“What fun to know him! He’s going to be so tremendously famous, they

say; did you know that?”

“So they told me there.”

“And he plays in such a wonderful manner, too. What a pity he didn’t

play for you. Don’t you love a violin, anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” said Rosina thoughtfully; “I think that I like a flute

best, but I always think whenever I see a man playing on a violin that

the attitude ought to develop very affectionate tendencies in him.”

“What kind of a fellow was he to talk to? Was he agreeable?”

“Most of the American men didn’t like him, I believe,” said Rosina; then

she added, “but most of the American men never like any foreigners, you

know, unless it’s the Englishmen, perhaps.”

“But what did you think of him?”

“I thought he was very queer; and he got the better of me all the time.”

“That ought to have made you hate him.”

“That is what seems so odd to me. I’ve been thinking about him all the

time that I was on the train this morning. Do you know, Molly, that man

was positively rude to me over and over again, and yet, try as I might,

I couldn’t stay angry with him.” She paused and knit her brows for a few

seconds over some recollection, and then she turned suddenly and laid

her face against the other’s shoulder. “Molly, dear,” she said softly,

“he had a way of smiling,--if you could only see it! Well!”

“Well!”

“I could forgive anything to that smile,--honestly.”

Molly looked thoughtful.

“Saturday to Monday,” she murmured apropos of nothing.

Rosina lifted her head and gave her a glance.

“I wish that _you_ might meet him,” she said gravely.

“I wish that he was here in Zurich,” her friend replied.

At that instant there sounded a tap on the door.

“_Herein!_” Rosina cried.

It was a waiter with a card upon a tray; Molly held out her hand for the

bit of pasteboard, glanced at it, and gave a start and a cry.

“Is anything the matter?” Rosina asked, reaching for the card. Her

friend gave it to her, and as her eyes fell upon the name she turned

first white and then red.

“It _can’t_ be that he is here in Zurich!” she exclaimed.

“This is his card, anyway.”

“Mercy on us!”

“Shall he come up here,--he had better, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” she gasped. “I’m too surprised to think! The idea of his

coming here this afternoon! Why, I never thought of such a thing. He

said good-bye _forever_ last night. I--”

“Show monsieur to the room,” Molly said to the man, cutting Rosina short

in the full tide of her astonishment.

“Of course you must see him,” she said, as the door closed, “and, not

being entirely devoid of curiosity, I can’t help feeling awfully glad to

think that now I shall see him too.”

She quitted the divan as she spoke and went to the mirror over the

mantelpiece. There was something in the action that suddenly recalled

Rosina to her senses, and she sprang to her feet and disappeared into

the sleeping-room beyond, returning in two or three minutes bearing

evidence of Ottillie’s deft touch. She found Molly still before the

mirror, and as her own reflection appeared over her friend’s shoulder

the other nodded and laughed.

“You seem to have made a deep impression,” she said gayly.

“I can’t understand it all,” Rosina began; “he made _such_ a fuss over

his good-bye last night and--and--well, really, I never dreamed of his

doing such a thing as to come here.”

“I’m heartily glad that he’s come, because now I shall meet him, and

I’ve heard--”

She was interrupted by a slight tap at the door, and before either could

cry “_Entrez!_” it was flung open and Von Ibn strode into the room. The

first glance at his face showed both that something was gone all wrong,

and most horribly so.

Rosina, flushed afresh, went towards him, holding out her hand and

wondering if it was anything in connection with Molly that had produced

such an utter blackness.

“This is a very great surprise,” she began, but he interrupted her at

once.

“_Comme je vous ai cherché!_” he cried, with violence. “Why are you not

gone to the Victoria as you say--as I ask you to?” His face was like a

thunder-storm.

The corners of her mouth felt suddenly traitorous; she tried to speak,

beginning, “I did not know--” but he broke in, and went hotly on with:

“Naturally you did not know, but I had already known! One could not, of

course, expect me to get up to ride on that most uncomfortable train

which you chose, but of course also I came on the first train leaving

after I did wake up.”

Molly turned abruptly to the window and leaned as far out as she could,

her handkerchief pressed tightly over her mouth. Rosina wished that her

friend might have been anywhere else; even during what is commonly

called “a scene” two are infinitely better company than three.

“How most absurd I have been made,” Von Ibn continued wrathfully, “in a

cab from hotel to hotel hunting for you! Do you think I have ever done

so before? Do you think I have found it very amusing to-day? Naturally I

go from the Gare to the Victoria, where I have told you to go. I take

there a room, and tell the _garçon_ to bring my card to madame; and in

ten minutes, as I am getting me out of the dust of that most abominable

middle-day train, he returns to say that no such as madame is within the

house. _Figurez-vous?_ Why are you acted so? Why are you always so oddly

singular?”

