Phyllis Bottome

“ He told her before Léon, before Rose, in the drawing-room of the Villa degli Angeli that she was an intrusive insect!
There was a horrible pause. Léon approached Madame in a state of mingled chivalry and satisfaction. She was a pitiable figure as she stood there biting at her dainty lace handkerchief to keep the tears back; her face was very white under its layer of powder. Probably it would have been better if she had sat down. She simply stood with imploring, helpless eyes fixed upon the angry tyrant before her.
No angry man likes to be looked at helplessly. ”

“ He turned to Rose. “And you, Mademoiselle,” he asked, “were you under the impression that you saw me?”
“It certainly did look exactly like you,” Mrs. Pinsent murmured, looking rather troubled. “I particularly noticed the hat.”
“Lots of people wear hats like Monsieur Legier,” Rose said, looking away from Léon.
She was the only one of the party he finally failed to convince.
He did more than admire her then, he respected her. There is no taste so perfect as that which permanently conceals a fact which is awkward for others.
Rose concealed it, but she paid for her good taste by her tears. ”

“ No, my dear Edith, let us be thankful we have both been spared a tiresome and difficult vocation. An unhappy marriage is often made bearable by such additions, but a really happy marriage can dispense with them.”
“Oh, a really happy marriage!” Edith had murmured.
“My dear,” her aunt had replied briskly, “you are one of those unfortunate people who ask too much, and do not take steps to get it. You should do one or the other. What your husband needs is something to shake him. It is a pity you are not a delicate woman; you might try nerves. ”

“ A girl as beautiful and as innocent with such a command of so compliant a parent (for little homes in the country for sick children must involve an elastic pocket on the part of Mr. Pinsent) struck Léon as a rare and favorable opportunity.
After all, he meant to settle down some day. His mother wanted it, and his father’s extravagance had done much to make a good match difficult in France, and Léon liked Rose, he appreciated her. She was innocent, but she wasn’t eager--she made no advances towards him--she was modest without being in any danger of striking him as a fool. ”

“ She wondered if Edith or Agatha knew, but it flashed across her in a terrible moment of disloyalty that perhaps neither of them had ever been put to the proof. “I don’t think you ought to say that kind of thing--” she said a little uncomfortably.
“But why not?” Léon urged. “Why do you not wish me to take pleasure in your beauty? And if I take it, would it not be rude and ungracious not to express it? For my part I believe only in the truth. If it is agreeable--good! Let us enjoy it. If it is disagreeable, let us bear it. But why should we try to avoid it? ”

“ His arms were round her and his kisses were on her hair, her cheek, her forehead, quick as his tears.
“Oh, Edith,” he murmured, “my darling, all these years!”
“No, no Horace,” she cried, struggling desperately against his pity, against the terrible tenderness which seemed to drown the weak resistance of her heart. “I was never unhappy. Did she tell you I was unhappy? Why, I’ve been--you’ve been--oh, Horace, Horace! You’ve been pitying me--I can’t bear that, you know--not that--let me go.” ”

“ I cannot stay in Capri until my husband returns. I will not return alone to France. It appears that we made a mistake in not going to Naples for our honeymoon. Let us then--you and I--rectify this mistake.”
Léon said nothing. He gripped at the little wooden balcony railing with both hands, and stared with blank eyes at the laughing sea. Leave Capri! Leave Rose! His heart shuddered within him--with every honest fiber of his nature, and he had many honest fibers in his nature, he loved Rose. He did not love the woman before him--but he had sought what she offered--how could he refuse it? ”

“ I was delighted to hear of my brother’s impending marriage,” continued Miss Lestrange; “delighted. Of course, I had been expecting it for some time. I have but little faith in inveterate bachelors, and none at all in inveterate widowers. Besides, a sensible marriage for a man of my brother’s age is very desirable. He settles down, the phase of romance is over, and the phase of domesticity sets in; and, of course, it is always a relief when one knows for certain that one’s brother won’t marry a barmaid.”
“I can’t fancy Horace marrying a barmaid at any time,” said Edith, smiling. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ She would do her best to shield Rose from the truth, but she wouldn’t do anything to prevent the truth taking place. These two decisions placed her in a better position than Léon. Léon had decided nothing.
He only knew that he must see this complex woman, that he must, out of chivalry, discover what she felt about the incredible behavior of her husband. He must find out also--in honor or common kindness--if there wasn’t in the situation some successful part for a good friend to play. He drew upon all his virtues for his reasons. ”

“ Madame Gérard listened, looking between the wistaria branches towards the sea. When he had quite finished she said gently, “And yet it was a plot between you and my husband--your friendship, your attention to me--they were not very real, Monsieur. You had agreed with him to win me over to his wishes. Is that not so?”
Léon was upset. You can never be sure what a husband will not tell a wife, even an estranged and angry husband. There is a terrible habit of indiscriminate confidence in marriage. Léon had come across it before. ”

“ They shook hands three times, then Monsieur Gérard waved his hat to Rose and hurried out of the garden.
Léon rejoined her, lighting a cigarette; his hands trembled a little, his eyes were intensely bright. It struck Rose that he was restless, more restless than usual.
He hummed a little tune to himself and then, breaking off suddenly, told her to bring him out her best hat.
“It has an air,” he explained, “quite too much of the Sunday. I want to eradicate it! A tranquil hat afflicts me! It has no power to move the heart. In a hat, one should have peril. ”

