her mind for her. After all, she might as
well go and see the lake, of which everyone who mentioned Lacville spoke
so enthusiastically.
Down the whole party swept along a narrow street, bordered by high white
houses, shabby cafés, and little shops. Quite a crowd had left the
station, and they were all now going the same way.
A turn in the narrow street, and Sylvia uttered a low cry of pleasure and
astonishment!
Before her, like a scene in a play when the curtain is rung up, there
suddenly appeared an immense sunlit expanse of water, fringed by high
trees, and bordered by quaint, pretty châlets and villas, fantastic in
shape, and each surrounded by a garden, which in many cases ran down to
the edge of the lake.
To the right, stretching out over the water, its pinnacles and minarets
reflected in blue translucent depths, rose what looked like a great white
marble palace.
"Is it not lovely?" said the Frenchman eagerly. "And the water of the
lake is so shallow, Madame, there is no fear of anyone being drowned in
it! That is such an advantage when one has children."
"And it is a hundred times more charming in the afternoon," his wife
chimed in, happily, "for then the lake is so full of little sailing-boats
that you can hardly see the water. Oh, it is gay then, very gay!"
She glanced at Mrs. Bailey's pretty grey muslin dress and elegant
parasol.
"I suppose Madame is going to one of the great restaurants? As for us,
we shall make our way into a wood and have our luncheon there. It is
expensive going to a restaurant with children."
She nodded pleasantly, with the easy, graceful familiarity which
foreigners show in their dealings with strangers; and, shepherding their
little party along, the worthy pair went briskly off by the broad avenue
which girdles the lake.
Again Sylvia felt curiously alone. She was surrounded on every side by
groups of merry-looking people, and already out on the lake there floated
tiny white-sailed boats, each containing a man and a girl.
Everyone seemed to have a companion or companions; she alone was
solitary. She even found herself wondering what she was doing there in a
foreign country, by herself, when she might have been in England, in her
own pleasant house at Market Dalling!
She took out of her bag the card which the landlord of the Hôtel de
l'Horloge had pressed upon her. "Hôtel Pension, Villa du Lac, Lacville."
She went up rather timidly to a respectable-looking old bourgeois and his
wife. "Do you know," she asked, "where is the Villa du Lac?"
"Certainly, Madame," answered the old man amiably. "It is there, close to
you, not a hundred yards away. That big white house to our left." And
then, with that love of giving information which possesses so many
Frenchman, he added:
"The Villa du Lac once belonged to the Marquis de Para, who was
gentleman-in-waiting to the Empress Eugénie. He and his family lived on
here long after the war, in fact"--he lowered his voice--"till the
Concession was granted to the Casino. You know what I mean? The Gambling
Concession. Since then the world of Lacville has become rather mixed, as
I have reason to know, for my wife and I have lived here fifteen years.
The Marquis de Para sold his charming villa. He was driven away, like so
many other excellent people. So the Villa du Lac is now an hotel, where
doubtless Madame has friends?"
Sylvia bowed and thanked him. Yes, the Villa du Lac even now looked like
a delightful and well-kept private house, rather than like an hotel. It
stood some way back--behind high wrought-steel and gilt gates--from the
sandy road which lay between it and the lake, and the stone-paved
courtyard was edged with a line of green tubs, containing orange trees.
Sylvia walked through the gates, which stood hospitably open, and when
she was half-way up the horseshoe stone-staircase which led to the front
door, a man, dressed in the white dress of a French chef, and bearing an
almost ludicrous resemblance to M. Girard, came hurrying out.
"Madame Bailey?" he exclaimed joyously, and bowing very low. "Have I the
honour of greeting Madame Bailey? My cousin telephoned to me that you
might be coming, Madame, to déjeuner!" And as Sylvia smiled in assent:
"I am delighted, I am honoured, by the visit of Madame Bailey!"
Sylvia laughed outright. She really could not help it! It was very nice
and thoughtful of M. Girard to have telephoned to his cousin. But how
dreadful it would have been if she had gone straight back to Paris from
the station. All these kind people would have had their trouble for
nothing.
M. Polperro was a shrewd Southerner, and he had had the sense to make
but few alterations to the Villa du Lac. It therefore retained something
of the grand air it had worn in the days when it had been the property
of a Court official. The large, cool, circular hall into which the
hotel-keeper ushered Sylvia was charming, as were the long, finely
decorated reception-rooms on either side.
The dining-room, filled with small oval tables, to which M. Polperro next
led his honoured guest, had been built out since the house had become an
hotel. It commanded a view of the lake on the one side, and of the large,
shady garden of the villa on the other.
"I have arranged for Madame a little table in what we call the lake
window," observed M. Polperro. "As yet Lacville is very empty. Paris is
so delightful," he sighed, "but very soon, when the heat comes, Lacville
will be quite full," he smiled joyously. "I myself have a very choice
clientèle--I do not deal with rubbish." He drew himself up proudly. "My
clients come back to me year after year. Already I have six visitors, and
in ten days my pension will be _au grand complet_. It is quality, not
quantity, that I desire, Madame. If ever you know anyone who wishes to
come to Lacville you may safely recommend them--I say it with my hands
on my heart," and he suited his action to his words--"to the Villa du
Lac."
How delightful it all was to Sylvia Bailey! No wonder her feeling of
depression and loneliness vanished.
As she sat down, and looked out of the bay window which commanded the
whole length of the gleaming, sun-flecked lake, she told herself that,
pleasant as was Paris, Lacville on a hot day was certainly a hundred
times pleasanter than Paris.
And the Casino? Sylvia fixed her blue eyes on the white, fairy-like
group of buildings, which were so attractive an addition to the pretty
landscape.
Surely one might spend a pleasant time at Lacville and never play for
money? Though she was inclined to feel that in this matter of gambling
English people are curiously narrow. It was better to be philosophical
about it, like that excellent Frenchwoman in the train, who had not
grudged her husband a little amusement, even if it entailed his losing
what she had described as "hard-earned money."
Though she had to wait nearly half an hour for her meal, the time passed
quickly; and when at last déjeuner was served to her well and deftly by a
pleasant-faced young waitress dressed in Breton costume, each item of the
carefully-prepared meal was delicious. M. Polperro had not been chef to a
Princess for nothing.
Sylvia Bailey was not greedy, but like most healthy people she enjoyed
good food, and she had very seldom tasted quite such good food as that
which was served to her at the Hôtel du Lac on this memorable June day.
She had almost finished her luncheon when a fair young man came in and
sat down at a small table situated at the other end of the dining-room,
close to the window overlooking the garden of the Villa du Lac.