The Chink in the Armour

ound table in Sylvia Bailey's sitting-

ressmakers, cards from corset-makers, cards from hairdressers-lying on he

th some curiosity. It was inscribed "Madame Cagliostra," and underneath the name were written the words "Diseuse

s card? What an e

uaintance had taken her to see a noted palmist named "Pharaoh," in Bond Street. She had paid her guinea willingly enough, but the resul

her curious-that she would meet, when abroad, a foreign woman who would have a considerable influence on her life. Well, in this very H?tel de l'Horloge Mr

y's, life, but at any rate it was very curious coincidence. "Pharaoh" had proved to be right as

, and still holding the pink card in her ha

it remarkably well, "Have you yet decided, my dear, what we shall do this afternoon? There

laughingly s

nine o'clock, and I feel more like having a rest than going out

breeze was borne the murmur of the traffic in the Avenue de l'Opéra, withi

as some years older than Sylv

have you got there?" and she took

according to her, a marvellous person-one from whom the devil keeps no secrets! She charges only five francs for a consultation, and it appears that all sorts

ghtfully. "I went to one last time I was in London and he

cted a journey which she had then no intention of taking, and a meeting with a foreign

dd that it should be so-the first intimate friend of he

oon in going up to Montmartre, to the Rue Jolie, to hear what this Cagliostra has to say. It will be what you

o go, I think I will go t

the thought of a long lonely afternoon spe

nglish hotel dining-room. In this dining-room the wallpaper simulated a vine-covered trellis, from out of which peeped blue-plumag

stayed there. Sylvia had been told of the place by the old French lady who had

"en pension" at the H?tel de l'Horloge, and as the two friends came

he possible heroine of a romance in which he may play the agreeable part of hero. So it was that Sylvia Bailey and Anna Wolsky bot

s by, but a Frenchman, being both a philosopher and a logician by nature, is very

ed extremely plainly, the only ornament ever worn by her being a small gold horseshoe, in the centre of which was treasured-so, not long ago, she had confided to Sylvia, who had been at once ho

ly left Monte Carlo when the heat began to make the place unbearable to one of her northern temperament, and she was

s were the two young widows, and this, perhaps,

ir was fair, and curled naturally. Her eyes were of that blue which loo

, and one without any intimate duties or close ties to fill her existence. Though she had mourn

e had spent most of her life, perhaps also a subtle instinct that nothing else would ever suit her so well, made her remain rigidly faithful to white and black, pale grey,

were you, Sylvia, I would certainly leave your pearls in the office this afternoon.

wear them?" asked Syl

our pearls in safe keeping. After all, we know nothing of this Madame C

she could not have put the fact into words, this string of pear

ket Dalling whose adoration she had endured rather than reciprocated. George Bailey also had been a determined man-determined that his young wife should live his way

ch her trustee, a young solicitor named William Chester, who was also a friend and an admirer of hers, as well as her trustee, had

f the neighbourhood of Market Dalling, those whom she saw on those occasions when town and county meet, each wore a string of pearls. She had also come to know that pearls seem to be the only gems which

notion, but she had held good; she had shown herself, at any rate on th

edom. The thousand pounds, invested as Bill Chester had meant to invest it, would

chose with her legacy, the more so that this thousand pounds was in a peculiar sense her own money, as the woman wh

eated over her purchase. Best of all, Bill-Sylvia always called the serious-minded young lawyer "Bill"-had lived to admit th

ing she had ever bought, and nothing that had ever been given her,

vice, she took off her pearls before starting out for Montmartre, leaving the c