"I hope that Madame's friend will come and stay with us too?
I have a charming room which I could give this lady; but later on we shall be very full--full all the summer! The hot weather is a godsend for Lacville; for it drives the Parisians out from their unhealthy city." He beckoned to his wife, a disagreeable-looking woman who was sitting in a little glass cage made in an angle of the square hall.
"Madame Wolsky has brought this good lady to see our Pension!" he exclaimed, "and perhaps she is also coming to stay with us--" In vain Sylvia smilingly shook her head.

She was made to go all over the large, rather gloomy house, and to peep into each of the bare, ugly bed-rooms.
That which Anna had engaged had a window looking over the back of the house; Sylvia thought it singularly cheerless.

There was, however, a good arm-chair and a writing-table on which lay a new-looking blotter.

It was the only bed-room containing such a luxury.
"An English lady was staying here not very long ago," observed M.
Malfait, "and she bought that table and left it to me as a little gift when she went away.

That was very gracious on her part!" They glanced into the rather mournful-looking _salon_, of which the windows opened out on the tiny garden.