"Every Frenchman," he exclaimed, abruptly, "is in love with love, and when you hear--as you may do sometimes, Madame--that a Frenchman is rarely in love with his own wife, pray answer that this is quite untrue! For it often happens that in his wife a Frenchman discovers the love he has sought elsewhere in vain." He looked straight before him as he added: "As for marriage--well, marriage is in my country regarded as a very serious matter indeed! No Frenchman goes into marriage as light-heartedly as does the average Englishman, and as have done, for instance, so many of my own English schoolfellows. No, to a Frenchman his marriage means everything or nothing, and if he loved a woman it would appear to him a dastardly action to ask her to share his life if he did not believe that life to be what would be likely to satisfy her, to bring her honour and happiness." Sylvia turned to him, and, rather marvelling at her own temerity, she asked a fateful question: "But would love ever make the kind of Frenchman you describe give up a way of life that was likely to make his wife unhappy?" Count Paul looked straight into the blue eyes which told him so much more than their owner knew they told. "Yes! He might easily give up that life for the sake of a beloved woman. But would he remain always faithful in his renunciation? That is the question which none, least of all himself, can answer!" The victoria was now crossing one of the bridges which are, perhaps, the noblest possession of outdoor Paris. Count Paul changed the subject. He had seen with mingled pain and joy how much his last honest words had troubled her. "My brother-in-law has never cared to move west, as so many of his friends have done," he observed. "He prefers to remain in the old family house that was built by his great-grandfather before the French Revolution." Soon they were bowling along a quiet, sunny street, edged with high walls overhung with trees. The street bore the name of Babylon. And indeed there was something almost Babylonian, something very splendid in the vast courtyard which formed the centre of what appeared, to Sylvia's fascinated eyes, a grey stone palace. The long rows of high, narrow windows which now encompassed her were all closed, but with the clatter of the horses' hoofs on the huge paving-stones the great house stirred into life. The carriage drew up. Count Paul jumped out and gave Sylvia his hand. Huge iron doors, that looked as if they could shut out an invading army, were flung open, and after a moment's pause, Paul de Virieu led Sylvia Bailey across the threshold of the historic Hotel d'Eglemont.