IT was very late that night—indeed the hour was dangerously close upon the morning after—before the two friends found themselves alone together again. Rosina lay up among the pillows, the centre of a mass of blue cambric, with tiny bands of lace confining the fulness here and there; while Molly, in such a dressing-gown as grows only in the Rue de la Paix, sat on the foot of the narrow continental bed and thoughtfully bound the braids of her bonny brown hair.
“Well, you know him now,” Rosina said at last, the inflection of her voice rampant with interrogative meaning.
“Yes,” was the non-committal answer.
“Don’t be horrid, Molly; you know I want so much to know what you think of him? Isn’t he delicious? Isn’t he grand? Didn’t he impress you as being just an ideal sort of a celebrity?”
Molly opened her eyes to an exceeding width.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly.
“Don’t know! then you don’t like him? What don’t you like about him?”
“Well, I’d prefer a Russian myself.”
“Why! what do you mean?”
“They’re not so fierce, and if one likes fierceness they’re plenty fierce enough.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The way that he came bursting in on us to-day.”
“But that was splendid! it was lovely to see him so worked up.”
“You never can count on when he’ll work up, though.”
“But I like men you can’t count on.”
“Do you?”
“You see, I could always count on my husband, and that sort of arithmetic isn’t to my taste any more.”
“Well, dear, from the little I’ve seen of Herr von Ibn I should say that it would be impossible to ever work him by any other rule than that of his own sweet—or otherwise—will.”
“But I like that.”
“Yes, so I gathered from your actions.”
“And, after all, whatever he is—” Rosina paused and ran her fingers through her hair. “It doesn’t any of it amount to anything, you know,” she added.
“Oh, dear no. That’s evident enough.”
Rosina started.
“What do you mean?” she cried.
“Oh, nothing as far as he’s concerned;—only as far as you are.”
“But,” Rosina insisted, “you did mean something. What was it? You mean—”
“I don’t mean anything,” said Molly; “if he don’t mean anything and you don’t mean anything, how in Heaven’s name couldImean anything?”
“I only met him Saturday, you know,” Rosina reminded her. “And this is Monday,” she reminded her further. “Nothing ever can happen in such a short time,” she wound up airily.
“No,” said Molly thoughtfully, “to be sure you can die and they can bury you between Saturday and Monday, but nothing ever happened to living people in such a short time, of course.”
“I wish you wouldn’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing, I’m thinking.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I was thinking that if I met a man in Lucerne on Saturday and he came stalking me to Zurich on Monday, I certainly should—” she hesitated.
“Well, I shouldn’t,” Rosina declared flatly.
There was a pause, during which Molly finished her braids and proceeded to establish herselfon the foot of her friend’s bed in a most confidence-provoking attitude.
“Let’s talk about the lieutenant,” the American suggested at last.
“He’s too mild for to-night,” her friend said; “it would be like toast and rain-water after a hunt meet to discuss him just now. Let’s talk about Dmitri.”
“Whose Dmitri? another one of yourfiancés?”
“Oh, dear no. He’s a cross Russian poodle that was given me last Christmas. When you try to be nice to him he bites. I don’t know what makes me think of him just now.”
Rosina laughed, and held her hand out lovingly towards the pretty girl at her feet.
“Forgive me, Molly. I really didn’t mean to be vexed. Let us talk of something pleasant and leave my latest to sleep in peace at the Victoria.”
“Are you sure that he’s at the Victoria?”
“Not at all; he may have moved to this hotel, or returned to Lucerne.”
“I should think so, indeed.”
“But never mind.”
Molly took her knees into the embrace of her clasped hands.
“I wonder if you everwillmarry again,” she murmured curiously.
“Never.”
“Are you sorry that you ever married?”
“No-o-o,” said the other reflectively, “because I never could have known the joy of being a widow any other way, you know.”
“Would you advise me to marry,” Molly inquired; “one can’t be sure of the widowhood, and if one has courage and self-denial a life of single blessedness is attainable for any woman.”
“I don’t believe it is for you, though.”
“Why not, pray?”
“Your eyes are all wrong; old maids never have such eyes.”
“I got my eyes from my father.”
“Well, he wasn’t an old maid, surely?”
“No, he was a captain in the Irish Dragoons.”
“There, you see!”
Molly stood up and shook her gown out, preparatory to untying its series of frontal bows.
“But if you were to marry again—” she began.
Rosina threw up an imploring hand.
“You send cold December chills down my warm June back,” she cried sharply.
Molly flung the dressing-gown upon a chair and proceeded to turn off the lights.
“I don’t want you to think I’m cross,” began an apologetic voice in the dark which descended about them.
“I wasn’t thinking of you at all.”
“What were you thinking of?”
“Of Dmitri.”
Then low laughter rippled from one narrow bed to the other and back again.
Five minutes later there was a murmur.
“I do wish, Molly, that you’d tell me what youreallythought of him.”
“I thought he was grand. How could any one think anything else?”
Then through the stillness and darkness there sounded thefrou-frouof ruffles and the sweetness and warmth of a fervent kiss.
