Mrs. Pontellier’s eyes were quick and bright; they were a yellowish
brown, about the color of her hair. She had a way of turning them
swiftly upon an object and holding them there as if lost in some inward
maze of contemplation or thought.
Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair. They were thick and
almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes. She was rather
handsome than beautiful. Her face was captivating by reason of a
certain frankness of expression and a contradictory subtle play of
features. Her manner was engaging.
Robert rolled a cigarette. He smoked cigarettes because he could not
afford cigars, he said. He had a cigar in his pocket which Mr.
Pontellier had presented him with, and he was saving it for his
after-dinner smoke.
This seemed quite proper and natural on his part. In coloring he was
not unlike his companion. A clean-shaved face made the resemblance more
pronounced than it would otherwise have been. There rested no shadow of
care upon his open countenance. His eyes gathered in and reflected the
light and languor of the summer day.
Mrs. Pontellier reached over for a palm-leaf fan that lay on the porch
and began to fan herself, while Robert sent between his lips light
puffs from his cigarette. They chatted incessantly: about the things
around them; their amusing adventure out in the water—it had again
assumed its entertaining aspect; about the wind, the trees, the people
who had gone to the _Chênière;_ about the children playing croquet
under the oaks, and the Farival twins, who were now performing the
overture to “The Poet and the Peasant.”
Robert talked a good deal about himself. He was very young, and did not
know any better. Mrs. Pontellier talked a little about herself for the
same reason. Each was interested in what the other said. Robert spoke
of his intention to go to Mexico in the autumn, where fortune awaited
him. He was always intending to go to Mexico, but some way never got
there. Meanwhile he held on to his modest position in a mercantile
house in New Orleans, where an equal familiarity with English, French
and Spanish gave him no small value as a clerk and correspondent.
He was spending his summer vacation, as he always did, with his mother
at Grand Isle. In former times, before Robert could remember, “the
house” had been a summer luxury of the Lebruns. Now, flanked by its
dozen or more cottages, which were always filled with exclusive
visitors from the “_Quartier Français_,” it enabled Madame Lebrun to
maintain the easy and comfortable existence which appeared to be her
birthright.
Mrs. Pontellier talked about her father’s Mississippi plantation and
her girlhood home in the old Kentucky blue-grass country. She was an
American woman, with a small infusion of French which seemed to have
been lost in dilution. She read a letter from her sister, who was away
in the East, and who had engaged herself to be married. Robert was
interested, and wanted to know what manner of girls the sisters were,
what the father was like, and how long the mother had been dead.
When Mrs. Pontellier folded the letter it was time for her to dress for
the early dinner.
“I see Léonce isn’t coming back,” she said, with a glance in the
direction whence her husband had disappeared. Robert supposed he was
not, as there were a good many New Orleans club men over at Klein’s.
When Mrs. Pontellier left him to enter her room, the young man
descended the steps and strolled over toward the croquet players,
where, during the half-hour before dinner, he amused himself with the
little Pontellier children, who were very fond of him.