A Woman's Will Part 31

"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.

"_a.s.surement._"

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 Cla.s.ses before they can get ash.o.r.e 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 cafe. "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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

"_Que vous etes 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 ba.s.s 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sent 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, brus.h.i.+ng 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.