The Chink in the Armour Part 36

He was beginning, or so he thought, to understand. The Club was evidently a quiet, select part of the Casino, with a reading room and so on. Sylvia had probably made friends with some French people in her hotel, and they had persuaded her to join the Club.

He was beginning to throw off his tiredness; the unaccustomed atmosphere in which he found himself amused and interested, even if it rather shocked him.

Ten minutes later he also, thanks to the kind offices of M. Polperro, and by the payment of twenty francs, found himself a member of the Club; free of that inner sanctuary where the devotees of the fickle G.o.ddess play with gold instead of silver; and where, as even Chester could see, the people who stood round the table, risking with quiet, calculating eyes their twenty-franc pieces and bank-notes, were of a very different social standing from the merry, careless crowd downstairs.

In the Baccarat Room most of the men were in evening clothes, and the women with them, if to Chester's eyes by no means desirable or reputable-looking companions, were young, pretty, and beautifully dressed.

Still, the English lawyer felt a thrill of disgust at the thought that Sylvia Bailey could possibly be part of such a company.

Baccarat was being played at both tables, but the crowd of players centred rather round one than the other, as is almost always the way.

M. Polperro touched his companion on the arm. "And now, M'sieur," he said briefly, "I will with your permission depart home. I think you will find Madame Bailey at that further table."

Chester shook the owner of the Villa du Lac cordially by the hand. The little man had been really kind and helpful. It was a pity there was no vacant room in his hotel.

He made his way to the further table, and gradually reached a point of vantage where he could see those of the players who were seated round the green cloth.

As is generally the case when really high play is going on, the people who were playing, as also those watching them, were curiously quiet.

And then, with a shock of surprise which sent the blood to his cheeks, Chester suddenly saw that Sylvia Bailey was sitting nearly opposite to where he himself was standing.

There are certain scenes, certain human groupings of individuals, which remain fixed for ever against the screen of memory. Bill Chester will never forget the sight which was presented to him in the Lacville Casino by the particular group on which his tired eyes became focussed with growing amazement and attention.

Sylvia was sitting at the baccarat table next to the man who was acting as Banker. She was evidently absorbed in the fortunes of the game, and she followed the slow falling of the fateful cards with rather feverish intentness.

Her small gloved hands rested on the table, one of them loosely holding a tiny ivory rake; and on a bank-note spread open on the green cloth before her were two neat piles of gold, the one composed of twenty-franc, the other of ten-franc pieces.

Chester, with a strange feeling of fear and anger clutching at his heart, told himself that he had never seen Sylvia look as she looked to-night.

She was more than pretty--she was lovely, and above all, alive--vividly alive. There was a bright colour on her cheek, and a soft light s.h.i.+ning in her eyes.

The row of pearls which had occasioned the only serious difference which had ever arisen between them, rose and fell softly on the bosom of her black lace dress.

Chester also gradually became aware that his beautiful friend and client formed a centre of attraction to those standing round the gambling-table.

Both the men and the women stared at her, some enviously, but more with kindly admiration, for beauty is sure of its tribute in any French audience, and Sylvia Bailey to-night looked radiantly lovely--lovely and yet surely unhappy and ill-at-ease.

Well might she look both in such a place and among such a crew! So the English lawyer angrily told himself.

Now and again she turned and spoke in an eager, intimate fas.h.i.+on to a man sitting next her on her left. This man, oddly enough, was not playing.

Sylvia Bailey's companion was obviously a Frenchman, or so Chester felt sure, for now he found himself concentrating his attention on Mrs.

Bailey's neighbour rather than on her. This man, to whom she kept turning and speaking in a low, earnest tone, was slim and fair, and what could be seen of his evening clothes fitted scrupulously well. The Englishman, looking at him with alien, jealous eyes, decided within himself that the Frenchman with whom Sylvia seemed to be on such friendly terms, was a foppish-looking fellow, not at all the sort of man she ought to have "picked up" on her travels.

Suddenly Sylvia raised her head, throwing it back with a graceful gesture, and Chester's eyes travelled on to the person who was standing just behind her, and to whom she had now begun speaking with smiling animation.

This was a woman--short, stout, and swarthy--dressed in a bright purple gown, and wearing a pale blue bonnet which was singularly unbecoming to her red, ma.s.sive face. Chester rather wondered that such an odd, and yes--such a respectable-looking person could be a member of this gambling club. She reminded him of the stout old housekeeper in a big English country house near Market Dalling.

Sylvia seemed also to include in her talk a man who was standing next the fat woman. He was tall and lanky, absurdly and unsuitably dressed, to the English onlooker, in a white alpaca suit and a shabby Panama hat. In his hand he held a little book, in which he noted down every turn of the game, and it was clear to Chester that, though he listened to Mrs. Bailey with civility, he was quite uninterested in what she was saying.

