How deliciously cool and quiet it was there.
She paid her bill; it seemed very moderate considering how good her lunch had been, and then slowly made her way out of the Villa du Lac, down across the stone-flagged courtyard to the gate, and so into the sanded road.
Crossing over, she began walking by the edge of the lake; and once more loneliness fell upon her.

The happy-looking people who passed her laughing and talking together, and the more silent couples who floated by on the water in the quaint miniature sailing boats with which the surface of the lake was now dotted, were none of them alone.
Suddenly the old parish church of Lacville chimed out the hour--it was only one o'clock--amazingly early still! Someone coming across the road lifted his hat.

Could it be to her?
Yes, for it was the young man who had shared with her, for a time, the large dining-room of the Villa du Lac.
Again Sylvia was struck by what she could only suppose were the stranger's good manners, for instead of staring at her, as even the good-humoured bourgeois with whom she had travelled from Paris that morning had done, the Count--she remembered he was a Count--turned sharply to the right and walked briskly along to the turning which led to the Casino.
The Casino?
Why, of course, it was there that she must look for Anna Wolsky.

How stupid of her not to have thought of it! And so, after waiting a moment, she also joined the little string of people who were wending their way towards the great white building.
After having paid a franc for admission, Sylvia found herself in the hall of the Casino of Lacville.

An eager attendant rushed forward to relieve her of the dust-cloak and parasol which she was carrying.
"Does Madame wish to go straight to the Room of the Games ?" he inquired eagerly.
Sylvia bent her head.