Two impressions flashed simultaneously upon Rose; one was that Madame Gérard, though distinctly smart, wasn’t particularly pretty, and the other, that in spite of her lovely clothes, her new husband, and the romance of Capri, she hadn’t got happy eyes.
Her other impressions of Madame Gérard she formed more slowly.
Monsieur Gérard she instantly and wholly disliked.
He was much older than his wife, and had a bored, conceited air, and rather thick red lips.
He stared a great deal at Rose, and said several times over, when Léon introduced him to her, that he was very much impressed.
Madame was charming; she was charming about the garden, about the tea, about the wonderful English nation, and about Capri; but she was charming in Parisian French. Neither of the Gérards knew a word of English, and Madame spoke in a cascade of little soft, vanishing sounds, the significance of which poor nervous, attentive Rose couldn’t possibly catch.
Monsieur Gérard, on the other hand, made three separate emphatic attempts to talk to Rose. Rose blushed and frowned and didn’t suppose for a single instant that she had understood what he said. She wouldn’t have liked it at all if she had, but of course men couldn’t say such things to ladies to whom they had just been introduced.
What was strange was that she could, she always bewilderingly had been able to understand Léon’s French, however fast or complicated the rush of his talk might be, and what was so odd, so uncomfortable and bewildering was that Léon was saying really dreadful things to Madame Gérard. Not that Madame Gérard minded, on the contrary she seemed particularly stimulated by Léon’s vivid attentions. Nor that Monsieur Gérard minded, either; he gave up his endeavors with Rose, and seemed to resign himself to a silent but perfectly good-tempered peace. He seemed, though the idea was as preposterous as everything else, to feel like a sentry who has just been relieved after a too protracted exposure at a difficult post. He ate heartily, and when he had finished he asked permission to smoke, once or twice he hummed something under his breath.
It was perfectly natural that Léon should not notice Rose, you can’t in public single out your wife for attention, and Madame Gérard made the most valiant efforts to include her.
Expressive, gesticulating, infinitely gay, Madame drew, or strove to draw, the poor dull little English wife into the swift current of their talk, but she did not succeed, partly, no doubt, because Rose was shy, but partly also because Léon markedly wished to keep her out.