A Woman's Will

Chapter Six

IT was very late that night – indeed the hour was dangerously close upon the morning after – before the two friends found themselves alone together again. Rosina lay up among the pillows, the centre of a mass of blue cambric, with tiny bands of lace confining the fulness here and there; while Molly, in such a dressing-gown as grows only in the Rue de la Paix, sat on the foot of the narrow continental bed and thoughtfully bound the braids of her bonny brown hair.

“Well, you know him now,” Rosina said at last, the inflection of her voice rampant with interrogative meaning.

“Yes,” was the non-committal answer.

“Don’t be horrid, Molly; you know I want so much to know what you think of him? Isn’t he delicious? Isn’t he grand? Didn’t he impress you as being just an ideal sort of a celebrity?”

Molly opened her eyes to an exceeding width.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.

“Don’t know! then you don’t like him? What don’t you like about him?”

“Well, I’d prefer a Russian myself.”

“Why! what do you mean?”

“They’re not so fierce, and if one likes fierceness they’re plenty fierce enough.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The way that he came bursting in on us to-day.”

“But that was splendid! it was lovely to see him so worked up.”

“You never can count on when he’ll work up, though.”

“But I like men you can’t count on.”

“Do you?”

“You see, I could always count on my husband, and that sort of arithmetic isn’t to my taste any more.”

“Well, dear, from the little I’ve seen of Herr von Ibn I should say that it would be impossible to ever work him by any other rule than that of his own sweet – or otherwise – will.”

“But I like that.”

“Yes, so I gathered from your actions.”

“And, after all, whatever he is – ” Rosina paused and ran her fingers through her hair. “It doesn’t any of it amount to anything, you know,” she added.

“Oh, dear no. That’s evident enough.”

Rosina started.

“What do you mean?” she cried.

“Oh, nothing as far as he’s concerned; – only as far as you are.”

“But,” Rosina insisted, “you did mean something. What was it? You mean – ”

“I don’t mean anything,” said Molly; “if he don’t mean anything and you don’t mean anything, how in Heaven’s name could I mean anything?”

“I only met him Saturday, you know,” Rosina reminded her. “And this is Monday,” she reminded her further. “Nothing ever can happen in such a short time,” she wound up airily.

“No,” said Molly thoughtfully, “to be sure you can die and they can bury you between Saturday and Monday, but nothing ever happened to living people in such a short time, of course.”

“I wish you wouldn’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing, I’m thinking.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking that if I met a man in Lucerne on Saturday and he came stalking me to Zurich on Monday, I certainly should – ” she hesitated.

“Well, I shouldn’t,” Rosina declared flatly.

There was a pause, during which Molly finished her braids and proceeded to establish herself on the foot of her friend’s bed in a most confidence-provoking attitude.

“Let’s talk about the lieutenant,” the American suggested at last.

“He’s too mild for to-night,” her friend said; “it would be like toast and rain-water after a hunt meet to discuss him just now. Let’s talk about Dmitri.”

“Whose Dmitri? another one of your fiancés?”

“Oh, dear no. He’s a cross Russian poodle that was given me last Christmas. When you try to be nice to him he bites. I don’t know what makes me think of him just now.”

Rosina laughed, and held her hand out lovingly towards the pretty girl at her feet.

“Forgive me, Molly. I really didn’t mean to be vexed. Let us talk of something pleasant and leave my latest to sleep in peace at the Victoria.”

“Are you sure that he’s at the Victoria?”

“Not at all; he may have moved to this hotel, or returned to Lucerne.”

“I should think so, indeed.”

“But never mind.”

Molly took her knees into the embrace of her clasped hands.

“I wonder if you ever will marry again,” she murmured curiously.

“Never.”

“Are you sorry that you ever married?”

“No-o-o,” said the other reflectively, “because I never could have known the joy of being a widow any other way, you know.”

“Would you advise me to marry,” Molly inquired; “one can’t be sure of the widowhood, and if one has courage and self-denial a life of single blessedness is attainable for any woman.”

“I don’t believe it is for you, though.”

“Why not, pray?”

“Your eyes are all wrong; old maids never have such eyes.”

“I got my eyes from my father.”

“Well, he wasn’t an old maid, surely?”

