Sylvia walked through the gates, which stood hospitably open, and when
she was half-way up the horseshoe stone-staircase which led to the front
door, a man, dressed in the white dress of a French chef, and bearing an
almost ludicrous resemblance to M. Girard, came hurrying out.

"Madame Bailey?" he exclaimed joyously, and bowing very low. "Have I the
honour of greeting Madame Bailey? My cousin telephoned to me that you
might be coming, Madame, to déjeuner!" And as Sylvia smiled in assent:
"I am delighted, I am honoured, by the visit of Madame Bailey!"

Sylvia laughed outright. She really could not help it! It was very nice
and thoughtful of M. Girard to have telephoned to his cousin. But how
dreadful it would have been if she had gone straight back to Paris from
the station. All these kind people would have had their trouble for
nothing.

M. Polperro was a shrewd Southerner, and he had had the sense to make
but few alterations to the Villa du Lac. It therefore retained something
of the grand air it had worn in the days when it had been the property
of a Court official. The large, cool, circular hall into which the
hotel-keeper ushered Sylvia was charming, as were the long, finely
decorated reception-rooms on either side.

The dining-room, filled with small oval tables, to which M. Polperro next
led his honoured guest, had been built out since the house had become an
hotel. It commanded a view of the lake on the one side, and of the large,
shady garden of the villa on the other.

"I have arranged for Madame a little table in what we call the lake