taken a great fancy to one another.

It was most unlikely that Madame Wolsky would have the slightest
influence on her, Sylvia Bailey's, life, but at any rate it was very
curious coincidence. "Pharaoh" had proved to be right as to these two
things--she had come abroad, and she had formed a friendship with a
foreign woman.

Mrs. Bailey was still standing by the table, and still holding the pink
card in her hand, when her new friend came into the room.

"Well?" said Anna Wolsky, speaking English with a strong foreign accent,
but still speaking it remarkably well, "Have you yet decided, my dear,
what we shall do this afternoon? There are a dozen things open to us,
and I am absolutely at your service to do any one of them!"

Sylvia Bailey laughingly shook her head.

"I feel lazy," she said. "I've been at the Bon Marché ever since nine
o'clock, and I feel more like having a rest than going out again, though
it does seem a shame to stay in a day like this!"

The windows were wide open, the June sun was streaming in, and on the
light breeze was borne the murmur of the traffic in the Avenue de
l'Opéra, within a few yards of the quiet street where the Hôtel de
l'Horloge is situated.

The other woman--Anna Wolsky was some years older than Sylvia
Bailey--smiled indulgently.