They went out into the bright sunshine again, and Sylvia somehow felt as if she had made a friend—­a real friend—­in the Comte de Virieu.  It was a curious sensation, and one that gave her more pleasure than she would have cared to own even to herself.

Most of the men she had met since she became a widow treated her as an irresponsible being.  Many of them tried to flirt with her for the mere pleasure of flirting with so pretty a woman; others, so she was resentfully aware, had only become really interested in her when they became aware that she had been left by her husband with an income of two thousand pounds a year.  She had had several offers of marriage since her widowhood, but not one of the men who had come and said he loved her had confessed as much about himself as this stranger had done.

She was the more touched and interested because the Frenchman’s manner was extremely reserved.  Even in the short time she had been at the Villa du Lac, Sylvia had realised that though the Count was on speaking terms with most of his fellow-guests, he seemed intimate with none of the people whose happy chatter had filled the dining-room the night before.

Just before going back into the Villa, Sylvia stopped short; she fixed her large ingenuous eyes on the Count’s face.

“I want to thank you again,” she said diffidently, “for your kindness in giving me this warning.  You know we in England have a proverb, ‘Forewarned is forearmed.’  Well, believe me, I will not forget what you have said, and—­and I am grateful for your confidence.  Of course, I regard it as quite private.”

The Count looked at her for a moment in silence, and then he said very deliberately,

“I am afraid the truth about me is known to all those good enough to concern themselves with my affairs.  I am sure, for instance, that your Polish friend is well aware of it!  You see before you a man who has lost every penny he owned in the world, who does not know how to work, and who is living on the charity of relations.”

Sylvia had never heard such bitter accents issue from human lips before.

“The horse you saw me ride this morning,” he went on in a low tone, “is not my horse; it belongs to my brother-in-law.  It is sent for me every day because my sister loves me, and she thinks my health will suffer if I do not take exercise.  My brother-in-law did not give me the horse, though he is the most generous of human beings, for he feared that if he did I should sell it in order that I might have more money for play.”

There was a long, painful pause, then in a lighter tone the Count added, “And now, au revoir, Madame, and forgive me for having thrust my private affairs on your notice!  It is not a thing I have been tempted ever to do before with one whom I have the honour of knowing as slightly as I know yourself.”

Sylvia went upstairs to her room.  She was touched, moved, excited.  It was quite a new experience with her to come so really near to any man’s heart and conscience.