Rosina appeared struck dumb by the torrent of his words; she stood pink

and silent before his towering blackness. Molly, at the window, judged

it prudent to interfere, and, turning, began:

“It’s all my fault, monsieur. Rosina wanted to go to the Victoria; she

wept when she found that she couldn’t, but I was here already and we

wanted to be together, and so she consented to come with me and live by

the lake.”

Von Ibn turned his eyes upon the new speaker, and their first expression

was one of deep displeasure. But Molly’s eyes were of that brown which

is almost bronze, and fringed by eyelashes that were irresistibly long

and curly, and she furthermore possessed a smile that could have found

its way anywhere alone, and yet was rendered twice wise in the business

of hearts by two attendant dimples, to the end that the combination was

powerful enough to slowly smooth out some of the deepest lines of anger

in the face before her, and to vastly ameliorate its generally offended

air.

From the evidently pardoned Irish girl the caller turned his somewhat

softened gaze towards the young American, and then, and then only, it

appeared that a fresh storm-centre had gathered force unto itself in

that one small salon, and that it was now Rosina who had decided to

exhibit _her_ temper, beginning by saying, with a very haughty

coolness:

“It’s nice of mademoiselle to try and make a joke out of all this, but

she knows that I never thought for a minute of going anywhere except

where she might chance to be. And as to you, monsieur, I cannot see how

you could have expected or demanded that I should pay any attention

whatever to your wishes. You told me last night that we might never meet

again--”

“And that could have truthed itself by chance,” he interrupted eagerly.

“--And I believed you, and you know it,” she finished, not noticing his

interpolation.

He stood still, looking straight at her, and when she was altogether

silent he stepped forward and raised her hand within his own.

“Does one meet a real friendship on Saturday to let it go from him for

always after Monday?” he asked her, speaking with a simple dignity that

suddenly swept the atmosphere free from clouds and storms.

Molly crossed the room hastily.

“I hear madame calling,” she explained.

Rosina knew that madame was down a corridor well around the corner, and

that she was not in the habit of calling for anything or anybody, but

she felt no desire to cover her friend with shame by forcing her to

admit that she was lying. Indeed, just at that particular moment

Molly’s absence appeared to be a very desirable quota in the general

scheme of things. So the girl went away and stayed away--being wise in

her views as to life and love affairs.

When they were alone Von Ibn flung himself into an arm-chair and

stretched forth his hand almost as if to command her approach to his

side. She stood still, but she could feel her color rising and was

desperately annoyed that it should be so.

“You are not angry that I be here?” he asked.

She drew a quick little breath and then turned to seat herself.

“You must have known that I must come,” he continued.

She felt her lips tremble, and was furious at them for it.

“I played the ‘Souvenir’ last night,” he said, dropping his eyes and

sinking his voice; “it is then plain to me that I must travel to-day.”

Something dragged her gaze upward until their eyes met.

He smiled, and she blushed deeply....

Chapter Six

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 could _I_ mean 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 herself on 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 your _fiancés_?”

“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 ever _will_ marry 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 you _really_ thought of him.”

“I thought he was grand. How could any one think anything else?”

Then through the stillness and darkness there sounded the _frou-frou_ of

ruffles and the sweetness and warmth of a fervent kiss.

Chapter Seven

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 you _ever_?” 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’ll _have_ to go!”

“Why?”

“Why, because--because--Oh, you know why. And then,--if I go--what _do_

you 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, not _really_?”

“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’t

_want_ him 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 that _der_ Herr 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 you _do_ do,” 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 know one 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 hotel _garçons_.

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 feel very 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.

Chapter Eight

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 lay brilliantly 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 to Constance 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 the others 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 the _garçon_, and German, French, or

English, that voice was unmistakable. How, what, or why she knew not,

but _he_ was 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

instinctive intuition 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 made her 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 not _en route_ to 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 not able 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 quite crazy! 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 seen in 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 themselves

gently 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 that you 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 not _en route_ North, 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 be _ennuyés_ by 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 send for 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 I _may_ come 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 the _pension_ with 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 the

_Portier_ like 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 the weight 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. I _must_

go!”

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?

Chapter Nine

“I shall certainly not tell Molly one word about these latest

developments,” Rosina said firmly to herself, and she remade the

resolution not once but a hundred times during the train ride of that

early Wednesday morning. She was too tired from excess of emotion, and

no balance of much-needed sleep, to feel anything but unhappy over the

termination of the preceding evening.

Everything was over now, and the only glory to be reaped in any

direction would be the dignified way in which Molly should be kept in

ignorance of all that had occurred.

