It was no wonder that Léon began to be afraid, even though it must be admitted that his fear was chiefly of a pleasurable nature, nor that Monsieur Gérard should suddenly feel that he had evoked rather more help than he needed; nor that Rose should find herself not only more alone but suddenly deprived of the support of the long histories Léon used to make to her, on his returns.
He could no longer tell her what took place between him and Madame; speech had become a medium for something better not explained.
Madame Gérard was the only one of the group who appeared wholly at her ease; all her energies were being freely used, and in the direction she had chosen for them. She was making her husband jealous, Léon infatuated and giving the stupid English wife plenty of time to learn French.
The good intentions of everybody began to look a little like the fashion of the year before last.
CHAPTER X
It was part of their general attention to the surface of things that Rose was never to appear deserted.
Léon and Madame tore themselves away from her with public reluctance at the garden gate; they rejoined her eagerly like creatures reprieved, after a prolonged but obviously penal absence.
They even arranged between them times and occasions when Monsieur Gérard should also be represented, when the united four, like a procession on parade, strolled before the watching eyes of Capri.
The watching eyes of Capri are indulgently accustomed to youth and change, they are incapable of the element of shock, but they are equally incapable of the delusion of a good appearance. When Capri beheld Rose and Léon issuing from the Hotel Paradiso on their way to a “Thé Intime” at the Villa degli Angeli, Capri was not hoodwinked by this overflow of a dual domesticity, rather it laid a finger to the nose and cried, from one doorway to the other, “Behold!--a festa of knives!”
It was a many-colored day in the late spring, the bright air shimmered and danced like the bubbles in champagne. The Villa degli Angeli shone pillow-shaped and glittering in a rose-hung garden. Wistaria streamed from its porch, and cloaked like a shield its romantic lovers’ balcony.