THE next morning they both breakfasted in bed, the ingenuity of Ottillie having somewhat mitigated the tray difficulty by a clever adjustment of the wedge-shaped piece of mattress with which Europe elevates its head at night. Molly was just “winding up” a liberal supply of honey, and Rosina was salting her egg, when there came a tap at the door of the salon.
“Ah, Monsieur von Ibn is up early,” the Irish girl said in a calm whisper, thereby frightening her friend to such a degree that she dropped the salt-spoon into her cup of chocolate. Then they both held their breath while Ottillie hurried to the door.
It proved to be nothing more unconventional than the maid of Madame la Princesse, a long-suffering female who bore the name of Claudine.
“What is the matter?” Molly demanded anxiously.
“Oh, mademoiselle, I am sent to say that it must that all go to-day!”
“To-day!” Molly screamed; “I thought that we were to remain until Friday anyway?”
“And I also thought it. Let mademoiselle but figure to herself how yesterday I did all unpack in the thought of until Friday; and now to-day I am bidden inpack once more!”
“Now, did youever?” Molly asked emphatically of Rosina, who shook her head and looked troubled in good earnest. “Do you really think that she means it?” she continued, turning to the maid once more; “she sometimes changes her mind, you know.”
“Not of this time, mademoiselle, I have already arrange her hairs, and I am bidden place her other hairs in the case.”
“Then it’s settled,” cried the Irish girl despairingly; “when her hair is done, the end of all is at hand. What train do we go by, Claudine?”
“I am not of all sure, mademoiselle; madame has spoken of he who runs by Schaffhausen.”
The Irish girl sighed heavily.
“Very well, Claudine, you and I know what it is to travel as we do. Go to madame and tell her I will come as soon as I am dressed,” and then she picked up the honey-jar and sighed again.
The maid went out.
“What makes you go?” Rosina asked; “I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, my dear, I’ve stayed at their place in the Caucasus weeks at a time, and I have to be decent, and she knows it.”
“Why did you ever accept an invitation to travel with such a horrid person?”
Molly was out of bed and jerking her hair-ribbons savagely loose.
“She isn’t a horrid person,” she said; “they are very nice princes and princesses, all of them. Only I hate to lead an existence like the slave of the ring or the genii of the lamp, or whoever the johnny was who had to jump whenever they rubbed their hands. It riles my blood just a bit too much.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Rosina decidedly; “I certainly wouldn’t.”
“I wish I’d taken the Turk,” the Irish girl exclaimed, as she wove her hair back and forth and in and out upon the crown of her head, “I’d have been free of Russia then; ’tis a hint for European politics, my present situation.”
Rosina suddenly gave a sharp cry.
“Oh, Molly,—and me?”
Molly looked over her shoulder.
“What is it?” she asked anxiously.
“Why, what am I to do? I came here to be with you, and now you’re going away.”
“You’ll have to go too if you can’t stay behind without me.”
“But I only came yesterday.”
“Well, what of that?”
“And, oh Molly, that man! I’llhaveto go!”
“Why?”
“Why, because—because—Oh, you know why. And then,—if I go—whatdoyou suppose he will think?”
Molly snatched her dressing-gown.
“He’ll come too, I fancy. At least, judging from what I’ve seen of him I should suppose that he’d come too.”
“Come too!” Rosina gasped.
“Why not? He’ll be just as interesting in Constance as he is here, or in Lucerne.”
“You don’t really think that he would come too; Molly, notreally?”
“Certainly I think that he would.”
“Oh, Molly!”
“’Tis their way here on the Continent; they’ve nothing else to do, you know. I know a man who went from Paris to St. Petersburg after a girl (I know it for a fact, for the girl was myself), and another who came from Naples to Nice just to call, and went back at midnight.”
Rosina appeared most uncomfortable.
“I don’t want him to go to Constance—I don’t want to go myself!”
“Oh, if it comes to that, you can both remain in Zurich indefinitely, of course.”
“No, we can’t; that is, I can’t. You know that. If he’s going to stay I’ve got to go. Oh dear, oh dear, how aggravating it all is! I don’twanthim to follow me about.”
“Why don’t you tell him so, then?”
“Molly!”
“Yes, just tell him so, and if you really mean it, he’ll understand, never fear.”
“But I don’t want to do that.”
“No, I didn’t expect that you would. One never likes to do that, which is one reason why I am myself betrothed to three different men at the present minute.”
“But, Molly—”
“I thought that you liked him.”
“I do like him, but there’s a wide difference between liking a man and wanting to have him tagging along behind all the time.”
“Oh, as to that, I don’t believe thatderHerr von Ibn will stay enough behind to be considered as tagging very long.”
Rosina twisted uneasily in bed.
“I don’t see what to do,” she murmured.
Molly was getting into her clothes with a rapidity little short of marvellous.
“I’ll be curious to see what youdodo,” she said, sticking pins recklessly into herself here and there, while she settled all nice points with a jerk. “It’s ten o’clock,” she added, with a glance towards the chimney-piece, “you’d better be arising, for I presume he is coming this morning?”
Rosina smiled delightfully.
“You heard him say so last night, didn’t you?”
“Perhaps; somehow the remark didn’t make an impression on me, if I did.”
