I was not sure that she had discovered me at all until she turned her
head en passant and sent me one of those vague smiles calculated to stir
the dead bones of saints.
"I suppose," she said, "you only look lonely, but really you are not."
I was lonely and sore at heart. Possibly she read in my forced smile
something of my state of mind, for she paused leisurely by the arbor and
glanced about her at the grape leaves.
"Evidently," she said, "this spot is sacred to Bacchus. But I was not
looking for gods or half-gods.... Do you prefer your own company, Mr.
O'Ryan?"
"No, I don't," said I. So she entered the arbor and seated herself.
There was only that one seat. With strictest economy it could
accommodate two; but I had not thought of attempting it until she
carelessly suggested it.
"How heavenly still it is," she murmured, an absent expression in her
dark eyes. "Are you fond of stillness and solitude?"
"Not very," said I. "Are you, Countess?"
She said, dreamily, that she was, but her side glance belied her. Never
did the goddess of mischief look at me out of two human eyes as
audaciously as she was doing now. And it was so transparent a
challenge, so utterly without disguise, that we both laughed.
I don't know why I laughed unless the soreness in mind and heart had
provoked their natural reaction. A listless endurance of suffering is
the first symptom of indifference--that blessed anodyne with which
instinct inoculates unhappy hearts when the bitterness which was sorrow
wears away and leaves only dull resignation.
"At dinner," she said, "I made up my mind that you are an interesting
man. I am wondering."
"I came to a similar conclusion concerning you," said I. "But I'm no
longer wondering how near right I am."
"Such a pretty compliment! Also it dissipates any doubts regarding
you."
"Did you have any, Countess?"
"Well, you know what I asked you at dinner. You understood? You read
lips, don't you?"
"I read yours."
"I wasn't sure. You gave me no answer."
We laughed lightly. "What answer can a mortal make when Aphrodite
commands?" said I.
"Then you are willing to play Adonis?"
"Quite as willing--as was that young gentleman."
"That isn't kind of you, Mr. O'Ryan. He wasn't very willing, was he?"
"Not very. But possibly he had a premonition of the tragic
consequences," said I, laughing. "One doesn't frivol with a goddess
with impunity."
"Are you afraid?"
She turned in the narrow seat. She was altogether too near, but I
couldn't help it. And I was much disturbed to find our fingers had
become very lightly intertwined.
She was smiling when I kissed her. But after I had done it her smile
faded, and the gay confidence in her expression altered.
I had never expected to see in her eyes any hint of confusion, but it
was there, and a sort of shamed surprise, too--odd emotions for a
hardened coquette with the reputation she enjoyed.
"You proceed too rapidly," she said, the bright but subtly changed smile
still stamped on her lips. "There seems to be no finesse about
Americans--no leisurely technique that masters the intricacies of the
ante-climax. Did you not know that hesitation is an art; that the only
perfect happiness is in suspense?"
"Didn't you want to be kissed?" I asked bluntly. "I had perhaps surmised
that it might not be a disagreeable sensation. Was it?"
She seemed to have recovered her careless audacity, and now she laughed.
"At all events," she said, "I shall not repeat the experiment ... this
evening." She laid one soft hand in mine with a gay little smile: "Let
us enjoy our new friendship serenely and without undue emotion," she
said. "And let me tell you how you have made me laugh at what you said
to those absurd Prussians!"
We both laughed, but I was now on my guard with this girl who had come
here in such company.
"No Prussian ever born ever knew how to make a friend," she said.
"To-day they have the whole world against them--even your country----"
"I am Chilean," said I pleasantly.
"Are you _really_?"
"I think you and your friends are quite sure of that," said I drily.
"Suppose," she said in a lower voice, "I tell you that they are not my
friends?"