Outside, the freshness of a Suabian morning lay over valley and

mountain. The country was beautiful with the charm of midsummer’s

immediate promise, which spread over the fields of ripening grain and

lost itself among the threading rivulets, or in the shadow of forest and

mountain. The white-plastered farmhouses with the stable-door at one

end, the house-door at the other, and the great sweep of straw-thatched

roof sloping down over all, peeped out from among their surrounding

fruit-trees. Old, old women knit peacefully under the shadow of the

stone-bound well, and little, little children tumbled about their knees

in the grass. Out in the garden at one side the boys and girls were busy

gathering berries or vegetables for the market of next day. Yokes of

oxen passed slowly to and fro upon the shaded roads, their high,

two-wheeled carts loaded to the very top; beside a pond a maiden herded

geese; upon a hill a boy lay sleeping, his sheep nibbling the herbage

near by. It was all quaint and picturesque, and to the American eyes

surpassing strange to see, but those two particular American eyes before

which all the panorama was displayed, happened just then to be blind to

everything except one vivid spirit-photograph, and grew moist each time

that they pictured that afresh.

“No, I shall not tell Molly one word,” she repeated mentally; “I can’t

tell her part,--I won’t tell her all,--so I just shan’t tell her

anything,” and then she stared sightlessly out of the wide-open window,

and knew not that it was the dregs of her own evaporated anger which

veiled the sunlit landscape in a dull-gray mist.

The train came slowly in by the banks of the Bodensee, and halted at the

Kaufhaus soon after eleven o’clock. The Kaufhaus is that delightful old

building where Huss was tried before the great Council. Built for a

warehouse, it is now again a warehouse, Huss and his heresy having been

but a ripple on the tranquil centuries of its existence.

Molly (who had been telegraphed to) was at the Gare to meet her friend,

and managed to smother her surprise over the sudden turn of events with

complete success.

“Let the maid take the boxes to the hotel,” she said, after having

greeted the traveller, “and you and I will just have a nice drive before

dinner, and a good long nap right afterwards.”

Rosina submitted to be led passively to a cab, and the strength of her

resolution was such that before they reached the spot where Huss was

burnt, Molly was in possession of the last detail as to the preceding

evening. She said never a word in reply, being much engaged in looking

out of the side of the cab to see if she could see the monument, an

action which struck her unhappy friend as heartless in the extreme. When

they drew up beside the iron fence, both got out and peered between the

bars at the huge ivy-covered boulder within the enclosure.

“Was he burned _on_ this stone?” Molly called to the cabman in German;

“now why does he laugh, do you suppose?” she asked in English of Rosina.

“Oh,” the latter replied wearily, “you used the word for ‘fried,’

instead of the word ‘burned,’ but it doesn’t matter,” she added with a

heavy sigh.

“I wonder whether he was looking towards the woods or towards the town

when they lighted him!” Molly pursued with real interest.

Rosina felt that such talk was horribly frivolous, her own tale of woe

considered, and made no reply; so they went back to the cab, and then

Molly clasped her hands in her lap and became serious.

“I would forget all about him, if I was you,” she said; “you will never

get any satisfaction out of a man who is always going in for jealous

rages like that.”

Rosina felt with a shock that Molly was of a nature more intensely

unsympathetic than any which she had hitherto encountered. She looked at

the Rhine, wondered if it flowed past Leipsic, and wished that she had

kept to her original determination and said nothing at all about any of

it.

“I’m glad that I did as I did,” she said, with an effort to speak in a

tone of indifference (the effort was a marked failure). “I’m sure that

I want to forget him badly enough,” she added, and swallowed a choke.

Molly put her hand upon hers and nodded.

“Certainly, my dear; it was the only thing to do with a man like that.

You explained once, and once is enough, for one night, surely. Forget

him now and be happy again.”

“Don’t let us talk about it any more,” said Rosina, feeling bitterly

that Molly lightly demanded oblivion of her when all her inclinations

were towards tears.

They drove some distance in silence, and then Rosina said slowly:

“Do you suppose that I shall ever see him again now?”

“Yes, if you want to. One always sees the men again that one wants to

see again.”

“Are you sure?”

“I never knew it to fail.”

“How does that happen?”

“I don’t know why it is, but it always does happen. Effect of mental

telepathy, perhaps. The man knows that he is to be given another chance,

and comes to get it, I fancy.”

“But Monsieur von Ibn is so _very_ singular!”

“Every man is singular!”

“My husband wasn’t. And he wasn’t ever the least bit jealous,” she

stopped to sigh. “I like jealous men!” she added.

“Yes,” said Molly, dryly, “so I observed.”

“He never lost his temper either,” Rosina continued. “We never had

anything to make up. And making up is so delicious. Oh, me!” she sighed,

and her eyes filled with tears again.

“Never mind,” said Molly, consolingly, “you’ll soon be making it up this

time.”

“Don’t you think,” said Rosina, slowly, “that he ought to have sent some

sort of an apology last night; it could have been put under the door, no

matter how late it was, you know?”

