CHAPTER V
Sylvia could hardly have said how it came about that she found herself
established in the Villa du Lac only a week after her first visit to
Lacville! But so it was, and she found the change a delightful one from
every point of view.
Paris had suddenly become intolerably hot. As is the way with the Siren
city when June is half-way through, the asphalt pavements radiated heat;
the air was heavy, laden with strange, unpleasing odours; and even the
trees, which form such delicious oases of greenery in the older quarters
of the town were powdered with grey dust.
Also Anna Wolsky had become restless--quite unlike what she had been
before that hour spent by her and by Sylvia Bailey in the Club at
Lacville; she had gone back there three times, refusing, almost angrily,
the company of her English friend. For a day or two Sylvia had thought
seriously of returning to England, but she had let her pretty house at
Market Dalling till the end of August; and, in spite of the heat, she did
not wish to leave France.
Towards the end of the week Anna suddenly exclaimed:
"After all, why shouldn't you come out to Lacville, Sylvia? You can't go
to Switzerland alone, and you certainly don't want to go on staying in
Paris as Paris is now! I do not ask you to go to the Pension Malfait, but
come to the Villa du Lac.
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