CHAPTER VIII.
SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER Meanwhile Mrs.Thesiger laughed her shrill laugh and chatted noisily in the garden of the hotel.

She picnicked on the day of Sylvia's ascent amongst the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with a few detached idlers of various nationalities.
"Quite, quite charming," she cried, and she rippled with enthusiasm over the artificial lake and the artificial rocks amongst which she seemed so appropriate a figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders over the eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly burning her complexion to the color of brick-dust among those stupid mountains.

She came back a trifle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in the evening slipped discreetly into the little Cercle at the back of the Casino, where she played baccarat in a company which flattery could hardly have termed doubtful.

She was indeed not displeased to be rid of her unsatisfactory daughter for a night and a couple of days.
"Sylvia won't fit in." Thus for a long time she had been accustomed piteously to complain; and with ever more reason.

Less and less did Sylvia fit in with Mrs.
Thesiger's scheme of life.