That day on returning home I found Therese looking out for me, a
very unusual occurrence of late. She handed me a card bearing the
name of the Marquis de Villarel.
"How did you come by this?" I asked. She turned on at once the tap
of her volubility and I was not surprised to learn that the grandee
had not done such an extraordinary thing as to call upon me in
person. A young gentleman had brought it. Such a nice young
gentleman, she interjected with her piously ghoulish expression.
He was not very tall. He had a very smooth complexion (that woman
was incorrigible) and a nice, tiny black moustache. Therese was
sure that he must have been an officer en las filas legitimas.
With that notion in her head she had asked him about the welfare of
that other model of charm and elegance, Captain Blunt. To her
extreme surprise the charming young gentleman with beautiful eyes
had apparently never heard of Blunt. But he seemed very much
interested in his surroundings, looked all round the hall, noted
the costly wood of the door panels, paid some attention to the
silver statuette holding up the defective gas burner at the foot of
the stairs, and, finally, asked whether this was in very truth the
house of the most excellent Senora Dona Rita de Lastaola. The
question staggered Therese, but with great presence of mind she
answered the young gentleman that she didn't know what excellence
there was about it, but that the house was her property, having
been given to her by her own sister. At this the young gentleman
looked both puzzled and angry, turned on his heel, and got back
into his fiacre. Why should people be angry with a poor girl who
had never done a single reprehensible thing in her whole life?
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