“He isn’t that sort of a man, I fancy.”

“But his behavior was so unpardonable!”

“Yes, but he doesn’t see that.”

“Then I don’t care if I never do meet him again,” Rosina exclaimed

passionately, and the next instant she burst into tears. “He’s so

interesting,” she sobbed; “and his way of speaking is such an

everlasting joy to me; and he never means to marry; and I never mean to

marry; and I know that he really cared a great deal about me; and now

it’s--all--all over!”

Molly leaned over and kissed her, drew a comforting arm around her

waist, and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

“Don’t take it so awfully to heart, my dear,” she whispered soothingly;

“we all have troubles of one kind, if not of another. Here’s a long

letter come by the morning post from my dear gray-caped lieutenant, and

it’s just full of the worst sort of desperation over our mutual affairs.

He knows that we can’t possibly marry without a certain amount of money,

which we have neither of us got, and so there you are!”

“How much is it?” Rosina asked dully. She felt that she ought to try and

make an effort to interest herself in the lives of others, even if her

own had so completely crashed in.

“Oh, it’s something awful in pounds, but in those Italian _lire_!--why,

it’s not to be thought of for a moment. He thinks that he had best chuck

up the army and take me to America instead!”

“Oh, Molly, don’t let him do that! We haven’t any Italians in America

except organ-grinders and miners, and the Ambassador, of course!”

“I knew it wouldn’t do,” said the Irish girl. Then she shrugged her

shoulders and laughed.

“But then I never did intend to marry him, anyhow!”

They drove back to the hotel, and Rosina’s eyes were fairly presentable

when the _Portier_ came out to receive them.

“There is a letter just come for madame,” he said, as they entered the

Kreuzgang; “it is in the office; I will bring it at once.”

“There!” Molly whispered, “do you see!”

Rosina trembled slightly as she held out her hand and saw the hotel

stamp of Zurich on the envelope. Then she tore it open and pulled out

the single folded sheet contained therein.

It was her bill, receipted, which Ottillie had let fall in the haste of

their early departure!

* * * * *

Madame la Princesse Russe having a migraine that afternoon, the two

friends had the pleasure of a tête-á-tête dinner at half-past six. They

sat by one of the great windows of what used to be the chapel of the

monastery, but is now the dining-room of the Inselhaus, and enjoyed the

sweet lake breeze, while their tongues ran delightfully. Rosina,

liberally refreshed by a long nap, and mightily reinforced as to her

pride by the last terrific blow of the letter, was in the best possible

spirits, and her gayety quite rivalled, if it did not surpass, that of

her companion.

As the waiter was removing the salad, a shadow fell suddenly athwart the

floor at their side, and Molly, looking quickly upward, beheld--the man!

He was in evening dress, calm, cool, and smiling, and neither the

surprised face of the one, nor the violent start of the other shook his

composure in the least.

“_Vous allez bien, mesdames?_” he asked politely, and then, speaking to

the waiter with authority:

“Lay another place here,” he said, indicating the end of the small

table, “for I shall dine with you, _n’est-ce pas_?” he added, looking

straight at Rosina.

She appeared to have been stricken suddenly dumb, and was so evidently

incapable of speech that Molly came boldly to the front with the

un-original remark:

“When _did_ you come?”

“By Schaffhausen, that _train-rapide_ that does go so fast. I had been

more wise to have come this morning by the train as madame, for this

afternoon the tourists were very terrible--also the heat.”

“Was it dusty?” she went on.

“I believe you well that it was. And you,” he continued, turning to

Rosina, who sat helplessly staring at her plate, and was very pale

except for a crimson spot on either cheek, “had you a pleasant ride?”

“No, she hadn’t,” said her faithful friend; “she arrived all used up.”

“You were made too tired, and do not feel well?” he asked, addressing

the scarlet cheeks again; “truly, you look much so. What has arrived in

Zurich to make you like that?”

He put the question in a tone the intensity of which forced her to lift

her eyes to his. Molly did not see the glance, for the infinitude of her

own experiences led her to find the moment favorable for gazing out of

the window in a sort of rapt admiration for the Insel rose-bushes in the

foreground and the placid Bodensee beyond.

It was the waiter who jarred them all three back to the knowledge of

mundane things by bringing soup for the latest arrival and ices for his

two companions.

“Ah, now I may eat!” the gentleman exclaimed in a tone of deep

satisfaction, and began at once.

“You must not be surprised over me,” he said to Molly, with a slight

smile.

“I was not surprised,” she reassured him.

“Because I have not eaten to-day before,” he explained.

“Really?”

“Yes, of a truthfulness. I am most _drôle_ as that. I may never eat when

I am much troubled.”

