If we both like it, I daresay we shall stay three or four weeks." There fell what seemed to Sylvia a long silence between them.

The Frenchman was gazing at her with a puzzled, thoughtful look.
Suddenly he got up, and after taking a turn up and down the orangery, he came and stood before her.
"Mrs.Bailey!" he exclaimed.

"Will you permit me to be rather impertinent ?" Sylvia reddened violently.

The question took her utterly by surprise.

But the Comte de Virieu's next words at once relieved, and yes, it must be admitted, chagrined her.
"I ask you, Madame, to leave Lacville! I ask permission to tell you frankly and plainly that it is not a place to which you ought to have been brought." He spoke with great emphasis.
Sylvia looked up at him.