“I’ll get up directly you go. And oh, Molly, do tell me just once more before you leave me that you think he’s—”
Molly slashed the end of her four-in-hand through the loop and drew up the knot with a single pull; then she approached the bed and leaned over the face upon the pillow.
“I think he’s desperately in love,” she said, “and I’ve no blame for him if he is.”
“But do you really think that he is?”
“Well, of course one can never be sure with foreigners.”
“Molly!”
“’Tis a fact, my dear. But then you knowone can never be sure with one’s self either, so there you are.”
Rosina laughed ringingly. Then they kissed one another and Molly departed.
Then came work for Ottillie, and her mistress was hardly completed as to embroidered batiste and black moiré ribbon, when the large and remarkable card with which the more distinguished portion of European masculinity announce their presence was brought to the room by one of the hotelgarçons.
He awaited her in the salon below, and when she appeared there to him, such an expression dawned within his eyes as altered completely not only their habitual melancholy, but the customary shadows of his whole face as well. There is no flattery so subtle in its charm or so deeply touching in its homage as such a change, and Rosina felt as much complimented as any other woman would have been, had it been in her to work so great a miracle in so great, and such, a man.
“Vous allez bien?” he asked eagerly, as he came quickly forward to bow over her hand.
“Yes, very well;” and then, because she always became nervous directly she lived beneath his steady look, she plunged wildly into the subject uppermost in her mind. “And I ought to feelvery well, because in all probability I must travel again to-day.”
“You leave Zurich already so soon?” he asked, and his voice betrayed neither surprise nor even interest.
“Yes,” she answered, “we are all going to Constance this afternoon.”
“You have change your plans?” he inquired; “yes?”
She looked up quickly at the much-objected-to word, and he received the little glance with a shrug of apology and a smile.
“Madame la Princesse wishes to go on,” said Rosina, “and mademoiselle thought that I would be so lonely without her that I—”
“You would have wished to stay,n’est-ce pas?” he asked, interrupting her.
“I don’t like to travel two days in succession.”
“I would beg you to stay,” he said, looking at his gloved hands, “but I also go to-day.”
She felt her heart jump suddenly; Molly’s prediction assaulted her memory with great violence.
“Yes,” he went on, “it happens oddly that my plans are also suddenly changed. It is to say good-bye that I am come.”
Ah, then he was not going to Constance.
“I am called to Leipsic by a telegram.”
“No one is ill, I hope?”
“No, fortunately,” he replied pleasantly; “but in Leipsic I am much interested.”
Rosina felt a sudden shock, not the less disagreeable because it was so undefined, but she pulled herself together at once and promptly swallowed it whole.
“I do hope that you will have a pleasant journey,” she said cordially.
He was staring steadily at her.
“Shall we meet again?” he said at last.
“Very likely.”
“And your address?”
“You have it.”
“Ah, yes, truly.”
Then he stood up.
“I go at one, and I have ordered to eat at twelve. I must therefore leave you this shortly. You will make my adieux to your charming friend,n’est-ce pas?”
“I am so glad that you came to Zurich and met her,” she said, rising also and lifting her eyes to his.
He was looking so indifferent that she felt for the instant both puzzled and hurt, and was angry at herself for ever having blushed on his account. Then she recollected the telegram from Leipsic and drew herself up well.
“Is it only because that I have the pleasure to meet mademoiselle that you are glad I come?” he asked, holding out his hand.
She nodded, smiling, but ignoring the hand.
“In Lucerne you gave me your hand in good-bye,” he said presently.
She offered her fingers with a frankness unequalled.
“Good-bye,” she said.
He kissed her rings.
“It is ‘au revoir,’” he replied, in an almost inaudible tone.
She wondered which was true, the indifferent look or the inaudible tone.
He took up his hat.
“Pensez à moi quelquefois,” he said cheerfully, and departed.
When Molly was made acquainted with this piece of news her comment was simplicity itself.
“How queer!” she said, folding a lace fichu into a tulle hat, for she was packing fast and furiously.
“Of course I shall not go now; I shall stay here until Thursday and buy silk stockings.”
“Very commendable in you.”
“I’m really too tired to go before Thursday. I’ve been around night and day in Lucerne until I’m all worn out.”
“Yes?” said Molly, ramming down shoes into the corners; “well you can rest now, sure.”
“You will engage rooms for me near yours for Thursday, won’t you?”
“I will.”
“I’ll sleep and shop to-morrow, and come on that ten o’clock express Thursday.”
“’Tis settled,” said Molly, slamming down the trunk-lid; “we’ll be at the Insel, and expect you day after to-morrow.”
“What number do you wear?” Rosina asked, as she watched the trunk locked.
“Where,—round my neck or my waist?”
“On your feet?”
“Two-and-a-half.”
“Oh, what a fairy!”
Then they hurried down to lunch.
THAT afternoon Rosina took her maid and went for a walk. As a companion Ottillie was certainly less congenial than the lofty and eccentric gentleman who had just taken his departure for Leipsic; but going out alone with a maid is such an eminently proper occupation for a young widow travelling abroad, that the knowledge that she was entirely above suspicion should have compensated for any slight ennui which Rosina may have suffered.
