A Woman's Will Part 3

Then as the other walked away he turned to Rosina.

"Was I impolite to him?" he asked, in quite the tone of an old and intimate friend.

"Yes, very," she answered, nodding.

"You are then displeased?"

"Not at all; I wanted him to go myself."

"Ah, yes," he exclaimed eagerly, "you feel as I. Is it not always _ungemuthlich_, three people together?"

"Always."

He glanced about them at the crowd of pa.s.sers-by.

"It is not pleasant here; let us take a walk by the river, and then we can talk and come to know each one the other,"--he paused--"well," he added.

"Do you really want to know me--well?" she asked, imitating his pause between the last two words.

"Yes, very much. I saw you in the hotel this morning when you came down the stair, and I wanted to know you then. And just now when we pa.s.sed on the Quai I felt the want become much greater."

"And I wanted to know you," she said, looking and speaking with delicious frankness. "I wanted to know you because of your music."

"Because of my music!" he repeated quickly; "you are then of interest in the music? you are yourself perhaps a musician?" and he turned a glance, as deep as it was burning, upon her face.

"A very every-day musician," she replied, lifting her smile to his deep attention. "I can accompany the musician and I can appreciate him, that is all."

"But that is quite of the best--in a woman," he exclaimed earnestly.

"The women were not meant to be the genius, only to help him, and rest him after his labor."

"Really!"

"Of a surety."

"But what made you want to know me?" she continued. "I had a good reason for desiring your acquaintance, but you can have had no equally good one for desiring mine."

"No," he said quickly and decidedly; "that is, of an undenying, most true." He knit his brows and reflected for the s.p.a.ce of time consumed in pa.s.sing nine of the regularly disposed trees which shade the boulevard just there, for they were now moving slowly in the direction of the bridges, and then he spoke. "I do not know just why, yet I am glad that it is to be."

"Would you have asked some one to introduce you if I had not sent for you?"

He thought again, this time for the s.p.a.ce of six trees only, then:

"No, I do not think so."

"Why not? since you wanted to meet me."

"I never get myself made known to any one, because if I did that, then later, when they weary me, as they nearly always do, I must blame myself only."

"Do most people weary you--later."

"Oh, so very much," he declared, with a sincerity that drew no veil over the truth of his statement.

Rosina, remembering the American's views in regard to him, stifled a smile.

"Our friend," she asked, "the man who presented you to me, you know, does he weary you?"

Von Ibn frowned.

"But he is a very terrible bore," he said; "you surely know that, since you know him."

Then she could but laugh outright.

"And I, monsieur," she demanded merrily, "tell me, do you think that I too shall some day--?"

He looked at her in sudden, earnest anxiety.

"I hope otherwise," he declared fervently.

While talking they had pa.s.sed the limits of the Quai, crossed the big, sunny square, and come to the embankment that leads to the foot-bridge.

The emerald-green Reuss rushed beside them with a smooth rapidity which seemed to hush the tumult of its swift current far underneath the rippling surface. The old stone light-house--the town's traditionary G.o.dfather--stood st.u.r.dily for its rights out in mid-stream, and helped support the quaint zigzag of that most charming relic of the past, the longest wooden foot-bridge of Lucerne. A never-ending crowd of all ages and s.e.xes and conditions of natives and strangers were mounting and descending its steps, hurrying along its crooked pa.s.sage, or craning their necks to study the curious pictures painted in the wooden triangles of its pointed roof.

"I like the bridge better than I do the Lion," Rosina remarked; "I think it is much more interesting."

Von Ibn was looking down into the water where they had stopped by the bridge's steps. He did not pay any attention to what she said, and after a minute she spoke again.

"What do you think?"

He made no answer. She turned her eyes in the direction of his and wondered what he was looking at. He appeared to be lost in a study of the Reuss.

"Do you always think before you speak," she said, somewhat amused, "or are you doing mental exercises?"

But still no reply.

Then she too kept still. Her eyes wandered to a certain building on her left, and she reflected that necessity would shortly be driving her there with her letter of credit; but further reflection called to her mind the fact that she had intrusted Ottillie with a hundred-franc note to change that morning, and that would be enough to carry her over Sunday. The Gare across the water then attracted her attention, and she reviewed a last week's journey on the St. Gotthard railway, and recalled the courtesy of a certain Englishman who had raised and lowered her window not once but perhaps twenty times. And then her gaze fell upon the skirt of her dress, which was a costume most appropriate for the Quai but much too delicate for a promiscuous stroll through the town streets.

"That is superficial!" Von Ibn suddenly declared.

She quite started.

"What is superficial?"

"Your comparison. You may not compare them at all."

"May not compare what?"

"The bridge and the Lion. The bridge is a part of life out of the Middle Ages, and the Lion is a masterpiece of Thorwaldsen."

Rosina simply stared at him.