“No, he was a captain in the Irish Dragoons.”

“There, you see!”

Molly stood up and shook her gown out, preparatory to untying its series of frontal bows.

“But if you were to marry again – ” she began.

Rosina threw up an imploring hand.

“You send cold December chills down my warm June back,” she cried sharply.

Molly flung the dressing-gown upon a chair and proceeded to turn off the lights.

“I don’t want you to think I’m cross,” began an apologetic voice in the dark which descended about them.

“I wasn’t thinking of you at all.”

“What were you thinking of?”

“Of Dmitri.”

Then low laughter rippled from one narrow bed to the other and back again.

Five minutes later there was a murmur.

“I do wish, Molly, that you’d tell me what you really thought of him.”

“I thought he was grand. How could any one think anything else?”

Then through the stillness and darkness there sounded the frou-frou of ruffles and the sweetness and warmth of a fervent kiss.

Chapter Seven

THE next morning they both breakfasted in bed, the ingenuity of Ottillie having somewhat mitigated the tray difficulty by a clever adjustment of the wedge-shaped piece of mattress with which Europe elevates its head at night. Molly was just “winding up” a liberal supply of honey, and Rosina was salting her egg, when there came a tap at the door of the salon.

“Ah, Monsieur von Ibn is up early,” the Irish girl said in a calm whisper, thereby frightening her friend to such a degree that she dropped the salt-spoon into her cup of chocolate. Then they both held their breath while Ottillie hurried to the door.

It proved to be nothing more unconventional than the maid of Madame la Princesse, a long-suffering female who bore the name of Claudine.

“What is the matter?” Molly demanded anxiously.

“Oh, mademoiselle, I am sent to say that it must that all go to-day!”

“To-day!” Molly screamed; “I thought that we were to remain until Friday anyway?”

“And I also thought it. Let mademoiselle but figure to herself how yesterday I did all unpack in the thought of until Friday; and now to-day I am bidden inpack once more!”

“Now, did you ever?” Molly asked emphatically of Rosina, who shook her head and looked troubled in good earnest. “Do you really think that she means it?” she continued, turning to the maid once more; “she sometimes changes her mind, you know.”

“Not of this time, mademoiselle, I have already arrange her hairs, and I am bidden place her other hairs in the case.”

“Then it’s settled,” cried the Irish girl despairingly; “when her hair is done, the end of all is at hand. What train do we go by, Claudine?”

“I am not of all sure, mademoiselle; madame has spoken of he who runs by Schaffhausen.”

The Irish girl sighed heavily.

“Very well, Claudine, you and I know what it is to travel as we do. Go to madame and tell her I will come as soon as I am dressed,” and then she picked up the honey-jar and sighed again.

The maid went out.

“What makes you go?” Rosina asked; “I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, my dear, I’ve stayed at their place in the Caucasus weeks at a time, and I have to be decent, and she knows it.”

“Why did you ever accept an invitation to travel with such a horrid person?”

Molly was out of bed and jerking her hair-ribbons savagely loose.

“She isn’t a horrid person,” she said; “they are very nice princes and princesses, all of them. Only I hate to lead an existence like the slave of the ring or the genii of the lamp, or whoever the johnny was who had to jump whenever they rubbed their hands. It riles my blood just a bit too much.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Rosina decidedly; “I certainly wouldn’t.”

“I wish I’d taken the Turk,” the Irish girl exclaimed, as she wove her hair back and forth and in and out upon the crown of her head, “I’d have been free of Russia then; ’tis a hint for European politics, my present situation.”

Rosina suddenly gave a sharp cry.

“Oh, Molly, – and me?”

Molly looked over her shoulder.

“What is it?” she asked anxiously.

“Why, what am I to do? I came here to be with you, and now you’re going away.”

“You’ll have to go too if you can’t stay behind without me.”

“But I only came yesterday.”

“Well, what of that?”

“And, oh Molly, that man! I’ll have to go!”

“Why?”

“Why, because – because – Oh, you know why. And then, – if I go – what do you suppose he will think?”

Molly snatched her dressing-gown.

“He’ll come too, I fancy. At least, judging from what I’ve seen of him I should suppose that he’d come too.”

“Come too!” Rosina gasped.