They first went a few blocks up and down the Bahnhofstrasse, and sent the various packages which were the natural result of such a course of action to the hotel; then came the Stadthaus Garten and the Alpen-Quai.
The Quai was as gay as the Quai in Lucerne, or as any other Promenade in Switzerland at that hour and season. Rosina, tired with her shopping, seated herself upon a bench and watched with interest the vast variety and animation of the never-ending double rank which passed slowly along before her. Beyond, the Zurichersee laybrilliantly blue beneath the midsummer sun, and far away, upon the opposite shore, the Alps rose upward, dark gray below, and shining white above.
There was a sudden exclamation, and out from among the crowd thronging before her came that American whose steamer-chair had elbowed Rosina’s on the passage over. There was no manner of doubt as to his joy over meeting his fellow-traveller again, and they first shook hands and then sat down to re-tie their mutual recollections. The result was that Ottillie returned alone to the hotel.
“And since Berlin?” Rosina asked, interestedly.
“Since Berlin—” said the man (and she noticed that his voice appeared to be pitched quite two octaves higher than that other voice which had lately dawned upon her ear), “oh, I’ve been lots of places since then,—France and Germany and Italy, up to Innspruch and into Austria and over to Buda-Pesth, and then to Salzburg and down through the Tyrol here. I’ve never quit seeing new places since I finished my business,—not once.”
“Dear me, but you must have had a good time!”
“Yes, I have. But I’ve often wished myself back on the ‘Kronprinz,’—haven’t you?”
“No, I don’t think that I have. The person that I saw the most of on the ‘Kronprinz’ has been with me ever since.”
The American looked surprised, having supposed himself to be that very person. Rosina laughed at his face.
“I mean my maid,” she explained.
Then he laughed too.
“Did you ever smoke any more?”
“Oh, dear, no. Don’t you remember how that one cigarette used me up?”
“You ought to have kept on,—you’d have liked them after a while.”
“Perhaps; but some one told me that they would make my fingers yellow.”
“Oh, pshaw, not if you hold them the right way.”
“The smoke got in my eyes so too; oh, I didn’t seem to care anything about it.”
Then they rose and joined the promenaders, who were beginning to grow a little fewer with the approach of the dinner hour.
“And where have you been all this time?” the man asked.
“In Paris buying clothes, and in Lucerne wearing them.”
“You’re travelling with friends?”
“Yes, most of the time. They went on toConstance to-day, and I am to join them there Thursday.”
“If you haven’t anything else to do to-night, won’t you go with me to the Tonhalle and hear the music? It appears to be quite the thing to do.”
“I think that that would be lovely, and I’d like to very much, only we must be back at the hotel by ten or half-past, for I am really very tired.”
“That’s easily done; you know we can go whenever we want to. What time shall I call for you?”
“I’ll be ready after eight.”
“I’ll come about quarter past, and we can stroll about first and see something of the night side of Zurich.”
“The night side of everything here is so beautiful,” said Rosina; “the shops that are temptation incarnate by day become after dark nothing but bottomless pits into which all my money and my good resolutions tumble together.”
By this time they had crossed the bridge and followed the Uto nearly to the Badeanstalt; it seemed time to turn their faces hotel-ward, and so they did so, and parted for an hour or two, during which to dine and to dress were the main objects in life for each.
Then about half-past eight Monsieur l’Américain came for his country-woman, and both went out into the charm and glow of the Continental night, with no other thought than that of enjoying a placid and uninterrupted evening amidst the music and electric lights of the Tonhalle. That such was not to be the case was one of the secrets of the immediate future, and the advantage of the future, when it is immediate, is that it is soon forced to stand and deliver as regards its secrets. Rosina, totally unconscious of what was impending over her head, entered fully into the spirit of gayety which prevailed, and absorbed the pleasure of the scene with open heart and hands. It is good to grow to womanhood (or manhood) without losing a child’s capacity for spontaneous enjoyment,—to be capable of joy without knowing the reason why, to be flooded with enthusiasm for one knows not what. It was our lady’s luck to possess this charm, and to be able to give herself up wholly to the end in view, and drink its glass to the dregs,—which in her life had generally proved to be sugar and to be almost as good as the liquid,—only requiring a spoon.
The concert, as is the way with summer concerts, was so arranged as to be easily varied with something cool and refreshing; and when her escort suggested that they should do as all theothers did, a table was found, and they sat down to ices and fairy cakes, amid the flowers and colored lights.
It was about nine o’clock, and Rosina, in spite of the environments, was beginning to realize forcibly that more interesting men than the one before her undoubtedly did exist, when the ice that she was putting in her mouth suddenly seemed to glide the full length of her spine, giving her a terrible sensation of frozen fright. She had just heard somebody behind her speaking in German to thegarçon, and German, French, or English, that voice was unmistakable. How, what, or why she knew not, buthewas surely there behind her, and the instant after he passed close at her side.
