Sylvia found Elène in Brussels, and was amazed to see how much she resembled her mother nowadays. M. Durand, her husband, had prospered and he now owned a large confectioner's shop in the heart of the city, above which Madame Durand had started a pension for economical tourists. Mrs. Gainsborough could not get over the fact that her hostess did not speak English; it struck her as unnatural that Sylvia should have a sister who could only speak French. The little Durands were a more difficult problem. She did not so much mind feeling awkward with grown-up people through having to sit dumb, but children stared at her so, if she said nothing; and if she talked, they stared at her still more; she kept feeling that she ought to stroke them or pat them, which might offend their mother. She found ultimately that they were best amused by her taking out two false teeth she had, one of which once was lost, because the eldest boy would play dice with them. Elène gave Sylvia news of the rest of the family, though, since all the four married sisters were in different towns in France and she had seen none of them for ten years, it was not very fresh news. Valentine, in whose career Sylvia was most interested, was being very well _entretenue_ by a _marseillais_ who had bought her an apartment that included a porcelain-tiled bath-room; she might be considered lucky, for the man with whom she had left Lille had been a rascal. It happened that her news of Valentine was fresh and authentic, because a _lilleoise_ who lived in Bruxelles had recently been obliged to go to Marseilles over some legal dispute and, meeting Valentine, had been invited to see her apartment. It was a pity that she was not married, but her position was the next best thing to marriage. Of the Bassompierres Elène had heard nothing for years, but what would interest Sylvia were some family papers and photographs that Sylvia's father had sent to her as the eldest daughter when their mother died, together with an old-fashioned photograph of their grandmother. From these papers it seemed that an English _milord_ and not Bassompierre had really been their grandfather. Sylvia being half English already, it might not interest her so much, but for herself to know she had English blood _l'avait beaucoup impressioné_, so many English tourists came to her pension.