He rose and walked towards the door.
In speaking to her as he had forced himself to speak, the Frenchman had done an unselfish and kindly action.

Sylvia's gentle and unsophisticated charm had touched him deeply, and so he had given her what he knew to be the best possible advice.
"I am not so foolish as to pretend that the people who come and play in the Casino of Lacville are all confirmed gamblers," he said, slowly.

"We French take our pleasures lightly, Madame, and no doubt there is many an excellent Parisian bourgeois who comes here and makes or loses his few francs, and gets no harm from it.

But, still, I swore to myself that I would warn you of the danger--" They went out into the bright sunshine again, and Sylvia somehow felt as if she had made a friend--a real friend--in the Comte de Virieu.

It was a curious sensation, and one that gave her more pleasure than she would have cared to own even to herself.
Most of the men she had met since she became a widow treated her as an irresponsible being.