But it was not the easy, idle, purposeless life she was now leading that
brought the pretty English widow that strange, unacknowledged feeling of
entire content with life.
What made existence at Lacville so exciting and so exceptionally
interesting to Sylvia Bailey was her friendship with Comte Paul de
Virieu.
There is in every woman a passion for romance, and in Sylvia this passion
had been baulked, not satisfied, by her first marriage.
Bill Chester loved her well and deeply, but he was her lawyer and trustee
as well as her lover. He had an honest, straightforward nature, and when
with her something always prompted Chester to act the part of candid
friend, and the part of candid friend fits in very ill with that of
lover. To take but one example of how ill his honesty of purpose served
him in the matter, Sylvia had never really forgiven him the "fuss" he had
made about her string of pearls.
But with the Comte de Virieu she never quite knew what to be at, and
mystery is the food of romance.
At the Villa du Lac the two were almost inseparable, and yet so
intelligently and quietly did the Count arrange their frequent
meetings--their long walks and talks in the large deserted garden, their
pleasant morning saunters through the little town--that no one, or so
Sylvia believed, was aware of any special intimacy between them.
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