“Bonjour, Rose.”

She dropped her dark eyelids over those eyes that ought to have been lustrous but were not, as if somebody had breathed on them the first thing in the morning.  She was a girl without smiles.  She shut the door after me, and not only did that but in the incredible idleness of that morning she, who had never a moment to spare, started helping me off with my overcoat.  It was positively embarrassing from its novelty.  While busying herself with those trifles she murmured without any marked intention: 

“Captain Blunt is with Madame.”

This didn’t exactly surprise me.  I knew he had come up to town; I only happened to have forgotten his existence for the moment.  I looked at the girl also without any particular intention.  But she arrested my movement towards the dining-room door by a low, hurried, if perfectly unemotional appeal: 

“Monsieur George!”

That of course was not my name.  It served me then as it will serve for this story.  In all sorts of strange places I was alluded to as “that young gentleman they call Monsieur George.”  Orders came from “Monsieur George” to men who nodded knowingly.  Events pivoted about “Monsieur George.”  I haven’t the slightest doubt that in the dark and tortuous streets of the old Town there were fingers pointed at my back:  there goes “Monsieur George.”  I had been introduced discreetly to several considerable persons as “Monsieur George.”  I had learned to answer to the name quite naturally; and to simplify matters I was also “Monsieur George” in the street of the Consuls and in the Villa on the Prado.  I verify believe that at that time I had the feeling that the name of George really belonged to me.  I waited for what the girl had to say.  I had to wait some time, though during that silence she gave no sign of distress or agitation.  It was for her obviously a moment of reflection.  Her lips were compressed a little in a characteristic, capable manner.  I looked at her with a friendliness I really felt towards her slight, unattractive, and dependable person.

“Well,” I said at last, rather amused by this mental hesitation.  I never took it for anything else.  I was sure it was not distrust.  She appreciated men and things and events solely in relation to Dona Rita’s welfare and safety.  And as to that I believed myself above suspicion.  At last she spoke.

“Madame is not happy.”  This information was given to me not emotionally but as it were officially.  It hadn’t even a tone of warning.  A mere statement.  Without waiting to see the effect she opened the dining-room door, not to announce my name in the usual way but to go in and shut it behind her.  In that short moment I heard no voices inside.  Not a sound reached me while the door remained shut; but in a few seconds it came open again and Rose stood aside to let me pass.

Then I heard something:  Dona Rita’s voice raised a little on an impatient note (a very, very rare thing) finishing some phrase of protest with the words " . . .  Of no consequence.”