Of course it was Von Ibn, and the look that he gave her as he bowed, and walked on at once, dyed her face as deeply as ever a face was dyed in all the world before. She looked after him with a sort of gasp in her eyes, forgetting the man opposite her, the crowd around her, everybody, everything, except that one tall figure which with the passing of each instant was disappearing more and more among the labyrinth of tables and people. She saw him pause at last and seem to hesitate, and her heart throbbed wildly in her throat as she felt, with that strange instinctiveintuition which continues to follow one train of thought while our very life seems paralyzed by another, that if he took a seat with his back to her, the action would be witness to a displeasure far beyond what he must be feeling if he so placed himself as to be able to watch her.
He stood still, with his usual halt for deliberation, and then, at the end of a long minute, seated himself so that his profile was presented to her view.
“Now,” she said to herself, “he will look away very carefully for a while, and then he will look at us;” and with the thought her breath mounted tumultuously.
The music, which had been playing loudly, wound up to a crashing pitch just here, and then ceased suddenly. With its ceasing her escort, who rejoiced in the well-known “wide-awake American look,” and saw all that was to be seen within his range of vision, spoke:
“You knew that man who just passed, didn’t you?”
She started, having forgotten the very existence of him who addressed her.
“Yes, oh, yes,” she said confusedly; “I know him very well indeed,” and then she was choked to silence by Von Ibn, who turned and gave her a carefully cold look of complete unrecognition. It was too elaborate to be genuine, but it madeher feel sick all over; for where other women had brains or souls, Rosina had a heart, and again a heart, and yet once more a heart. And that heart was not only the mainspring of her physical life, but it was also the source of all her thoughts and actions. Von Ibn’s haughty stare pierced it to the very centre; she knew exactly what he was thinking, and the injustice of appearances goaded her to distraction. She did not stop to consider whether his own re-appearance was or was not an unworthy trick; she only writhed painfully under the lash of his vast displeasure. The American continued to probe her face with his eyes, but for that she cared not a whit; her only care was for those other eyes, those two great dark-circled, heavy-lidded eyes which knew no mask and tore her to the quick. Her mind fled here and there among the possibilities of the present, and found but one end to every vista, and that end grew momentarily in importance until she felt that at all costs he who glowered from afar must learn the falsity of his own imaginings and so restore her peace of mind to her. She looked upon her American friend as a mere means towards that end, a tool to quickly accomplish that which her impatience could no longer delay. So she leaned suddenly forward and threw herself upon his mercy.
“I must tell you,” she cried hurriedly, “I know him very well—very, very well. I did not know that he was in Zurich, and he—he did not expect to see me here. I want to speak to him; I must speak to him—I must!” And then, without paying any attention to the other’s look of astonishment, she added with haste, “I wish that you would go to him and beg him to come to me for five minutes. I only want five minutes. And some day, perhaps, I’ll be able to do you a good turn too.”
The American did not look exactly rejoiced over this latest development in their acquaintance, but he rose from his chair and asked what name he should address the stranger by. Rosina told him, and he was sufficiently unversed in the world of music to have never heard it before and to experience a difficulty in getting it straight now.
“Von Ibn, Von Ibn,” Rosina repeated impatiently. “Oh, I am so much obliged to you; he—he—”
She stopped; some queer grip was at her throat. Her companion was touched; he had never imagined her going all to pieces like that, and he felt sorry for the terrible earnestness betrayed in her voice and manner.
“I’ll go,” he said, “and he shall be here in five minutes.”
Then he walked away, and she bent her eyes upon her music-card, asking herself if it was possible that not four full days had elapsed since the first one left her to seek Von Ibn at her request. This time she did not look after the messenger, she could not; she only felt able to breathe and try to grow calmer so that whatever might—
Ah, the long minutes!
Then a voice at her side said, almost harshly:
“You wish to speak to me, madame!”
She looked up and straight into his eyes; their blackness was so cool and hard that some women’s courage would have been daunted; but the courage of Rosina was a mighty one that rose with all opposing difficulties.
“Why are you noten routeto Leipsic?” she asked.
“Why are you not in Constance?” he retorted.
“Sit down,” she said, “and I will tell you.”
“I do not wish to take the place of your friend,” he answered, with a stab of sharpest contempt.
“I think that he will not return for a little.”
Von Ibn remained standing, in the attitude of one detained against his inclination. She could not but resent the attitude, but she felt that her need of the moment required the swallowing of all resentment, and she did so. She was notable to raise her eyes to his a second time, but fixed them instead upon her card, and began in a low tone:
“Monsieur, I intended going—”
“I can’t hear what you say,” he interrupted.
“You’ll have to sit down then; I can’t speak any louder; I’m afraid that I shall cry,” in spite of herself her voice trembled at the last words.
“Why should you cry?” he asked, and he sat down at the table beside her, and, leaning his chin upon his hand, turned his eyes upon her with a look that blended undisguised anger with a strange and passionate hunger.
She was biting her lip,—the under one,—unconscious of the fact that by so doing she rendered the corners of her mouth quite distracting; but he perceived both cause and result, and both the anger and the hunger in his gaze deepened as he looked, apparently in a blacker humor than ever.
“Why should you cry?” he said again, after a minute; “you are in a beautiful spot, listening to most excellent music, and you had with you (before I come) a friend very agreeable. Why should you cry?”
She clasped her hands hard and fast together.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I—I hardly know how to speak in the noise and the crowd! I feel quitecrazy! I don’t know what I am saying—” she stopped short.
