"The house to which your friend the Comtesse de Valorme has gone!" Bevill exclaimed.
They had already spoken of the Comtesse, Bevill telling Sylvia that that lady had said the latter was well known to her, and also that she had told him ere they parted that Van Ryk had married a connection of hers.
"Yes, that is the house; yet--yet I know not if it is well for me to go there. If----"
"But," said Bevill, "if you resolve to follow my lord's advice--and he is left your guardian--and do me so great an honour as to permit me to endeavour to escort you safely to England, you will scarce need to ask for hospitality of Mynheer Van Ryk."
"I know not. Frankly, I know not what to do. To be very honest, you should know I am in no danger here--from the French. They have their faults, and those are neither few nor small; but they are gallant to women, and, except that they drive hard bargains for all they require, they have not molested those who dwell in the towns and cities they either possess themselves of or surround."
"Until now," Bevill said, while feeling somewhat surprised and somewhat disappointed, too, at this last utterance of Sylvia, since it seemed to express a doubt on her part as to whether she should avail herself of the service which he had come to perform--"until now they have but made themselves secure of those towns and cities, with a view to what the future may bring forth. But it is war time at last, and half Europe has declared against France and Spain. Will France restrain herself so much in the future? Especially since Holland--the Netherlands--have banded with England against her?"
"Ah, yes; ah, yes," Sylvia replied meditatively. "It is true I had forgotten that. Affairs will doubtless be much changed; and also--also," she said in a low voice, as if speaking more to herself than to Bevill, "I am averse to becoming an inmate of Mynheer Van Ryk's house, hospitably as he has pressed me to do so."
Recognising that in this there lay hidden some reason which, probably, Sylvia Thorne knew to be a good one for preventing her acceptance of the hospitality of the Liégois house, yet still one which she did not desire to confide to him, Bevill held his peace, and decided that it did not become him to ask what that reason might be.
Yet, since he asked no question, nor, indeed, uttered any remark at the conclusion of what Sylvia had said, she looked round at him as though in wonderment at his silence.
Then, a moment later, she said: