A Woman's Will. Warner Anne
statement.
Rosina, remembering the American’s views in regard to him, stifled a smile.
“Our friend,” she asked, “the man who presented you to me, you know, does he weary you?”
Von Ibn frowned.
“But he is a very terrible bore,” he said; “you surely know that, since you know him.”
Then she could but laugh outright.
“And I, monsieur,” she demanded merrily, “tell me, do you think that I too shall some day – ?”
He looked at her in sudden, earnest anxiety.
“I hope otherwise,” he declared fervently.
While talking they had passed the limits of the Quai, crossed the big, sunny square, and come to the embankment that leads to the foot-bridge. The emerald-green Reuss rushed beside them with a smooth rapidity which seemed to hush the tumult of its swift current far underneath the rippling surface. The old stone light-house – the town’s traditionary godfather – stood sturdily for its rights out in mid-stream, and helped support the quaint zigzag of that most charming relic of the past, the longest wooden foot-bridge of Lucerne. A never-ending crowd of all ages and sexes and conditions of natives and strangers were mounting and descending its steps, hurrying along its crooked passage, or craning their necks to study the curious pictures painted in the wooden triangles of its pointed roof.
“I like the bridge better than I do the Lion,” Rosina remarked; “I think it is much more interesting.”
Von Ibn was looking down into the water where they had stopped by the bridge’s steps. He did not pay any attention to what she said, and after a minute she spoke again.
“What do you think?”
He made no answer. She turned her eyes in the direction of his and wondered what he was looking at. He appeared to be lost in a study of the Reuss.
“Do you always think before you speak,” she said, somewhat amused, “or are you doing mental exercises?”
But still no reply.
Then she too kept still. Her eyes wandered to a certain building on her left, and she reflected that necessity would shortly be driving her there with her letter of credit; but further reflection called to her mind the fact that she had intrusted Ottillie with a hundred-franc note to change that morning, and that would be enough to carry her over Sunday. The Gare across the water then attracted her attention, and she reviewed a last week’s journey on the St. Gotthard railway, and recalled the courtesy of a certain Englishman who had raised and lowered her window not once but perhaps twenty times. And then her gaze fell upon the skirt of her dress, which was a costume most appropriate for the Quai but much too delicate for a promiscuous stroll through the town streets.
“That is superficial!” Von Ibn suddenly declared.
She quite started.
“What is superficial?”
“Your comparison. You may not compare them at all.”
“May not compare what?”
“The bridge and the Lion. The bridge is a part of life out of the Middle Ages, and the Lion is a masterpiece of Thorwaldsen.”
Rosina simply stared at him.
“Is that what you have been thinking of all this long time?” she asked in astonishment.
“Was it so long?”
“I thought so.”
“What did you think of in that so long time?”
She told him about the bank, and the Englishman on the Gotthardbahn, and her dress. He smiled.
“How drôle a woman is!” he murmured, half to himself.
“But I think that you are droll too,” she told him.
“Oh,” he said energetically, “I assure you, madame, you do not as yet divine the tenth part of my drollness.”
She smiled.
“Do you think that I shall ever become sufficiently well acquainted with you to learn it all?”
He regarded her seriously.
“If you interest me,” he remarked, “I shall naturally see much of you, because we shall be much together. How long do you stay in Lucerne?”
“Until Monday. I leave on Monday.”
He looked at her in dismay.
“But I do not want to leave on Monday. I have only come the last night. I want to stay two weeks.”
She felt herself forced to bite her lips, even as she replied:
“But you can stay two weeks, monsieur.”
He looked blank.
“And you go?”
“Naturally; but what does that matter? You would not be going where I went anyway.”
“Where do you go?”
“To Zurich.”
“Alone? Do you go alone?”
“I have my maid, of course; and I am to meet a friend there.”
“A friend!” His whole face contracted suddenly. “Ah,” he cried, sharply, “I understand! It is that Englishman.”
“What Englishman?” she asked, utterly at a loss to follow his thought.
“Your friend.”
“But he’s an American.”
“You said he was an Englishman.”
“I never did! How could I? Why, can’t you tell at once that he is an American by the way that he talks?”
“I never have hear him talk.”
She stared afresh, then turned to walk on, saying, “You must be crazy! or aren’t you speaking of the man who presented you to me?”
“Why should I be of any interest as to that man? Naturally it is of the Englishman that I speak.”
“What Englishman?”
“But that Englishman upon the Gotthardbahn, of course; the one you have said was so nice to you.”
She began to laugh.
“Oh, pardon me, but you are so funny, you are really so very funny;” then pressing her handkerchief against her rioting lips, “you will forgive me for laughing, won’t you?”
He did not smile in the least nor reply to her appeal for forgiveness; he only waited until she was quiet, and then went on with increased asperity veiled in his tone.
“You are to see him again, n’est-ce pas?”
“I never expect to.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He stopped short and offered her his hand.
“Why?” she asked in surprise.
“Your word that you do not hope to meet him again.”
She began to laugh afresh.
Then, still holding out his hand, he repeated insistently.
“Tell me that you do not expect to meet him again.”
They were in one of the steep, narrow streets that lie beyond the bridges and lead up to the city wall. It was still, still as the desert; she looked at him, and his earnestness quelled her sense of humor over the absurdity of the situation.
“What shall I say to you?” she asked.
“Tell me that you do not expect to meet him again.”
“Certainly I do not expect to meet him again; although, of course, I might meet him by chance at any time.”
He looked into her face with an instant’s