“I want to ask you something; will you do it if I ask you?”
“What is it?”
“Will you promise me to do it?”
They were now squeezing past the ticket kiosque.
“But what is it?”
“It is this – ”
A man behind stepped on Rosina’s skirt and nearly pulled her over backward; something ripped violently and she gave a low cry. The man said, “Mille pardons,” and Von Ibn looked ready to murder him.
“Are you undone?” he asked her solicitously.
“No, I’m only badly torn.”
“Do you want a pin?”
“Yes; have you one?”
“Malheureusement que non.”
“I think that I can hold it up,” she said bravely.
“It is unpardonable – a such man!”
He turned to scowl again at the offender. They were now in the Promenade.
“He couldn’t see in the dark, I suppose,” she murmured.
“But why was he come so near? If it was I who had torn from being too near, that would be quite different.”
“If you don’t take care it will be exactly the same thing.”
He laughed, and gave way three inches.
“You have not yet promise,” he said then.
“Promised what?”
“To do what I ask.”
“Tell me what it is; if I can do it I will.”
He took her arm to cross towards the hotel.
“You can do it if you will,” he said; “it is this – ”
The Schweizerhof shone before them, great and white and sparkling; every window was lighted, every table on the terrace was full. Rosina quickened her steps.
“Oh, I’m so late,” she cried, “and I have such a toilette to make!”
Von Ibn had his hand upon her arm still.
“It is this,” he said emphatically, “promise me that you will go to the Victoria Hotel at Zurich; yes?”
Later in her own room, as Ottillie dressed her hair, she closed her eyes and tried to reduce her thoughts to a rational basis. But she gave up in despair.
“From the ‘Souvenir’ to the Victoria,” she murmured; “oh, he is most certainly a genius!” then she sighed a little. “I’m sorry that we shall probably never meet again,” she added sadly.
Chapter Five
ROSINA fairly flung herself off of the train and into the arms of Molly, and then and there they kissed one another with the warmth born of a long interval apart.
“Well, my dear,” began the Irish girl, when they found themselves five minutes later being rolled away in one of the villainous Zurich cabs, “begin away back in the early days of our sad separation and tell me everything that has happened to you since.”
“Not much has happened,” Rosina replied. “I crossed in May and got some clothes in Paris, and then came Lucerne, and this is June. Before I came over nothing happened. How could things happen while I had to wear a crape veil?”
“To be sure!” said Molly wisely; “and yet they do sometimes, – I know it for a fact. And anyway the veil is off now, and you look so well that I should think perhaps – lately?”
“Oh, dear, no,” said Rosina, turning quickly scarlet; “don’t harbor such an idea for a second. Nothing of that sort will ever happen to me again. A burnt child dreads the fire, and I can assure you I’m cinders to the last atom. But never mind me, tell me about yourself. That is much more interesting.”
“‘About myself is it you’re inquiring’?” laughed the Irish girl; “’tis easy told. Last winter, like a fool, I engaged myself to a sweet young Russian colonel, and this spring he died – ”
“Oh, Molly!”
“Never mind, my dear, because I can assure you that I didn’t. Russians are so furiously made up that he couldn’t stand any of the other men that I was engaged to. My life was too broad a burden in consequence, and I was well satisfied at his funeral.”
“Is it his mother that you are travelling with?”
“His mother! No, dear, I can’t stand any of the family now.”
“Whose mother is she?”
“She isn’t anybody’s mother. That’s how she can be sixty-five and look forty-two by gaslight.”
“Does she look forty-two by gaslight? Oh, imagine looking forty-two by gaslight!”
“By men’s gaslight she looks forty-two. Any woman could just instinctively see through everything from her wig to her waist, and that’s why she has grown to hate me so.”
“Does she hate you?”
“Hate me! Well, wait until you see her look at me. It’s a sort of cross between a mud-turtle and a basilisk, and she’s forever telling my age and telling it wrong. And she lays for every man that comes near me.”
“Why, Molly, how awful!”
“I’m going slowly mad. You’ve no idea! she’s so jealous that life is not only a burden, it’s a weight that’s smashing me flatter every day. I’m getting a gray hair and a wrinkle, and all because of her. And she wrote Ivan – ”
“Who’s Ivan?”
“He’s one of the men that I’ve accepted lately; he’s her cousin. He’s a prince and she’s a princess; but oh, my soul and body, my head is uneasy enough with lying and I’ve ceased to care a bit about the crown.”
“Why, Molly, wouldn’t you like to be a princess?”
“Not after this trip. Do you know what straits she’s driven me to? actually I came near taking a Turk at Trieste.”
“Did you?”
“No, I didn’t. I thought it over and I decided I wasn’t built for the monopoly of a harem.”
Rosina burst out laughing.
“Molly,” she gasped, “imagine you confined to only one man, and he your lord and master!”
“I couldn’t possibly imagine it, and I make it a point to never go in for anything that I can’t imagine. But, my dear, I must tell you the great news. Being engaged is an old habit with me; but” (she put her hand to her throat and felt within her high stock) “you must know that I am now actually in love, for the first time in my life, too.”
“Oh, Molly, since when?”
“Three weeks. Wait till I fish up my locket and you shall see him. Handsome is nowhere! And our meeting was so romantic. I was lying on the bottom of a boat waiting to be paddled into the Blue Grotto, and at the last minute a stranger came, and they laid him down at my feet. When we got into the grotto, of course we stood up; and it was lucky we did, for we fell in love directly, and of course we couldn’t have fallen unless we were standing.”
“Oh, Molly, who is he? do show me the picture.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, but I think the clasp has hooked on to Captain Douglas’ locket, – you remember Captain Douglas! – I can’t pull it anyway. Never mind, I’ll show you to-night.”
“Is he English?”
“English,