He leaned a little towards her.
“Let us walk outside a minute,” he said. “Monsieur will surely know that we are not far. In the air it is better,—yes?”
“But what will he think?”
“Mon Dieu, let him think what he will! I also have had thinking this night. Let him think a little.”
He rose as he spoke, and she rose too. Already the anger in his eyes was fading fast before the sight of her so genuine emotion. They went out into the garden, and there she took up her explanation again.
“You thought I stayed here because of that man, didn’t you?”
“Donnerwetter!” he cried violently; “here he returns already again!”
It was indeed the American, approaching as fast as the crowd would let him. His face bore a curious expression. One might have gathered from it that he was much more clever, or much more stupid, than the vast majority gave him credit for being. The instant that he was near enough to speak, he began in out-of-breath accents:
“I’ve just met some people that I haven’t seenin years, and they want me to drive with them up by the University and see the town by moonlight, and I wondered if I could find you here in three-quarters of an hour—”
Rosina looked at him helplessly, divining that he supposed a degree of friendship between herself and Von Ibn which would cause his proposition to be most warmly welcome.
But Von Ibn spoke at once, coldly, but politely.
“Perhaps madame will permit me to escort her to her hotel this evening. If she will do so, I shall be most happy.”
The American looked eagerly at Rosina.
“I am going very soon,” she said; “perhaps that will be best.”
He appeared puzzled.
“If you’d rather I stayed—” he suggested.
“No,” said Von Ibn sharply, “it is better that you go!” then he added, in a somewhat milder tone, “it is very fine, the moonlight from the University.”
When they were alone, he was silent and led her out of the crowded garden down upon the Quai. It was a superb night, and the moon and its golden beams were mirrored in the lake. Little waves came running tranquilly across the shivering silver sheet and tossing themselvesgently up against the stone-sheathed bank; some merry boat-loads were drifting out among the shadows, listening to the music from the shore and sending a silver echo of laughter to join in its accords.
They walked on until something of their own tumult was stayed by the stillness, and then Von Ibn said quietly:
“Tell me of what you were saying.”
“I was saying that you thought that I had remained here because of that man, and yet it was really all an accident.”
He shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“But you are quite free,—and he seems very nice, and is of your own country and all so agreeable.”
“I was really too tired to go to Constance, but—”
“Oh, madame,je vous en prie,” he interrupted, “no explanation is needful. It does not interest me, I assure you.”
“I did not want to go to Constance until Thursday,” she went steadily on; “but I could not stay here because—because—”
“Yes,” he interrupted, “all that I have understand,—I understand all.”
“So,” she continued, “I packed to go, and meant to go, and then when you told me thatyou were leaving too, I thought that I might just as well adhere to my—”
“What is ‘adhere’?” he broke in; “that word I have never known before.”
“It means—well—it means ‘stick to.’”
“Glue paste?”
She felt as if a clown had suddenly turned a somersault into the midst of the death scene of Hamlet!
“Not glue paste,” she explained carefully; “of course, in one way, it means the same thing; but I meant that when I knew that you were going, I felt that I might just as well do as I had originally intended doing, and remain here to rest a little.”
“And you repose by coming to the Tonhalle with a gentleman?” he asked in a tone of smothered sarcasm.
“I met him this afternoon as I was walking—”
“Have you only know him first this afternoon?”
“Monsieur!” she cried in horror, “I came on the steamer with him from New York, and he went to college with my cousin!”
Von Ibn gave another shrug.
“You tell everything very cleverly,” he remarked; “but, my dear madame, we have too many difficulties,—it is always that between us,and—what is your proverb?—no smoke without over a fire?—Eh bien, I begin to grow weary.”
“Don’t you believe what I have just told you?” she demanded.
They were near the further end of the Quai where the crowd was thinnest and the play of moonbeam and shadow most alluring. He stopped and looked long upon the shining water, and then long upon her face.
“Yes,” he said at last, “I do believe.” He held out his hand, “I do believe now, but I must tell you that truly if I had been of a ‘tempérament jaloux,’ I would have been very angry this night. Yes,—of a surety.”
She looked away, with an impulse to smile, and her heart was sufficiently eased of its burden to allow her to do so.
“Shall we go to the hotel now?” she asked after a moment.
“But you have not given me your hand?”
She put her hand in his, and he pressed it warmly, and then drew it within his arm as they turned to retrace their steps.
“I like better to walk alone,” she said, freeing herself.
“You are, perhaps, still angry?” he inquired anxiously.
“No, but I can walk easier alone. And I want you to tell me now why you are noten routeNorth, instead of staying here in Zurich.”
“But I have been North,” he said eagerly; “I have been this day to Aârburg.”
“To Aârburg!—Where is that?”
“Wait, I will make all plain to you,” he looked down upon her with the smile that always proclaimed a complete declaration of peace, “it all went like this: I see so plain that I make you to leave before you like, that I am glad to go away and so make you quite free. It came to my head like this,—I wanted to know something and by looking at your face and saying that I must go to Leipsic for some one there, I see all that I wish to know—”
“What did you see?” Rosina interrupted.