“Dear me, have you been troubled to-day?”

He looked at Rosina, whose face blazed yet deeper.

“I have said that I may not eat,” he repeated simply.

Molly laid down her spoon and glanced out of the window again. Her

feminine instinct divined what was to be.

“And madame your friend, she is not ill, I hope?” he inquired politely,

as the waiter removed his soup.

“No,” said the Irish girl, slowly, “or--that is,--yes, yes, she is.”

“And you must go at once to her,” he cried, springing up to draw back

her chair, “I am so sad for that.”

Molly rose to her feet.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said, nodding a smiling thanks; “but you see I’ve

no choice.” And then she went coffee-less away to laugh alone

above-stairs.

Von Ibn sat down again and ate his fish in silence. He did not appear

greatly perturbed over the twin-silence which was opposite him, rather

seeming to reflect upon the fresh reconciliation which was building

itself on such a substantial foundation of blushes.

Finally, when the fish was gone, he leaned somewhat forward and spoke

very low.

“_Oh, que j’étais malheureux hier le soir!_” he said in a tone that

trembled with feeling; “you can figure to yourself nothing of what it

was! And this morning--when I send and find that you are gone!--I must

know then that you were very furious of me.”

She raised her eyes, but to the window, not to him.

“I was,” she said briefly, but not the less tensely.

“When you are run last night--on the stairs like that, you know!--it

should have been amusing to see you run so fast; but I was not any

amused whatever. But why did you run?” he questioned, interrupting

himself; “did you think to leave me always then, there, forever? For an

instant I had the idea to go after you, but the _Portier_ was there, and

I have thought, ‘What may he think?’”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, distressedly, “I altogether forgot him! What do you

suppose he did think?”

Von Ibn shrugged his shoulders.

“_Rien du tout_,” he said easily; “he has think most probably that you

have lost something from you--a pin or a button, you know. When a woman

runs so, that is what every one knows.”

“Do they?”

“_Natürlich!_ I always know.”

“Oh!”

He finished his dinner in short order and then looked a smiling inquiry

into her eyes.

“We shall go now on to the terrace for the coffee; yes?” he asked as he

rose, and she rose too and went with him to where their little table was

spread among the dusk and the roses. The band in the Stadtgarten was

playing delightfully, and its sweetness came across water and park to

search out their very souls. The Bodensee spread all beyond in a gray

peace that seemed to bid the very leaves upon the trees to slumber. The

steamers were coming to their harbor rest in answer to the flaming

summons flung them by the searchlight at the head of the pier. They

glided in in slow procession, shivered at anchor, and submitted to the

lulling of the lake’s night breath.

Von Ibn rested his elbow on the table and his chin upon his hand. He

looked dreamily out across the water for a long time before saying:

“You pardon my impoliteness then of last night? I am not come to trouble

you here, only to ask that, and something else, and then I go again at

once.”

“Yes, I will pardon you,” said Rosina gently. She too was looking

thoughtfully out into the twilight on the water. “Only don’t do so

again.”

“It is that that I would ask,” he went on, looking always at the lake,

never at her; “that is what I would beg of you. Let us promise

sincerely--let us take a vow never to be angry again. I have suffer

enough last night both with my own anger and from yours. I will believe

what you may tell me. And let us never be angry so again.”

“It is you who are so unreasonable,” she began.

“No,” he interrupted quickly, “not unreasonable. _Jamais je ne me fâche

sans raison!_”

“Yes, you do too. Just think of last night, you were twice angry for

nothing at all. It was terrible!”

He stared afar and seemed to reflect doubly.

“He was _bête_, that man,” he said at last.

“He wasn’t either. He was very nice; I don’t know how I should have

gotten along coming over if I had not had him on the steamer to amuse

me.”

“You could have done very well without him at Zurich,” said Von Ibn

doggedly; “myself, I did not like him the first minute that I see him.”

“When did you first see him?”

“He was there at the table beside you.”

Rosina laughed a little. He turned towards her and smiled.

“Then you will forgive me?”

“Yes, this one time more. But never, never again.”

He turned to the lake and consumed five minutes in assimilating her

remark. Then his look came back to her.

“I was awake so much last night that my eyes burn me; do they show it?”

She looked into his eyes, and they burned indeed--burned with a latent

glow that forced her own to lower their lids.

“Do they look strangely to you?” he asked.

“No,” she said in a low tone.

“That is odd, because in all my life they have never look at any one as

they look at you to-night.”

She drew herself together suddenly.

“Don’t talk foolishly,” she said distinctly.

“That was no foolishness; it is true.”

“It is just the sort of thing that all men say, and I like you because

you do not say things like all other men.”

“Do all other men say to you that?”

“Not just that, but its equivalents. Men in general are not very

original.”

He took out his cigarette case and contemplated its bas-relief of two

silver nymphs for several seconds.

“You may,” said his companion, smiling.

“May what?”

“May smoke.”

“But I am going to, anyway.”

“Oh.”

He looked at her with an air of remonstrance.

“This is not your parlor,” he reminded her.

“No,” she said meekly; “I stand corrected.”

He lit the cigarette and threw the match into a rose-bush.

“I think that I will go and find Molly,” she suggested presently.

“Why?”

“I think that she would be able to leave madame by this time.”

“But if she can leave her then she will come to us, and I do not want

her; do you?”

“I always want her.”

“That is absurd. Why do you want her? I never want another man when we

speak together.”

“But I am very fond of Molly.”

“So am I most affectionate of my professor in Leipsic, but I never once

have wished for him when I was with you.”

“That’s different.”

“No, it is quite one. Do not go for mademoiselle; I have something to

say to you, and there is only to-night to say it.”

“What is it?”

“It is that I have really to go away. This time I must. I go to-morrow

morning without fail.”

“I am so glad,” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” he said, with a quick glance; “is it really so that my going

makes you pleasure? Truly I only come in return for your kindness of

last night--when you send for me, you know. I think that I wish to

repay. But now, if we are quite friends, I must go very early to-morrow

in the morning.”

“I am glad that you are going,” she said quietly, “and you know why. And

I shall be glad when we meet again,” she added in a lighter tone.

Then a long silence fell between them, while to their ears came the

famous symphony of a famous composer. When the music ceased he spoke

again.

“You will write to me?”

“I am not a letter writer.”

“But you will send me a few lines sometimes?”

“Are you going to write me?”

“_Si vous voulez de mes nouvelles._”

“Yes, I do.”

“I will tell you,” he said, tossing his cigarette into the lake; “I will

send you a post-card, as I tell you before--you recall? yes.”

“No,” said Rosina, with decision, “I don’t want post-cards; you can

write me in an envelope or not at all.”

He looked at her thoughtfully.

“I have some very small paper,” he said at last, “I can use that; I use

it to write my family on.”

She almost laughed.

“That will be all right,” she said, “and I will answer on my

correspondence-cards. They only hold half a dozen lines, and they have

my monogram on them and are really very pretty.”

“You can write on the back too,” he suggested.

“I shan’t have any more to say than will go easily on the front,

though.”

“And I shall see you next in August in Munich?”

“_Espérons!_” with a smile.

He stood up suddenly.

“Let us walk to the Garten,” he suggested; “it is good to walk after

dinner a little.”

She rose too, very willingly, and they went towards the bridge that

connects the Insel with the mainland.

“Did you love your husband?” he asked as they passed above the moat-like

stream.

“Tremendously.”

“For long?”

“Until after we were married.”

He halted short at that.

“It was too bad to stop just then.”

Rosina felt that there were safer places to pause than there on the

railroad tracks, and went on to the other side.

“It was too bad to stop at all,” she said, when he came too.

“_Assurément._”

They walked along the bank and came into the Stadtgarten, full of people

laughing and talking with the liveliness that is so pleasant to see and

so difficult, apparently, to import, unless it be in the steerage.

Perhaps it is the Custom House which takes all the gayety out of the

First and Second Classes before they can get ashore in America.

“We shall have to say our parting very soon,” the man said presently;

“we have both travelled to-day, and I must go in a very early hour

to-morrow.”

“Yes,” she replied, “I am much more weary to-night even than I was last

night.”

“If we are tired we might again have trouble,” suggested her companion

wisely. Then he added quickly, “But, no, never again,--I have promise

that.”

“Shall we not return to the hotel now?” she asked.

“But why will you go back so quick?” he asked in an injured tone; “do

you want to be so soon alone?”

“I thought that you wanted to be.”

“I want to sit down and not walk ever,” he said, pausing by an empty

table in the open-air café. “What made you stop?” he went on, looking at

her, she having paused where he did, naturally.

“I stopped because you did.”

“Because I did! that has no sense.”

“Then I’ll go on alone,” and she moved away.

He rejoined her in three steps, laughing.

“Why do you walk off like that?” he demanded.

“Because you said that there was no sense in my stopping.”

He looked at her in great amusement.

“_Que vous êtes tordante!_ I asked you why you stopped loving your

husband?”

She stared.

“Why, it’s ever so long since we were speaking of that. How funny you

are!”

He turned her back towards the empty table.

“Let us sit down here and talk, it may be the last time for long.”

She hesitated, thinking of Molly.

“It is so nice here,” he declared, persuasively; “only for a few minutes

we stay.”

She sat down forthwith; he followed suit. A maid came and took his

order, and then he clasped his hands upon the table before him and was

still, appearing to be overtaken by some sudden and absorbing train of

thought.

After a little the music recommenced, and his soul returned to his eyes

with a quick upblazing light. He reached out his hand and touched hers.

“Listen!” he exclaimed imperatively; “you go to learn something now. Pay

much notice.”

The violins of the orchestra were pouring forth their hearts in a sweet

treble song, whose liquid liaisons flowed high above the background of a

dark monotony of single chords. The air was singularly full of feeling,

and reached forth its individual pleading to each individual listener.

“You have hear that?” he whispered with a smile.

“Never,” she whispered in return.

“You shall wait a little,” he murmured, resting his chin on his hand and

turning his eyes on the lake again; “in a moment you shall hear.”

At that instant the song appeared to terminate, and bass and treble ran

together in long, sweeping arpeggios; and then, out over the merry

crowd, out over the infinite peace of the Bodensee, there rang and

resounded four notes,--E, F, F sharp, G; four notes, the pain, the

prayer, the passion of which shrieked to the inmost mysteries of every

hearing heart.

Rosina started; her companion turned quickly towards her.

“It is what you told me of at Lucerne that night on the steamer?” she

asked, with no question in her voice.

He moved his head slowly in assent to her certainty. The cascading song

was already running its silvery course again; he leaned far towards her.

“Have you comprehend, do you think?” he asked.

She nodded. And then she too leaned her chin on her hand, and looked to

the lake to guard her eyes, while the music invaded and took complete

possession of her senses.

“Do you play that on your violin?” she asked, when all was over.

“There is no music that I may not play,” he replied, “unless I have

never see it, or hear it, or divine it for myself.”

“Do you play the piano also?”

“Only what I must. Sometimes I must, you know. Then I say to my hands,

‘You shall go here, you shall go there!’ and they go, but very badly.”

She looked straight at him with a curious dawning in her eyes.

“I wonder, shall we ever make any music together?” she murmured.

“Much,” he said tritely.

She was conscious of neither wonder nor resistance, as if the music had

cast a spell over her self-mastery.

“I want to hear you play,” she said, with an echo of entreaty.

He shook his head, brushing a lock of hair off of his temple as he did

so. There was a sort of impatience in each movement.

“Not these days; no! I played once after I saw you first, but only once.

Since that the case is locked; the key is here.” He interrupted himself

to draw out his keys, and separating one from the rest held it up to

her. “Let us hope that in Munich, perhaps.”

The waitress had returned with their ices. He watched her arrange them,

and she watched him. The heavy circle under his eyes was especially

noticeable this night, the eyes themselves especially laughless.

“You are glad that I go?” he asked suddenly as he picked up his spoon

and plunged it into the saucer before him; “yes?”

“I shall be more glad when I know that you are really gone.”

“But this time it is sure. This time it is really a true going.” He

stopped and broke a piece of cake into tiny morsels, pushing them

together into a neat little pile. “Why were you unhappy in your

husband?” he asked slowly.

“He drank,” she replied.

“Perhaps he was unhappy?”

“Perhaps.”

“And you?”

“Beyond a doubt.”

He took another bit of cake and crumbed that up as he had the first.

“Don’t do that.”

“Why shall I not?” with an air of surprise.

“It isn’t right.”

“But I shall pay for it,” he said remonstrantly.

“It’s bad manners, anyhow.”

“What does it matter if I like, and pay for it too?”

“Well, then, if you must know, it makes me horribly nervous!”

He looked at her quickly.

“Are you nervous?”

“Yes, when people waste cake like that.”

He sighed and stopped his play.

“Did you ever love after?” he asked presently.

“No, never! Good Heavens, once was enough!”

“Was your husband so very bad?”

“He wasn’t bad at all; he was only disagreeable.”

“Perhaps he made you nervous?” he queried.

“Perhaps,” she answered dryly.

There was a long, long pause. The band now played “_Doch Einer Schoner

Zeit_,” and some peasants in the native costume sang the words.

Finally he pushed his plate away and crossed his arms upon the table;

his eyes were very earnest.

“Once I loved,” he said; “I have speak of that to you before.”

She made no reply.

“It was no passion of a whole life, but for a boy, as I was then, it was

much. I was quite young, and, _Gott_! how I _did_ love! She was such a

woman as says, ‘I will make this man absolutely mad;’ and she did so.

She made me crazy--_tout-à-fait fou_; and then, when I could only

breathe by her eyes, she showed me that she was uncaring!”

He stopped, stared sightlessly out at the black water beyond, and then

turned towards her.

“Is it so in _your_ mind towards me?” he asked, and in his voice and

eyes was that heartrending pathos which once in a lifetime a man’s soul

may come to share with childhood’s heavy sorrows.

