“I have just,” she said to Madame Gérard, “been talking to Monsieur Gérard. He thinks I have improved very much in my French.”
“My husband!” Madame cried, starting forward, then she sank back, white-lipped and trembling.
“Yes,” said Rose, “I went to see him. I found him in the Baedeker. He was in the sixth hotel I called at.”
“But why,” began Madame Gérard, “why did you seek him--Madame, what did you say to him? Forgive me, I do not understand?”
“I thought perhaps I had better see him first,” Rose explained. “I saw him in the hall. I think he was in a kind of rage--he said he had seen you last night at a theater with Léon, and I said, yes--that I never went to theaters in Italy because I didn’t understand the language, and then he asked me if I had been with you all the time.”
Madame Gérard held her breath. Her eyes seemed like a prayer.
Rose turned to Léon. “I’m afraid I didn’t tell him the truth,” she said hesitatingly. “I hope it wasn’t very dreadful--I said, yes, of course I had.”
“You lied to him!” gasped Léon. “Then--then--” for the first time he looked at Madame Gérard. She covered her face with her hands. Rose looked a little perturbed. “I didn’t know,” she said, “what else there was to be done. Of course I know it was very wrong. I never have been untruthful before. I--I don’t like telling lies, but I thought--I’d better. So I said we were all together. I was a little afraid he mightn’t believe me or that he might ask me where we were, but he didn’t. He quite believed me. He only asked me what I wanted to see him for.”
“Par exemple,” muttered Léon; “he asked you that?”
Rose poured herself out a second cup of tea. “I said,” she went on, “I came because I thought you might be sorry for leaving your wife all alone--just because she tried to turn over your music for you--and that I thought perhaps you might be wanting to tell her so--and not know where she was.”