“But one may be much interested in once only.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yes, that is true. I know it. Do not laugh, but give me your hand and swear that he does not at all interest you now.”
She did not give him her hand, but she raised her eyes to the narrow strip of blazing sky that glowed above the street and said solemnly:
“I swear upon my word and honor that I do not take the slightest interest in that English gentleman who so kindly raised and lowered my windows when I was on the St. Gotthard last week.”
Von Ibn drew a breath of relief.
“I am so glad,” he said; and then he added, “because really, you know, it had not been very nice in you to interest yourself only for the getting up of your window.”
“He put it down too,” she reminded him.
“That is quite nothing – to put a window down. It is to raise them up that is to every one such labor on the Gotthardbahn. To let them down is not hard; very often mine have fell alone. And much smoke came in.”
Rosina walked on and looked the other way, because she felt a need of so doing for a brief space. Her escort strolled placidly at her side, all his perturbation appearing to have vanished into thin air with the satisfactory disposal of the English problem. They came to the top of the street and saw the old town-wall and its towers before them. The sun was very hot indeed, and the tourists in cabs all had their parasols raised.
“I think we had better return,” she said, pausing in the last patch of shade.
Von Ibn looked at his watch.
“Yes,” he said, “we must; déjeuner is there now.”
So they turned down into the town, taking another of the steep, little streets, so as to vary the scenery of their route. After a little he spoke again.
“And you are sure that you go Monday?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“To Zurich, and then to where?”
“Then to Constance.”
“And then?”
“I do not know where we shall go next.”
He started slightly, and a fresh cloud overspread his face.
“Much pleasure to you,” he said, almost savagely.
She looked up quickly, surprised at his tone, but her answer was spoken pleasantly enough.
“Thank you; and the same to you – all summer long.”
In response he shrugged his shoulders so fiercely as to force her to notice the movement.
“Why do you shrug your shoulders like that?” she demanded.
“I am amused.”
“You don’t look amused.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I am amused to see that all women are the same; I have that thought just now.”
“Are you in the habit of shrugging your shoulders whenever that thought occurs to you?”
He tossed his head to one side.
“Women are all the same,” he repeated impatiently.
“In what way?”
“They can never tell the truth!”
“What makes you say that?”
“You.”
“I?”
“Yes.”
She felt very nearly vexed.
“Please explain,” she commanded.
He simply gave another shrug.
She decided to keep her temper.
“I might be clever enough to read minds,” she said mildly, “and still be dense about divining shoulders; I confess I miss the point that you’re trying to make with yours.”
He was silent.
She glanced sideways at him and was thoroughly startled at the black humor displayed in his countenance.
“What is really the matter?” she asked, anxiously.
“Nothing.”
She gave him another quick look, and saw that he saw her look and avoided it. Then she was angry at such poor taste displayed in the first hour of a new acquaintance, and almost thought of turning from him and insisting on being left to return to the Schweizerhof alone. But something kept her impulse in check.
“He is a genius,” she thought, “and they are entirely different from other men,” so she waited a moment and then spoke with the utmost earnestness.
“Please tell me what it all means, monsieur; why are you like this?”
“Because,” – he cried with a sudden passionate outburst of feeling, – “because you have lied to me!”
“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