r 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.

"How are you," was the greeting of Captain Blunt with the usual smile
which would have been more amiable if his teeth hadn't been, just then,
clenched quite so tight. How he managed to force his voice through that
shining barrier I could never understand. Dona Rita tapped the couch
engagingly by her side but I sat down instead in the armchair nearly
opposite her, which, I imagine, must have been just vacated by Blunt.
She inquired with that particular gleam of the eyes in which there was
something immemorial and gay:

"Well?"

"Perfect success."

"I could hug you."

At any time her lips moved very little but