What was the vice which had meant all to him for so
many years compared to his love for Sylvia?
The gendarmes murmured together in quick, excited tones. They scented
that something really exciting, something that would perhaps lead to
promotion, was going to happen.
At last, as the carriage turned into a dark road, Count Paul suddenly
began to talk, at the very top of his voice.
"Speak, Mr. Chester, speak as loud as you can! Shout! Say anything that
you like! They may as well hear that we are coming--"
But Chester could not do what the other man so urgently asked him to do.
Not to save his life could he have opened his mouth and shouted as the
other was now doing.
"We are going to pay an evening call--what you in England call an evening
call! We are going to fetch our friend--our friend, Mrs. Bailey; she is
so charming, so delightful! We are going to fetch her because she has
been spending the evening with her friends, the Wachners. That old
she-devil--you remember her, surely? The woman who asked you concerning
your plans? It is she I fear--"
"_Je crois que c'est ici, Monsieur?_" the man turned round on his seat.
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