She drew a quick breath. The pointed roofs of the Inselhaus off there

beyond the trees printed themselves darkly and forever upon her brain;

the scattered lights in the windows, the inky spots where the ivy

trailings were massed thickest,--all those details and a dozen others

were in that instant photographed upon her spirit, destined to

henceforth form the background to the scene whose centre was the face

opposite to her, all of the expression of which seemed to have condensed

itself into the burning gaze of those two great eyes, so vastly sad.

“Oh, monsieur,” she said, with a tone of deep appeal, “believe me, I

have never done so cruel a thing as that in all my life!”

“Are you to all men as to me?”

“I hope so.”

“That American in Zurich! when you met him again was it as to meet me

again?”

“But he is no especial friend of mine.”

“And am I especial?--Am I?--Yes?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I feel as if I had known you all my life.”

“Yes,” he answered quickly, “just so I feel also.”

He put up his hand and again brushed the loose lock of his wavy hair

back from his forehead.

“_Vraiment_,” he exclaimed, “I begin to feel that it is impossible that

I go to-morrow.”

“Oh, but you must,” she cried, much alarmed.

“We are so happy; why can we not let this pleasure last?”

“You _must_ go!” she reiterated with decision.

“We understand so well,” he went on, without noticing her words; “you

understand, I understand. I wish nothing of you, I require nothing of

you, only the friendship--only these good hours that we know together,

only the joy of our sympathy. Why can I not be where you are everywhere?

_Warum nichts_?”

“It isn’t possible!” she said firmly.

He turned about in his seat and called for the reckoning. After it was

paid they went together back towards the hotel.

“You have told me that you will never marry again,” he said presently,

“and I have told you that I also intend never. But--” he stopped short.

The hotel court was there before them, and the scent of some night

flowers came on the evening breeze from those beds of riotous color

which fill the central space of the old Cloister.

“Let us walk once around the Kreuzgang,” he suggested, “and after that

we will go in.”

She assented, and they followed the vivid outline of Constance’s history

as portrayed in the large frescoes upon the inner wall of the vaulted

passage.

“I do not breathe here,” he said suddenly; “come into the garden with me

once again. But for a moment? I beg--I pray!”

They went out on to the terrace, passing through the Refectory, now

thick with smoke and scintillating with beer-steins.

“You say that you will never marry,” he said again, as they encircled

the base of Huss’ Tower, “and I tell you that I also have the idea to

never marry. But--”

He paused again, just by that bit of the old monastery wall which

extends out towards the bathing-houses.

“But if--_if_,” he emphasized the monosyllable with marked

emphasis,--“_if_ I asked you to marry me, what would you say?”

Rosina did not stop for an instant’s consideration.

“I should say ‘no.’”

He received the blow full in his face.

“Why?” he asked.

“I do not want another husband. I don’t like husbands. They are all

alike.”

“How?”

“You can’t tell a thing about them beforehand; they always change, and

are different after marriage from what they were before.”

“I shall never change,” he declared positively.

“They all say that.”

“But I speak truth!”

“They all say that too.”

“But with me it will arrive;” then he added, “with me it will arrive

that I shall never change, because I shall _never_ marry.”

His remark was such a complete surprise to her that she could hardly

master her shock for a moment.

“If that was the point that you were leading up to,” she said finally,

“I’m certainly glad that I did not say ‘yes.’”

He surveyed her, smiling.

“I particularly said ‘if,’” he reminded her; “I said, ‘_if_ I asked

you to marry me,’ you know?”

Rosina felt a strong inclination to bring the evening to a close. She

wanted to be alone and think.

“We must go in,” she said.

“I also feel it,” he answered.

So they went in. The hall and staircase were quite deserted. He walked

with her to the top of the first flight.

“Do we leave good-bye here?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said smiling; “I think so.”

He stood looking at her, and out of the depths of his nature various

phantoms strove into shape.

“It is well that I go,” he said seriously; “after all, we are not

children, you and I, and however we laugh it is always that, that we

really are not children.” He put out his hand and took hers. “I shall be

away, and the time will be long, and--” he paused abruptly.

Her eyes almost closed beneath the unbearable heat of his gaze.

“Shall you remember me?” she asked, faintly this time.

“Yes, much.”

Then she opened her eyes and withdrew her hand.

“For how long?” she said as before.

He was still staring down at her.

“Who can say!”

“For three weeks? for four? for six?”

“_Je ne sais pas_,” he said briefly; “if I think too much I must come

back, and that will not be wisely.”

“We must not stand here,” she said suddenly; “adieu, au revoir!”

“Yes,” he replied sombrely, “we must part now.”

He looked at her, and his eyes locked hers hard and fast for a long

minute. She felt ill, faint, her breath seemed failing her. Then--

He seized her hand and pressed it so strongly against his lips that his

lips parted and she felt his teeth against her flesh.

“_Je vous aime!_” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “Adieu!”