seldom separated. 'Darby and Joan,' is not that what English people would
call us?"

"The moon is so bright I can see quite well," Sylvia was taking off her
hat; she put it, together with a little fancy bag in which she kept the
loose gold she played with at the gambling tables, on Madame Wachner's
bed. She felt vaguely uncomfortable, for even as Madame Wachner had
spoken she had become aware that the bed-room was almost entirely cleared
of everything belonging to its occupants. However, the Wachners, like
Anna Wolsky, had the right to go away without telling anyone of their
intention.

As they came back into the dining-room together, Mrs. Bailey's host, who
was already sitting down at table, looked up.

"Words! Words! Words!" he exclaimed harshly. "Instead of talking so much
why do you not both come here and eat your suppers? I am very hungry."

Sylvia had never heard the odd, silent man speak in such a tone before,
but his wife answered quite good-humouredly,

"You forget, Fritz, that the cabman is coming. Till he has come and gone
we shall not have peace."

And sure enough, within a moment of her saying those words there came a
sound of shuffling footsteps on the garden path.

Monsieur Wachner got up and went out of the room. He opened the front
door, and Sylvia overheard a few words of the colloquy between her host
and his messenger.