Sylvia felt somewhat surprised. It was odd that he should have overheard her words to M. Polperro, amid all the chatter of their fellow-guests.
"Yes, I am going to the Casino," she said frankly, "but only to meet a friend of mine there, the lady with whom I was the other day when you so kindly interfered to save us, or rather to save me, from being ignominiously turned out of the Club." And then she added, a little shyly, "Won't you sit down?"
Again the Comte de Virieu bowed low before her, and then he sat down.
"I fear you will not be allowed to go into the Club this time unless you become a member. They have to be very strict in these matters; to allow a stranger in the Club at all is a legal infraction. The Casino authorities might be fined for doing so."
"How well you speak English!" exclaimed Sylvia, abruptly and irrelevantly.
"I was at school in England," he said, simply, "at a Catholic College called Beaumont, near Windsor; but now I do not go there as often as I should like to do."
And then, scarcely knowing how it came about, Sylvia fell into easy, desultory, almost intimate talk with this entire stranger. But there was something very agreeable in his simple serious manners.
After a while Sylvia suddenly remembered that the Count had thrown his cigarette away before speaking to her.
"Won't you smoke?" she said.
"Are you sure you don't mind, Madame?"