"
"And it is a hundred times more charming in the afternoon," his wife
chimed in, happily, "for then the lake is so full of little sailing-boats
that you can hardly see the water. Oh, it is gay then, very gay!"
She glanced at Mrs. Bailey's pretty grey muslin dress and elegant
parasol.
"I suppose Madame is going to one of the great restaurants? As for us,
we shall make our way into a wood and have our luncheon there. It is
expensive going to a restaurant with children."
She nodded pleasantly, with the easy, graceful familiarity which
foreigners show in their dealings with strangers; and, shepherding their
little party along, the worthy pair went briskly off by the broad avenue
which girdles the lake.
Again Sylvia felt curiously alone. She was surrounded on every side by
groups of merry-looking people, and already out on the lake there floated
tiny white-sailed boats, each containing a man and a girl.
Everyone seemed to have a companion or companions; she alone was
solitary. She even found herself wondering what she was doing there in a
foreign country, by herself, when she might have been in England, in her
own pleasant house at Market Dalling!
She took out of her bag the card which the landlord of the Hotel de
l'Horloge had pressed upon her.
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