"TUMBLED, WEATHER-WORN, RED-TILED ROOFS"
III
LOUISE
For the third time since we had taken our chambers, I was servantless, and I could not summon up courage to face for the third time the scorn which the simple request for a "general" meets in the English Registry Office. That was what sent me to try my luck at a French Bureau in Soho, where, I was given to understand, it was possible to inquire for, and actually obtain, a good bonne à tout faire and escape without insult.
Louise was announced one dull November morning, a few days later. I found her waiting for me in our little hall,—a woman of about forty, short, plump, with black eyes, blacker hair, and an enchanting smile. But the powder on her face and the sham diamonds in her ears seemed to hang out danger signals, and my first impulse was to show her the door. It was something familiar in the face under the powder, above all in the voice when she spoke, that made me hesitate.
"Provençale?" I asked.
"Yes, from Marseilles," she answered, and I showed her instead into my room.