She attacked Rose about it. “A woman is responsible for all that happens to a man during his honeymoon, is she not?” she asked her. Rose, thinking that Madame was doubtful as to the state of Léon’s health, told her painstakingly that Léon was an “esprit fort.” Madame, with a happy little shriek, proclaimed that she was sure of it, but was not his wit like Madame’s own--this afternoon, at any rate--of the wonderful silent English type? Even Monsieur Gérard laughed at this, but on the whole Madame spared Rose; she kept as far as possible her hand off her. She would gladly have spared her altogether, and, in a sense, of course, she was doing so. She was giving her her husband back--not wiser, nor more appreciative, and certainly in a far worse state of mind--but for all that he would be returned to Rose this afternoon not so very much the worse for wear, as husbands go. For half-an-hour Madame Gérard took upon her little supple shoulders the entertainment of her guests. She was for that half hour like the whole cast of the Comédie Française put together--brilliant, exquisitely decorative and incredibly, ironically knowing; then she turned to her husband with her eyes like an innocent caress, and said, “Now, _mon ami_, will you not make music for us?” Monsieur Gérard was not unwilling to use his magnificent gift. Léon, who felt that the end had come, politely echoed the request; and then Madame made her fatal mistake. The game was hers--she had only to stand aside and let it finish itself; but she could not stand aside--nervously, with happy flutterings, she must show them how she followed her husband’s work, and how she helped him: and she didn’t help him at all. She drew out his music--it wasn’t what he wanted to sing and he said so crisply; he always knew what he wanted to sing. Then she said she must play his accompaniment, so that he could stand up and let his voice out. Now Monsieur Gérard’s voice was not of a quantity to be lightly let out in a small bird-cage of a room; it would have been sufficient to roll over Capri like a rock-stream. Also, Monsieur Gérard was like a tiger to any accompanist but his own, who was taking at the moment a much-needed holiday. It counted for nothing at all with Monsieur Gérard that his wife was dressed in white and scarlet and gold and that she had roused in him the temporary sentiments of attraction. From the moment that she mounted the music-stool nothing counted but her power of playing a correct accompaniment without too much expression. She had evoked the artist, and the artist upsets everything. Monsieur Gérard began to sing; he modulated his great dramatic voice, but the sound of it shook the Villa degli Angeli; it poured out on the dancing air with the majestic roll of great billows breaking on the beach.