why should he drag in the question of his being happy or unhappy?

"You know that I did my best to persuade her to leave the place," said
Chester shortly. Then, very deliberately he added, "I am afraid, Count,
that you've got quite a wrong notion in your mind concerning myself and
Mrs. Bailey. It is true I am her trustee, but I have no power of making
her do what I think sensible, or even what I think right. She is
absolutely her own mistress."

He stopped abruptly, for he had no wish to discuss Sylvia and Sylvia's
affairs with this foreigner, however oddly intimate Mrs. Bailey had
allowed herself to get with the Comte de Virieu.

"Lacville is such a very queer place," observed the Count, meditatively.
"It is perhaps even queerer than you know or guess it to be, Mr.
Chester."

The English lawyer thought the remark too obvious to answer. Of course
Lacville was a queer place--to put it plainly, little better than a
gambling hell. He knew that well enough! But it was rather strange to
hear the Comte de Virieu saying so--a real case, if ever there was one,
of Satan rebuking sin.

So at last he answered, irritably, "Of course it is! I can't think what
made Mrs. Bailey go there in the first instance." His mind was full of
Sylvia. He seemed to go on speaking of her against his will.

"Her going to Lacville was a mere accident," explained Paul de Virieu,
quickly. "She was brought there by the Polish lady, Madame Wolsky, of
whom you must have heard her speak, whom she met in an hotel in Paris,