“Why not? He’ll be just as interesting in Constance as he is here, or in Lucerne.”

“You don’t really think that he would come too; Molly, not really?”

“Certainly I think that he would.”

“Oh, Molly!”

“’Tis their way here on the Continent; they’ve nothing else to do, you know. I know a man who went from Paris to St. Petersburg after a girl (I know it for a fact, for the girl was myself), and another who came from Naples to Nice just to call, and went back at midnight.”

Rosina appeared most uncomfortable.

“I don’t want him to go to Constance – I don’t want to go myself!”

“Oh, if it comes to that, you can both remain in Zurich indefinitely, of course.”

“No, we can’t; that is, I can’t. You know that. If he’s going to stay I’ve got to go. Oh dear, oh dear, how aggravating it all is! I don’t want him to follow me about.”

“Why don’t you tell him so, then?”

“Molly!”

“Yes, just tell him so, and if you really mean it, he’ll understand, never fear.”

“But I don’t want to do that.”

“No, I didn’t expect that you would. One never likes to do that, which is one reason why I am myself betrothed to three different men at the present minute.”

“But, Molly – ”

“I thought that you liked him.”

“I do like him, but there’s a wide difference between liking a man and wanting to have him tagging along behind all the time.”

“Oh, as to that, I don’t believe that der Herr von Ibn will stay enough behind to be considered as tagging very long.”

Rosina twisted uneasily in bed.

“I don’t see what to do,” she murmured.

Molly was getting into her clothes with a rapidity little short of marvellous.

“I’ll be curious to see what you do do,” she said, sticking pins recklessly into herself here and there, while she settled all nice points with a jerk. “It’s ten o’clock,” she added, with a glance towards the chimney-piece, “you’d better be arising, for I presume he is coming this morning?”

Rosina smiled delightfully.

“You heard him say so last night, didn’t you?”

“Perhaps; somehow the remark didn’t make an impression on me, if I did.”

“I’ll get up directly you go. And oh, Molly, do tell me just once more before you leave me that you think he’s – ”

Molly slashed the end of her four-in-hand through the loop and drew up the knot with a single pull; then she approached the bed and leaned over the face upon the pillow.

“I think he’s desperately in love,” she said, “and I’ve no blame for him if he is.”

“But do you really think that he is?”

“Well, of course one can never be sure with foreigners.”

“Molly!”

“’Tis a fact, my dear. But then you know one can never be sure with one’s self either, so there you are.”

Rosina laughed ringingly. Then they kissed one another and Molly departed.

Then came work for Ottillie, and her mistress was hardly completed as to embroidered batiste and black moiré ribbon, when the large and remarkable card with which the more distinguished portion of European masculinity announce their presence was brought to the room by one of the hotel garçons.

He awaited her in the salon below, and when she appeared there to him, such an expression dawned within his eyes as altered completely not only their habitual melancholy, but the customary shadows of his whole face as well. There is no flattery so subtle in its charm or so deeply touching in its homage as such a change, and Rosina felt as much complimented as any other woman would have been, had it been in her to work so great a miracle in so great, and such, a man.

“Vous allez bien?” he asked eagerly, as he came quickly forward to bow over her hand.

“Yes, very well;” and then, because she always became nervous directly she lived beneath his steady look, she plunged wildly into the subject uppermost in her mind. “And I ought to feel very well, because in all probability I must travel again to-day.”

“You leave Zurich already so soon?” he asked, and his voice betrayed neither surprise nor even interest.

“Yes,” she answered, “we are all going to Constance this afternoon.”

“You have change your plans?” he inquired; “yes?”

She looked up quickly at the much-objected-to word, and he received the little glance with a shrug of apology and a smile.

“Madame la Princesse wishes to go on,” said Rosina, “and mademoiselle thought that I would be so lonely without her that I – ”

“You would have wished to stay, n’est-ce pas?” he asked, interrupting her.

“I don’t like to travel two days in succession.”

“I would beg you to stay,” he said, looking at his gloved hands, “but I also go to-day.”

She felt her heart jump suddenly; Molly’s prediction assaulted her memory with great violence.

“Yes,” he went on, “it happens oddly that my plans are also suddenly changed. It is to say good-bye that I am come.”

Ah, then he was not going to Constance.