Very different was the att.i.tude of the woman; she seemed absorbed in Sylvia's remarks, and she leant forward familiarly, throwing all her weight on the back of the chair on which Mrs. Bailey was sitting.

Sometimes as she spoke she smiled in a way that showed her large, strong teeth.

Chester thought them both odd, common-looking people. He was surprised that Sylvia knew them--nay more, that she seemed on such friendly terms with them; and he noticed that the Frenchman sitting next to her--the dandyish-looking fellow to whom she had been talking just now--took no part at all in her present conversation. Once, indeed, he looked up and frowned, as if the chatter going on between Mrs. Bailey and her fat friend fretted and disturbed him.

Play had again begun in earnest, and Sylvia turned her attention to the table. Her neighbour whispered something which at once caused her to take up two napoleons and a ten-franc piece from the pile of gold in front of her. Very deliberately she placed the coins within the ruled-off s.p.a.ce reserved for the stakes.

Bill Chester, staring across at her, felt as if he were in a nightmare--gazing at something which was not real, and which would vanish if looked at long enough.

Could that lovely young woman, who sat there, looking so much at home, with the little rake in her hand be Sylvia Bailey, the quiet young widow whose perfect propriety of conduct had always earned the praise of those matrons of Market Dalling, whom Chester's own giddier sisters called by the irreverent name of "old cats"? It was fortunate that none of these respectable ladies could see Sylvia now!

To those who regard gambling as justifiable, provided the gambler's means allow of it, even to those who habitually see women indulging in games of chance, there will, of course, be something absurd in the point of view of the solicitor. But to such a man as Bill Chester, the sight of the woman for whom he had always felt a very sincere respect, as well as a far more enduring and jealous affection than he quite realised, sitting there at a public gaming table, was a staggering--nay, a disgusting--spectacle.

He reminded himself angrily that Sylvia had a good income--so good an income that she very seldom spent it all in the course of any one year.

Why, therefore, should she wish to increase it?

Above all, how could she bear to mingle with this queer, horrid crowd?

Why should she allow herself to be contaminated by breathing the same air as some of the women who were there round her? She and the stout, middle-aged person standing behind her were probably the only "respectable" women in the Club.

And then, it was all so deliberate! Chester had once seen a man whom he greatly respected drunk, and the sight had ever remained with him. But, after all, a man may get drunk by accident--nay, it may almost be said that a man always gets drunk by accident. But, in this matter of risking her money at the baccarat table, Sylvia Bailey knew very well what she was about.

With a thrill of genuine distress the lawyer asked himself whether she had not, in very truth, already become a confirmed gambler. It was with an a.s.sured, familiar gesture that Sylvia placed her money on the green cloth, and then with what intelligent knowledge she followed the operations of the Banker!

He watched her when her fifty francs were swept away, and noted the calm manner with which she immediately took five louis from her pile, and pushed them, with her little rake, well on to the table.

But before the dealer of the cards had spoken the fateful words: "_Le jeu est fait. Rien ne va plus!_" Mrs. Bailey uttered an exclamation under her breath, and hurriedly rose from her chair.

She had suddenly seen Chester--seen his eyes fixed on her with a perplexed, angry look in them, and the look had made her wince.

Forgetting that she still had a stake on the green cloth, she turned away from the table and began making her way round the edge of the circle.

For a moment Chester lost sight of her--there were so many people round the table. He went on staring, hardly knowing what he was doing, at the four pounds she had left on the green cloth.

The cards were quickly dealt, and the fateful, to Chester the incomprehensible, words were quickly uttered. Chester saw that Sylvia, unknowing of the fact, had won--that five louis were added to her original stake. The fair-haired Frenchman in evening dress by whom Mrs.

Bailey had been sitting looked round; not seeing her, he himself swept up the stake and slipped the ten louis into his pocket.

"Bill! You here? I had quite given you up! I thought you had missed the train--at any rate, I never thought you would come out to Lacville as late as this."

The bright colour, which was one of Sylvia's chief physical attributes, had faded from her cheeks. She looked pale, and her heart was beating uncomfortably. She would have given almost anything in the world for Bill Chester not to have come down to the Club and caught her like this--"caught" was the expression poor Sylvia used to herself.

"I am so sorry," she went on, breathlessly, "so very sorry! What a wretch you must have thought me! But I have got you such a nice room in a pension where a friend of mine was for a time. I couldn't get you anything at the Villa du Lac. But you can have all your meals with me there. It's such good cooking, and there's a lovely garden, Bill--"

Chester said nothing. He was still looking at her, trying to readjust his old ideas and ideals of Sylvia Bailey to her present environment.

Sylvia suddenly grew very red. After all, Bill Chester was not her keeper! He had no right to look as angry, as--as disgusted as he was now doing.

Then there came to both a welcome diversion.

"_Ma jolie Sylvie!_ Will you not introduce me to your friend?"