“ Rose looked unconcerned. “It’s so funny,” she said, “but I feel as if I knew Léon better than if he was an Englishman. You see, he tells me more. I can’t quite put it to you, so that you can understand, but I think it’s his being so much more expressive.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Pinsent. “Only that isn’t what I mean, you know. I wasn’t thinking of what they said, any of them. I don’t think you can go by that; when they’re in love, they’ll say anything.”
Rose hesitated. “But, Mamma,” she said, “don’t men--don’t they ever stay in love?”
Mrs. Pinsent resorted hastily to the hairbrush. ”

“ I stayed at Bellagio ten years ago with my aunt and her maid⁠--”
“And that’s all?” he asked, glaring at the carpet.
“No--that’s not all,” said Edith in a low voice. “It’s a long story, and I thought perhaps I wouldn’t tell you; my aunt wanted me to, but it was a very sad story, and it happened so long ago I hoped people had forgotten; although I might have known that people’s memory for the unfortunate lasts as long as their oblivion of the happier star. You have observed to-night that I am a sensible woman, Horace; what is your definition of a sensible woman?” ”

“ She had a charming sitting-room; it was littered with presentations, and she sat shaded by pink blinds with easy indolence in a large armchair.
Miss Lestrange’s first impression may be given as it flashed into her mind, “No woman of that type has any right to be so beautiful.” Anastasia showed neither youth nor years in her face; she might as easily have been thirty as fifty; she had no lines about her eyes and mouth or marring her low Greek forehead. Her wide-set dark eyes looked like some perennial mysterious spring of life. Her face and neck and hands were the color of warm ivory ”

“ Annette had always thought Bambridge rather cynical.
Time heals wounds, but it leaves scars. Ten years had done a great deal for Horace Lestrange. There was no mark of his great grief left; but although time works very well as a narcotic, it is not stimulating; it had not renewed Horace’s youth. He did not think of love now; he thought of marriage--comfortable, consoling marriage. ”

“ Rose accepted these limits of natural frailty with eager tenderness.
He was jealous, fierce and a little hard on anything that interfered with his crowning absorption. Rose had heard him speak with cold, incisive sharpness to a waiter who interrupted one of their soft, interminable garden intimacies; and Léon was indifferent, intensely indifferent--to anything or any one but her. ”

“ Madame Gérard--dresses.”
Rose flushed. “Dearest,” she answered, “you know everything I’ve got--I thought you liked my clothes--they were all I could get in Rome.”
“They are, nevertheless, extremely poor,” Léon pronounced with an air of finality. “I can’t think why you have no manner of putting on your clothes. There is no character in them, no charm, no unexpectedness. You dress as if you wanted shelter from the cold. Also none of your things have any seduction--they are as dull as boiled eggs. You cannot live in Paris and dress like an English country miss.” ”

“ You have only to say you go on business. She is so innocent she will believe you--you might even tell her that you are to act as my escort back to my husband. She need not suffer.”
Léon flung back his head. “But,” he stammered, his eyes filling with sudden tears, “I cannot lie to Rose! She is not like that! I cannot lie to her--it is as you say, she would believe me!”
“Ah,” said Madame, “let us hope then that you can lie about women better than you can lie to them! But you are making a mistake. It is very easy to lie to us. All men have found it so.” ”

“ It was a relief to know that some one else was advancing along the terrace. Léon sprang to his feet; he was not a clumsy man, but he very nearly upset the table by which they sat.
Rose was walking slowly towards them. She held a Baedeker in one hand and a parasol in the other. She was very tall, and she looked taller than usual. Her wide blue eyes rested on the wonderful sea beyond--but she had seen Léon and Madame Gérard. She walked towards them without speaking or smiling. ”

“ Such things have been done, you know, by people of tact, and to save a marriage when one has oneself made such a success of one’s own--isn’t that a duty one perhaps owes, in return for one’s happiness?”
Rose thought the situation over, that is to say, she felt it over. Here and there her heart winced under the probes she gave it. She knew that Léon was magnificent, and she felt humiliatingly conscious that she was not as magnificent as Léon. She saw plainly enough what was required of her. ”

“ I must congratulate you, my dear, in having chosen a husband who has complete ignorance of women. It is a very valuable attribute nowadays, when women have no restraint and men no manners. Horace is doubtless explaining to Miss Lestrange what an excellent arrangement his marriage will be for everybody concerned; and Miss Lestrange is turning his attention to awkward details. I hope you are prepared for complications, Edith; the maternal instinct of maiden aunts is a very fierce thing to combat. ”

“ There were moments when she thought the two men were angry, there were others when the emotion between them seemed to rise up like a sudden wind and possess the garden.
On the whole it was Léon who was the most excited--he repeatedly said “Non!”--but even from the balcony Rose gathered in his passionate negative a reluctance for it to be taken as final.
They parted with great affection; there was gratitude in Monsieur Gérard’s attitude, and there was protection and soothing in that of Léon’s. “But above all,” she heard her husband say, “with women one must be practical.” ”

“ I will meet you at the turn of the road by the Madonna of the Rocks.”
She moved with him slowly towards the door. “Voyons!” she said before they parted. “Don’t hurt her--don’t ever tell her--your young wife. She is too good. A lie will cost you nothing. And, after all, if it was not me--it would be some other woman soon--would it not? After all--” Her voice faltered. Something in her wavered for a moment, something very hard and deep, tried suddenly to melt. “After all,” said Léon gravely, “this is the greatest proof I have to give. ”