“I see plainly that you think it is some lady—”
“I did not think any such a thing!” she cried hotly.
He laughed and tossed his head.
“And so as I really should go to Leipsic I take the train and go, and then on the train I think why am I gone, and when I think again, I feel to leave the train at Aârburg and telegraph, and when the answer come that you are still here, I feel very strongly to return at once, and so I do.”
Rosina looked up with a smile, and, meeting his eyes, was suddenly overcome with a fear, vague and undefined, it is true, but not the less real, as to whether she had been wise in bringing about this most complete reconciliation.
“But you must still go to Leipsic?” she asked presently.
“Yes, after a little.”
“I wish you had gone when you started.”
“Why?”
“I am sure that you, who always understand, know why.”
“After a while will do,” he said easily, “when we are more tired of ourselves.” He paused. “Perhaps Thursday,” he suggested.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, in spite of herself.
“Why ‘oh’?”
“You are so positive that we shall beennuyésby Thursday.”
“Yes,” he replied tranquilly, “we see so much of us together that it cannot last long so. Indeed it was for that that I was quite willing to go to-day, but on the train I begin to think otherwise, and my otherwise thoughts are become so strong that I find myself obliged to get down at Aârburg.”
“And Leipsic?”
“Ah, for that you were so charming to sendfor me to-night and tell me how all has been I will tell you all the truth of Leipsic. It is there that my professor lives, the man who has teach me all that I know. He is to me the most dear out of all the world, for he gave to me my music, which is my life and my soul. And so you may understand that I speak truth indeed when I say that I have much interest in Leipsic.”
Rosina nodded, a sympathetic smile upon her lips.
“But we must go back to the hotel now,” she said sadly; “it is nearly ten o’clock.”
“And I may come to-morrow morning and we shall make a promenade together,n’est-ce pas?” he said eagerly; “it is so good, you and I together, these days. How can I make you know how I feel if you have not the same feeling,—the feeling that all the clouds and all the grass are singing, that all about us is perfect accord of sound, when we are only free to laugh and to talk as we may please.”
“But I ought to go on to my friends to-morrow,” she said, “you must know that.”
“But I will go there.”
“To Constance?”
“Yes, surely.”
“Oh, monsieur, that will not do at all!”
“Why will it not do at all?”
“I don’t want you following me to Constance as you did to Zurich.”
“But I will not follow you; I will this time go on the same train with you.”
“Oh,” she said, in despair at the wide space between his views and those of the world in general, “you cannot do that, it would not look well at all.”
He stared at her in surprise.
“Who will it look unwell to?”
“Don’t say ‘unwell,’ say ‘not well.’”
“Not well; who will see it not well?”
“Ah,” she said, shaking her head, “there is no telling who would see only too well, and that is just the trouble.”
Von Ibn knit his black brows.
“I do not understand that just,” he said, after a moment. And then he reflected further and added, “You are of an oddness so peculiar. Why must the world matter? I am my world—nothing matters to me.Vous êtes tortillante!you are afraid of stupid people and the tongues they have in them. That is your drollness. And anyway, I may go to Constance if I will. I may go anywhere if I will. You cannot prevent.”
She looked off across the lake.
“You ought to want to do what pleases me,” she suggested.
“But I do not,” he said vigorously; “I want to do what pleases me, and you must want it too,—it will be much better for America when all the women do that. I observe much, and I observe especially in particular that. An American woman is like a queen—she does her own wish always, and is always unhappy; in Europe she does her husband’s wish, and it is much better for her and very good for him, and they are very happy, and I am coming to Constance.”
“But I have no husband,” said Rosina insistently.
“It will be very good if you learn to obey, and then you can have one again.”
“But I never mean to marry again.”
“I never mean to marry once,surtout pas une Americaine.”
She felt hurt at this speech and made no reply.
“But I mean to come to Constance.”
“Monsieur, you say that we see too much of one another; then why do you want to drive our acquaintance to the last limits of boredom?”
“But you do not bore me,” he said; and then after a long pause he added, “yet.”
She was forced to feel that the “y” in “yet” had probably begun with a capital.
“I want to go to the hotel now,” she said, in a tired tone.
“Let us go and get an ice or some coffee first; yes?”
“Don’t keep saying ‘yes’ that way,” she cried impatiently; “you know how it frets me.”
He took her arm gently.
“You are indeed fatigued,” he said in a low tone, “I have troubled you much to-night. But I have trouble myself too. Did you see how unhappy I was, and was it so that you sent for me?Dites-moi franchement.”
“Yes,” she answered, with simplicity.
“And why did you care?”
“I didn’t want you to think what I knew that you were thinking.”
“Did you care that I was unhappy?”
“I cared that you thought that I would lie.”
“I was quite furious,” he meditated; “I came from the train so late and found that you were gone out.Je ne me fâche jamais sans raison,—but I had good reason to-night.”
“You had no right to be angry over my going out, and I had just as much cause for displeasure over your returning as you had over my going.”
“No,” he said quickly, “for it was a compliment to you that I return, and no compliment at all to me that you stay after I am gone so as to visit the concert with monsieur.”
She laughed a little.