“I am called to Leipsic by a telegram.”

“No one is ill, I hope?”

“No, fortunately,” he replied pleasantly; “but in Leipsic I am much interested.”

Rosina felt a sudden shock, not the less disagreeable because it was so undefined, but she pulled herself together at once and promptly swallowed it whole.

“I do hope that you will have a pleasant journey,” she said cordially.

He was staring steadily at her.

“Shall we meet again?” he said at last.

“Very likely.”

“And your address?”

“You have it.”

“Ah, yes, truly.”

Then he stood up.

“I go at one, and I have ordered to eat at twelve. I must therefore leave you this shortly. You will make my adieux to your charming friend, n’est-ce pas?”

“I am so glad that you came to Zurich and met her,” she said, rising also and lifting her eyes to his.

He was looking so indifferent that she felt for the instant both puzzled and hurt, and was angry at herself for ever having blushed on his account. Then she recollected the telegram from Leipsic and drew herself up well.

“Is it only because that I have the pleasure to meet mademoiselle that you are glad I come?” he asked, holding out his hand.

She nodded, smiling, but ignoring the hand.

“In Lucerne you gave me your hand in good-bye,” he said presently.

She offered her fingers with a frankness unequalled.

“Good-bye,” she said.

He kissed her rings.

“It is ‘au revoir,’” he replied, in an almost inaudible tone.

She wondered which was true, the indifferent look or the inaudible tone.

He took up his hat.

“Pensez à moi quelquefois,” he said cheerfully, and departed.

When Molly was made acquainted with this piece of news her comment was simplicity itself.

“How queer!” she said, folding a lace fichu into a tulle hat, for she was packing fast and furiously.

“Of course I shall not go now; I shall stay here until Thursday and buy silk stockings.”

“Very commendable in you.”

“I’m really too tired to go before Thursday. I’ve been around night and day in Lucerne until I’m all worn out.”

“Yes?” said Molly, ramming down shoes into the corners; “well you can rest now, sure.”

“You will engage rooms for me near yours for Thursday, won’t you?”

“I will.”

“I’ll sleep and shop to-morrow, and come on that ten o’clock express Thursday.”

“’Tis settled,” said Molly, slamming down the trunk-lid; “we’ll be at the Insel, and expect you day after to-morrow.”

“What number do you wear?” Rosina asked, as she watched the trunk locked.

“Where, – round my neck or my waist?”

“On your feet?”

“Two-and-a-half.”

“Oh, what a fairy!”

Then they hurried down to lunch.

Chapter Eight

THAT afternoon Rosina took her maid and went for a walk. As a companion Ottillie was certainly less congenial than the lofty and eccentric gentleman who had just taken his departure for Leipsic; but going out alone with a maid is such an eminently proper occupation for a young widow travelling abroad, that the knowledge that she was entirely above suspicion should have compensated for any slight ennui which Rosina may have suffered.

They first went a few blocks up and down the Bahnhofstrasse, and sent the various packages which were the natural result of such a course of action to the hotel; then came the Stadthaus Garten and the Alpen-Quai.

The Quai was as gay as the Quai in Lucerne, or as any other Promenade in Switzerland at that hour and season. Rosina, tired with her shopping, seated herself upon a bench and watched with interest the vast variety and animation of the never-ending double rank which passed slowly along before her. Beyond, the Zurichersee lay brilliantly blue beneath the midsummer sun, and far away, upon the opposite shore, the Alps rose upward, dark gray below, and shining white above.

There was a sudden exclamation, and out from among the crowd thronging before her came that American whose steamer-chair had elbowed Rosina’s on the passage over. There was no manner of doubt as to his joy over meeting his fellow-traveller again, and they first shook hands and then sat down to re-tie their mutual recollections. The result was that Ottillie returned alone to the hotel.

“And since Berlin?” Rosina asked, interestedly.

“Since Berlin – ” said the man (and she noticed that his voice appeared to be pitched quite two octaves higher than that other voice which had lately dawned upon her ear), “oh, I’ve been lots of places since then, – France and Germany and Italy, up to Innspruch and into Austria and over to Buda-Pesth, and then to Salzburg and down through the Tyrol here. I’ve never quit seeing new places since I finished my business, – not once.”

