The next morning found Paul de Virieu walking up and down platform No.

9 of the Gare du Nord, waiting for Mrs.Bailey's train, which was due to arrive from Lacville at eleven o'clock.
Though he looked as if he hadn't a care in the world save the pleasant care of enjoying the present and looking forward to the future, life was very grey just now to the young Frenchman.
To a Parisian, Paris in hot weather is a depressing place, even under the pleasantest of circumstances, and the Count felt an alien and an outcast in the city where he had spent much of his careless and happy youth.
His sister, the Duchesse d'Eglemont, who had journeyed all the way from Brittany to see him for two or three days, had received him with that touch of painful affection which the kindly and the prosperous so often bestow on those whom they feel to be at once beloved and prodigal.
When with his dear Marie-Anne, Paul de Virieu always felt as though he had been condemned to be guillotined, and as if she were doing everything to make his last days on earth as pleasant as possible.
When he had proposed that his sister should ask his new friend, this English widow he had met at Lacville, to luncheon--nay more, when he had asked Marie-Anne to lend Mrs.Bailey a riding habit, and to arrange that one of the Duc's horses should come over every morning in order that he and Mrs.Bailey might ride together--the kind Duchesse had at once assented, almost too eagerly, to his requests.

And she had asked her brother no tiresome, indiscreet questions as to his relations with the young Englishwoman,--whether, for instance, he was really fond of Sylvia, whether it was conceivably possible that he was thinking of marrying her?
And, truth to tell, Paul de Virieu would have found it very difficult to give an honest answer to the question.

He was in a strange, debatable state of mind about Sylvia--beautiful, simple, unsophisticated Sylvia Bailey.
He told himself, and that very often, that the young Englishwoman, with her absurd, touching lack of worldly knowledge, had no business to be living in such a place as Lacville, wasting her money at the Baccarat tables, and knowing such queer people as were--well, yes, even Anna Wolsky was queer--Madame Wolsky and the Wachners! But if Sylvia Bailey had no business to be at Lacville, he, Paul de Virieu, had no business to be flirting with her as he was doing--for though Sylvia was honestly unaware of the fact, the Count was carrying on what he well knew to be a very agreeable flirtation with the lady he called in his own mind his "_petite amie Anglaise_," and very much he was enjoying the experience--when his conscience allowed him to enjoy it.
Till the last few weeks Paul de Virieu had supposed himself to have come to that time of life when a man can no longer feel the delicious tremors of love.

Now no man, least of all a Frenchman, likes to feel that this time has come, and it was inexpressibly delightful to him to know that he had been mistaken--that he could still enjoy the most absorbing and enchanting sensation vouchsafed to poor humanity.
He was in love! In love for the first time for many years, and with a sweet, happy-natured woman, who became more intimately dear to him every moment that went by.