lv wallets “Monsieur George

“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.”
I heard them as I would have heard any other words, for she had that kind of voice which carries a long distance. But the maid’s statement occupied all my mind. “Madame n’est pas heureuse.” It had a dreadful precision . . . “Not happy . . .” This unhappiness had almost a concrete form — something resembling a horrid bat. I was tired, excited, and generally overwrought. My head felt empty. What were the appearances of unhappiness? I was still naive enough to associate them with tears, lamentations, extraordinary attitudes of the body and some sort of facial distortion, all very dreadful to behold. I didn’t know what I should see; but in what I did see there was nothing startling, at any rate from that nursery point of view which apparently I had not yet outgrown.
With immense relief the apprehensive child within me beheld Captain Blunt warming his back at the more distant of the two fireplaces; and as to Dona Rita there was nothing extraordinary in her attitude either, except perhaps that her hair was all loose about her shoulders. I hadn’t the slightest doubt they had been riding together that morning, but she, with her impatience of all costume (and yet she could dress herself admirably and wore her dresses triumphantly), had divested herself of her riding habit and sat cross-legged enfolded in that ample blue robe like a young savage chieftain in a blanket. It covered her very feet. And before the normal fixity of her enigmatical eyes the smoke of the cigarette ascended ceremonially, straight up, in a slender spiral.