As Philippe was gazing from the window at the swift, muddy Isère, he was trying with the habit of mind of a man of business who prepares his plans and forestalls obstacles, to imagine Mme. Derize's attitude. And he realized that he did not know her at all. The proof of a developed personality is to be able to find immediate answer to the questions raised by circumstances. We easily divine frankness or deceit, tranquillity or anger, nobility or quickness of decision, except in those complex characters which are the result of too much reflection, and such is seldom the case with young people. So, in their many years' acquaintance, Albert's wife had told him nothing about herself, not because of excessive reserve, but because he could draw no inference from their conversations which were never deep nor remarkable for their spontaneity, but were, on the contrary, light and frivolous, enlivened by that charm and sprightly ease due to life in Paris. He had sought in vain for a clew to her moral make-up which defied his analysis and on pursuit disappeared as a cloud in the wind.
Mme. Derize came in. She was alone—but at once took shelter behind Mme. Molay-Norrois.
"My mother is coming in. I suppose she may hear our interview."
"Certainly," said Philippe, decided to take immediate advantage of the short tête-à-tête, which chance had given him.
There was no time to lose, and yet they began by exchanging commonplaces, which generally precede every argument: preliminaries which seem as indispensable as skirmishes before a battle. She quietly told him of her own and her children's health, announced her coming departure for Uriage, where she would spend the summer to avoid the heat of Grenoble. He stared at her somewhat rudely and with evident surprise. She was wearing the same appropriate dress of dark purple that he had heard praised at Mme. Passerat's, of the beauty of which he could now get a better idea. But it was the puzzle of her charming face that he was ardently studying: it revealed no traces of life nor of the sorrow of the past few months. As long as he could remember, he had always seen it as it was now, with high color, pure and glossy as a flower, without a shadow or a line. Even the contrast of her fair hair and her black eyes did not impress him as being unusual, and her mysterious charm for him was the result of expectation, not of the past.
Realizing that she was under observation, she blushed slightly. The blood mounted easily to her cheeks. He explained:
"Your extreme youthfulness surprises me every time I meet you. They surely must call you 'Mademoiselle' in the shops!"
This compliment amused her:
"It is true;" she said, "yet I have been married eight years and my children are growing up."
Philippe Lagier did not add that at every meeting she gave him an almost irritating impression, a complex of vexation, of persistent sympathy, of disdain and of a desire to provoke her: then all these contradictory feelings changed to an indulgence, a gallant instinct of protection which he felt for his friend's pretty wife.