"I live in Sussex, on the South Downs."
She took his card, and as she turned away she pointed to the Aiguille d'Argentière.
"I shall dream of that to-night."
"Surely not," he replied, laughing down to her over the wooden balustrade. "You will dream of running water."
She glanced up at him in surprise that he should have remembered this strange quality of hers. Then she turned away and went down to the pine woods and the village of Les Tines.
CHAPTER VIII
SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER
Meanwhile Mrs. Thesiger laughed her shrill laugh and chatted noisily in the garden of the hotel. She picnicked on the day of Sylvia's ascent amongst the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with a few detached idlers of various nationalities.
"Quite, quite charming," she cried, and she rippled with enthusiasm over the artificial lake and the artificial rocks amongst which she seemed so appropriate a figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders over the eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly burning her complexion to the color of brick-dust among those stupid mountains. She came back a trifle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in the evening slipped discreetly into the little Cercle at the back of the Casino, where she played baccarat in a company which flattery could hardly have termed doubtful. She was indeed not displeased to be rid of her unsatisfactory daughter for a night and a couple of days.
"Sylvia won't fit in."