A Woman's Will. Warner Anne
stopped short, and held out his hand.
“Will you say that it is only the maid?”
Then she felt sure that she should be obliged to scream outright, even while she was summoning all her self-control to the rescue.
They were come to an angle where two streets met steeply and started thence on a joint pitch into the centre of the town. She ran her eyes quickly up and down each vista of cobblestones, and, seeing no one that she knew either near or far, put her hand into his.
“Upon my word and honor,” she declared, with all the gravity which the occasion seemed to demand, “I swear that when I leave Constance my maid will be my only – ”
“Assez, assez!” he interrupted, hastily dropping her hand, “it is not need that you swear that. I can see your truth, and I have just think that it may very well come about that I shall chance to be in Constance and wish to take the train as you. It would then be most misfortunate if you have swear alone with your maid. It is better that you swear nothing.”
This kaleidoscopic turn to the conversation quite took Rosina’s breath away, and she remained mute.
“What hotel in Constance do you stop at?” he asked presently.
“The Insel House, of course.”
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a note-book.
“Perhaps I will want to remember,” he said, as he wrote. Then he put up the book and smiled into her eyes; he had a beautiful smile, warm and winning. “I find that we are very sympathique,” he went on, “that is why I may perhaps come to see you again. People who can enjoy together are not many.”
“Have you enjoyed this morning? I thought you had not at all.”
“But, yes,” he protested gravely, “I enjoy it very much. How could you think otherwise?”
She felt silence to be safest, and made no reply. He too was silent for a little, and then spoke suddenly.
“Oh, because of that Englishman! But that is all over now. We will never speak of him again. Only it is most fortunate that I am not of a jealous temperament, or I might very well have really offended me that you talk so much about him.”
“It is fortunate,” she agreed.
“Yes,” he answered, “for me it was very good.”
They had come to the crossing of the great square, and the sunlight was dazzling and dancing upon the white stones of the bridge and the molten gold of the Vierwaldstattersee. The Promenade was deserted and even its shade was unpleasantly warm.
“Shall I see you this afternoon?” Von Ibn asked as they went leisurely through the heat.
“Perhaps.”
“I wish it was after the déjeuner,” he said, looking out upon the lake and the crest of the mountain beyond.
She wondered if she had better say “Why,” or not, and finally decided to say it. He brought his eyes back from the Rigi and looked at her.
“Because I have the habit of always sleeping after déjeuner,” he explained.
They crossed to the hotel. It was late, and more people were coming down in the lifts than going up.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“Yes, I think that I am – a little.”
“I advise you to sleep too,” he said gravely.
“I always do.”
“So,” he cried triumphantly, “you see I say the truth when I say that we are very sympathique!”
Rosina looked up at him and her eyes danced; he returned the look with a responsive glow in his own big pupils.
“I am so glad we meet,” he exclaimed impulsively.
She stepped out of the lift and turned to dismiss him.
“And you?” he asked, bowing above her hand.
“I’m glad too,” she said, and her tone was most sincere.
Chapter Three
LATE in the afternoon of the same day Ottillie, coming in to wake her mistress from a nap which the morning’s long walk had resulted in stretching to a most unusual duration, brought with her a great bunch of those luxuriantly double violets which brim over with perfume and beauty. There was also a note, very short, and couched in a flawless French.
If one must be roused out of a delicious sleep on a warm June day, surely violets, and such a note as accompanied these particular violets, were the least disagreeable means ever invented for accomplishing that end. Rosina’s frown for Ottillie changed into a smile for some one else, and she rose from among her pillows and submitted to her toilet with a good grace. Ottillie, who was French enough and experienced enough never to need to be told things, divined what the note must have contained the second time that she saw her mistress glance at the clock, and so accelerated her ordinary rate of movement that even the gown of lace which appeared to fasten nowhere, was fastened everywhere ere the town bells rang five.
A few minutes after, a garçon in the hotel livery brought up a card, and, Continental etiquette made it quite en règle for Monsieur von Ibn to be ushered into the dainty little salon which the Schweizerhof permitted Rosina to enjoy (for a consideration), and there muse in company with his own violets, while he waited and turned his cane over and over in his gloved hands.
Then Ottillie opened the portières beyond, and Rosina appeared between them, delightfully cool and fresh-looking, and flatteringly glad to see him.
“We seem like quite long friends, do we not?” he said, as he bent above her hand and kissed it lightly.
“Yes, certainly, I feel that I have the sensation of at any rate three weeks,” she answered; and then she sank luxuriously down in a great fauteuil, and was conscious of an all-pervading well-content that it should be too warm to go out, and that he should be there opposite her while she must remain within. She was curious about this man who was so out of the ordinary, and the path along which her curiosity led her seemed a most attractive one.
“Why do you say three weeks,” he asked; “why not three months or three years?”
“But in three years one learns to know another so well, and I do not feel – ”
“Oh,” he interrupted, “it is better as it is; perhaps you may be like I am, and get weary always soon, and then have no longer any wish to see me.”
“Do you get tired of every one?”
He passed his hand across his eyes and sighed and smiled together.
“Yes, madame,” he said, and there was a sad note in his voice, “I get often tired. And it is bad, because I must depend so deeply on who I speak with for my mind to be able to work after. Comprenez-vous?”
She made a movement of assent that he seemed to have paused for, and he continued.
“When I meet a stranger I must always wonder how soon I shall be finished with him. It comes very soon with nearly all.”
“And are you sure that you are always the weary one?”
He looked blank for a moment, then,
“I have already bore you; yes?”
“Not at all, but I was warned this morning that you might possibly commit such a crime.”
“And have I?”
She looked on his earnestness and smiled.
“Have I?” he reiterated; “yes?”
Then she spoke suddenly.
“Why do foreigners always say ‘yes’ at the end of every question that they ask in English? I get so tired of it, it’s so superfluous. Why do they do it?”
He reflected.
“It is polite,”