“I hope that you will never behave so again; you were so unbearably rude that I was sorry to have sent for you. If I had not,” she asked, with real curiosity, “if I had not, would you have spoken to me after a while?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Je ne sais pas,” he replied with brevity; and then looking down at her with one of his irresistible smiles he added, “but I find it probable.”
She smiled in return, saying:
“Do undertake to never be angry like that again.”
“Again!” he said quickly and pointedly; “then Imaycome to Constance?”
Her mind was forced to take a sudden leap in order to rejoin his rapid deduction of effect from cause.
“No, no,” she cried hastily, “you must not think any more of Constance, you must go to Leipsic, just as you intended doing.”
“But you said—” he began.
“I meant, in the future, if we should ever chance to meet by accident.”
His brow darkened.
“Where?” he asked briefly.
“Who can tell,” she answered cheerfully; “people are always meeting again. See how that man of the steamer met me again to-day.”
“But you have hear of him since you come?” he demanded, a fresh shade of suspicion in his tone.
“Never! Never a word until he came out of the Promenade and spoke to me this afternoon.”
Von Ibn thought about it frowningly for a little and then decided it was not worth his pains.
“I would not care to meet again as he,” he declared carelessly; “how he was sent to fetch me, and then he must go alone while we speak together, and then make that tale of a drive when there was no drive by the University, only a knowledge that he was much not wanted.”
“Do you think he was not really invited to go to drive?” she asked, opening her eyes widely.
“Of a certainty not. But he could see he was not wanted by us. When he came near, you really looked to weep.”
“Oh,no!” she cried, in great distress.
“Yes; it was just so.”
There was a pause while she pondered this new phase of herself, and after a while he went on:
“There is something that I do not understand. Why do you desire so much to speak to me to-night and then not desire me at Constance?Ça—je ne le comprends pas!”
“You do understand,” she said; “I know you do, and you know that I know that you do.”
He looked at her for a few seconds and then asked:
“How long are you in Constance?”
“I do not know.”
“And then where do you go?”
“Probably to Munich.”
“With always that Molly?”
“I do not know whether they will go there or not. I believe they are going to Bayreuth and then to Berlin.”
He reflected for the space of half a block.
“I should really go to Leipsic,” he said at last.
“Then why don’t you go?” she retorted, more in answer to his tone than to his speech.
“I might perhaps go to Leipsic while you are in Constance,—perhaps.”
Heavy emphasis on the last “perhaps.”
“Oh, do!” she pleaded.
“Are you going to Bayreuth?”
“No, I don’t think so; they all come down to Munich right afterwards, you know.”
“But it is not the same in Munich. If you had been in Bayreuth you would know that. It is not the same at all. And ‘Parsifal’ is only there.”
He paused, but she made no answer.
“I am going to Bayreuth,” he said, “and then I shall come to Munich.”
He made the last statement with an echo of absolute determination, but she continued to keep silence.
“In Munich I shall see you once more?”
“Perhaps.”
“Where will you be?”
She told him.
“And I shall be in the ‘Vierjahreszeiten’; why do you not come there?” he added.
“Because I love thepensionwith my whole heart,” she declared fervently; “I was there for an entire winter before my marriage; it is like home to me.”
He stopped, pulled out his note-book and carefully wrote down the name and address; as he put it up again, he remarked:
“That was droll, what you said to-night, that you would never marry again! Where do you get that idea?”
“From being married once.”
“I have it from never being married any, and I have it very strong. Have you it very strong?”
“Yes,” said Rosina decidedly, “very strong indeed.”
“Then when we know all is only nothing, why may I not come to Constance?”
“Because you can’t,” she said flatly, “I don’t want you to come.”
“But I will be very good, and—”
“Yes,” she said interrupting; “I know, but to prevent further misunderstanding, I may just as well tell you that I want all my time in Constance for my other friend—”
They were at the door of the hotel, and she had her foot upon the lower step; he was just behind her, his hand beneath her elbow. She felt him give a violent start and drop his hand, and, looking around quickly to see what had happened, she forgot to end her sentence in the emotion caused by the sight of his face. A very fury of anger had surcharged his eyes and swelled the veins upon his temples.
“So!” he said, in a low tone that almost shook with intense and angry feeling, “that is why I may not come! He goes, does he?Bête que je suis, that I did not comprehend before!”
Rosina stared at him, motionless, for the space of perhaps ten seconds, and then an utter contempt filled her, and every other consideration fled.
She ran up two or three steps, crossed the hall, and passed thePortierlike a flash, flew up the one flight of stairs that led to her corridor, and broke in upon Ottillie with a lack of dignity such as she was rarely guilty of.
“Ottillie,” she exclaimed, panting under theweight of many mixed feelings, “I want to leave for Constance by the first train that goes in the morning. I don’t care if it is at six o’clock, I’ll get up. Ring and find out about everything, and then see to the bill and all. Imustgo!”
Ottillie stood there, and her clever fingers were already unfastening her mistress’ hat-pins.
“Madame may rest assured,” she said quietly, “all shall be as she desires.”
Meanwhile below stairs Von Ibn had entered the café, lit a cigarette and taken up one of the evening journals.
He appeared to look over the pages of the latter with an interest that was intent and unfeigned.
But was it so?