Now everybody looked pleased except the banker. For the first time a smile irradiated Monsieur Wachner's long face.
As for Madame Wachner, she was overjoyed. Catching Sylvia by the hand, she exclaimed, in her curious, woolly French, "I would like to embrace you! But I know that English ladies do not like kissing in public. It is splendid—splendid! Look at all the people you have made happy."
"But how about the poor banker?" asked Sylvia, blushing.
"Oh, 'e is all right. 'E is very rich."
Madame Wolsky, like the Count, had exactly followed her friend's play, but not as soon as he had done. Still, she also had made over £80.
"Two thousand francs!" she cried, joyfully. "That is very good for a beginning. And you?" she turned to Monsieur Wachner.
He hesitated, and looked at his wife deprecatingly.
"L'Ami Fritz," said Madame Wachner, "will play 'is system, Mesdames. However, I am glad to say that to-day he soon gave it up in honour of our friend here. What 'ave you made?" she asked him.
"Only eight hundred francs," he said, his face clouding over. "If you had given me more than that hundred francs, Sophie, I might have made five thousand in the time."
"Bah!" she said. "That does not matter. We must not risk more than a hundred francs a day—you know how often I've told you that, Fritz." She was now speaking in French, very quickly and angrily.