As they came back into the dining-room together, Mrs. Bailey's host, who
was already sitting down at table, looked up.
"Words! Words! Words!" he exclaimed harshly. "Instead of talking so much
why do you not both come here and eat your suppers? I am very hungry."
Sylvia had never heard the odd, silent man speak in such a tone before,
but his wife answered quite good-humouredly,
"You forget, Fritz, that the cabman is coming. Till he has come and gone
we shall not have peace."
And sure enough, within a moment of her saying those words there came a
sound of shuffling footsteps on the garden path.
Monsieur Wachner got up and went out of the room. He opened the front
door, and Sylvia overheard a few words of the colloquy between her host
and his messenger.
"Yes, you are to take it now, at once. Just leave it at the Villa du Lac.
You will come for us--you will come, that is, for _me_"--Monsieur Wachner
raised his voice--"to-morrow morning at half-past six. I desire to catch
the 7.10 train to Paris."
There was a jingle of silver, and then Sylvia caught the man's answering,
"_Merci, c'est entendu, M'sieur.
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