“Dear me, but you must have had a good time!”

“Yes, I have. But I’ve often wished myself back on the ‘Kronprinz,’ – haven’t you?”

“No, I don’t think that I have. The person that I saw the most of on the ‘Kronprinz’ has been with me ever since.”

The American looked surprised, having supposed himself to be that very person. Rosina laughed at his face.

“I mean my maid,” she explained.

Then he laughed too.

“Did you ever smoke any more?”

“Oh, dear, no. Don’t you remember how that one cigarette used me up?”

“You ought to have kept on, – you’d have liked them after a while.”

“Perhaps; but some one told me that they would make my fingers yellow.”

“Oh, pshaw, not if you hold them the right way.”

“The smoke got in my eyes so too; oh, I didn’t seem to care anything about it.”

Then they rose and joined the promenaders, who were beginning to grow a little fewer with the approach of the dinner hour.

“And where have you been all this time?” the man asked.

“In Paris buying clothes, and in Lucerne wearing them.”

“You’re travelling with friends?”

“Yes, most of the time. They went on to Constance to-day, and I am to join them there Thursday.”

“If you haven’t anything else to do to-night, won’t you go with me to the Tonhalle and hear the music? It appears to be quite the thing to do.”

“I think that that would be lovely, and I’d like to very much, only we must be back at the hotel by ten or half-past, for I am really very tired.”

“That’s easily done; you know we can go whenever we want to. What time shall I call for you?”

“I’ll be ready after eight.”

“I’ll come about quarter past, and we can stroll about first and see something of the night side of Zurich.”

“The night side of everything here is so beautiful,” said Rosina; “the shops that are temptation incarnate by day become after dark nothing but bottomless pits into which all my money and my good resolutions tumble together.”

By this time they had crossed the bridge and followed the Uto nearly to the Badeanstalt; it seemed time to turn their faces hotel-ward, and so they did so, and parted for an hour or two, during which to dine and to dress were the main objects in life for each.

Then about half-past eight Monsieur l’Américain came for his country-woman, and both went out into the charm and glow of the Continental night, with no other thought than that of enjoying a placid and uninterrupted evening amidst the music and electric lights of the Tonhalle. That such was not to be the case was one of the secrets of the immediate future, and the advantage of the future, when it is immediate, is that it is soon forced to stand and deliver as regards its secrets. Rosina, totally unconscious of what was impending over her head, entered fully into the spirit of gayety which prevailed, and absorbed the pleasure of the scene with open heart and hands. It is good to grow to womanhood (or manhood) without losing a child’s capacity for spontaneous enjoyment, – to be capable of joy without knowing the reason why, to be flooded with enthusiasm for one knows not what. It was our lady’s luck to possess this charm, and to be able to give herself up wholly to the end in view, and drink its glass to the dregs, – which in her life had generally proved to be sugar and to be almost as good as the liquid, – only requiring a spoon.

The concert, as is the way with summer concerts, was so arranged as to be easily varied with something cool and refreshing; and when her escort suggested that they should do as all the others did, a table was found, and they sat down to ices and fairy cakes, amid the flowers and colored lights.

It was about nine o’clock, and Rosina, in spite of the environments, was beginning to realize forcibly that more interesting men than the one before her undoubtedly did exist, when the ice that she was putting in her mouth suddenly seemed to glide the full length of her spine, giving her a terrible sensation of frozen fright. She had just heard somebody behind her speaking in German to the garçon, and German, French, or English, that voice was unmistakable. How, what, or why she knew not, but he was surely there behind her, and the instant after he passed close at her side.

Of course it was Von Ibn, and the look that he gave her as he bowed, and walked on at once, dyed her face as deeply as ever a face was dyed in all the world before. She looked after him with a sort of gasp in her eyes, forgetting the man opposite her, the crowd around her, everybody, everything, except that one tall figure which with the passing of each instant was disappearing more and more among the labyrinth of tables and people. She saw him pause at last and seem to hesitate, and her heart throbbed wildly in her throat as she felt, with that strange instinctive intuition which continues to follow one train of thought while our very life seems paralyzed by another, that if he took a seat with his back to her, the action would be witness to a displeasure far beyond what he must be feeling if he so placed himself as to be able to watch her.