A Woman's Will

“Monsieur!” she exclaimed, in a shocked voice.

“You have done that,” he cried; “you have lift your eyes to heaven and swear that you were not interested in him, and then – ” he stopped, and put his hands to either side of his collar as if it strangled him.

She grew pale at the sight of his emotion.

“Is it that man still?” she asked.

“But naturally it is that man still! Je ne me fâche jamais sans raison.”

“But what is there new to worry about him?”

She dared not contemplate smiling, instead she felt that the Englishman was rapidly becoming the centre of a prospective tragedy.

Von Ibn scowled until his black brows formed a terrible V just over his eyes.

“You do expect to see him in Zurich,” he declared.

“But I told you that I didn’t.”

He laughed harshly.

“I know; but you betrayed yourself so nicely.”

“How?”

“Just now, when I say where do you go from Constance, you quite forget your part, and you say, ‘I do not know where we shall go next.’ Yes, that is what you say, ‘We —we!’”

“And if I did.”

“But of a surety you did; and I must laugh in my interior when I hear your words.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed quickly, “you must not say that you laughed in your interior, it isn’t good English.”

“Where must I laugh within myself?”

“We say, ‘I laughed to myself.’”

He gave another shrug, as if her correction was too petty a matter to rightfully command attention at that crisis.

“This all does seem so foolish,” she said, “the idea of again having an explanation.”

“I do not care for you to explain,” he interrupted.

“Don’t you want to know what I meant?”

“I know quite well what you meant.”

“I meant my maid, she always travels with me.”

He looked his thorough disbelief.

“Very pretty!” he commented.

She glanced at him and wondered why she was not disgusted, but instead her heart swelled with a pity for the unhappiness that overlaid the doubt in his face.

“Just think,” she said softly, “our friendship is so very young, and you are already so very angry.”

“I am not angry; what I feel is justified.”

“Because I call my maid and myself ‘we’!”

He stopped short, and held out his hand.

“Will you say that it is only the maid?”

Then she felt sure that she should be obliged to scream outright, even while she was summoning all her self-control to the rescue.

They were come to an angle where two streets met steeply and started thence on a joint pitch into the centre of the town. She ran her eyes quickly up and down each vista of cobblestones, and, seeing no one that she knew either near or far, put her hand into his.

“Upon my word and honor,” she declared, with all the gravity which the occasion seemed to demand, “I swear that when I leave Constance my maid will be my only – ”

“Assez, assez!” he interrupted, hastily dropping her hand, “it is not need that you swear that. I can see your truth, and I have just think that it may very well come about that I shall chance to be in Constance and wish to take the train as you. It would then be most misfortunate if you have swear alone with your maid. It is better that you swear nothing.”

This kaleidoscopic turn to the conversation quite took Rosina’s breath away, and she remained mute.

“What hotel in Constance do you stop at?” he asked presently.

“The Insel House, of course.”

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a note-book.

“Perhaps I will want to remember,” he said, as he wrote. Then he put up the book and smiled into her eyes; he had a beautiful smile, warm and winning. “I find that we are very sympathique,” he went on, “that is why I may perhaps come to see you again. People who can enjoy together are not many.”

“Have you enjoyed this morning? I thought you had not at all.”

“But, yes,” he protested gravely, “I enjoy it very much. How could you think otherwise?”

She felt silence to be safest, and made no reply. He too was silent for a little, and then spoke suddenly.

“Oh, because of that Englishman! But that is all over now. We will never speak of him again. Only it is most fortunate that I am not of a jealous temperament, or I might very well have really offended me that you talk so much about him.”

“It is fortunate,” she agreed.

“Yes,” he answered, “for me it was very good.”

They had come to the crossing of the great square, and the sunlight was dazzling and dancing upon the white stones of the bridge and the molten gold of the Vierwaldstattersee. The Promenade was deserted and even its shade was unpleasantly warm.

“Shall I see you this afternoon?” Von Ibn asked as they went leisurely through the heat.