A Woman's Will Part 29

He looked at Rosina, whose face blazed yet deeper.

"I have said that I may not eat," he repeated simply.

Molly laid down her spoon and glanced out of the window again. Her feminine instinct divined what was to be.

"And madame your friend, she is not ill, I hope?" he inquired politely, as the waiter removed his soup.

"No," said the Irish girl, slowly, "or--that is,--yes, yes, she is."

"And you must go at once to her," he cried, springing up to draw back her chair, "I am so sad for that."

Molly rose to her feet.

"I'm sorry, too," she said, nodding a smiling thanks; "but you see I've no choice." And then she went coffee-less away to laugh alone above-stairs.

Von Ibn sat down again and ate his fish in silence. He did not appear greatly perturbed over the twin-silence which was opposite him, rather seeming to reflect upon the fresh reconciliation which was building itself on such a substantial foundation of blushes.

Finally, when the fish was gone, he leaned somewhat forward and spoke very low.

"_Oh, que j'etais malheureux hier le soir!_" he said in a tone that trembled with feeling; "you can figure to yourself nothing of what it was! And this morning--when I send and find that you are gone!--I must know then that you were very furious of me."

She raised her eyes, but to the window, not to him.

"I was," she said briefly, but not the less tensely.

"When you are run last night--on the stairs like that, you know!--it should have been amusing to see you run so fast; but I was not any amused whatever. But why did you run?" he questioned, interrupting himself; "did you think to leave me always then, there, forever? For an instant I had the idea to go after you, but the _Portier_ was there, and I have thought, 'What may he think?'"

"Oh," she exclaimed, distressedly, "I altogether forgot him! What do you suppose he did think?"

Von Ibn shrugged his shoulders.

"_Rien du tout_," he said easily; "he has think most probably that you have lost something from you--a pin or a b.u.t.ton, you know. When a woman runs so, that is what every one knows."

"Do they?"

"_Naturlich!_ I always know."

"Oh!"

He finished his dinner in short order and then looked a smiling inquiry into her eyes.

"We shall go now on to the terrace for the coffee; yes?" he asked as he rose, and she rose too and went with him to where their little table was spread among the dusk and the roses. The band in the Stadtgarten was playing delightfully, and its sweetness came across water and park to search out their very souls. The Bodensee spread all beyond in a gray peace that seemed to bid the very leaves upon the trees to slumber. The steamers were coming to their harbor rest in answer to the flaming summons flung them by the searchlight at the head of the pier. They glided in in slow procession, s.h.i.+vered at anchor, and submitted to the lulling of the lake's night breath.

Von Ibn rested his elbow on the table and his chin upon his hand. He looked dreamily out across the water for a long time before saying:

"You pardon my impoliteness then of last night? I am not come to trouble you here, only to ask that, and something else, and then I go again at once."

"Yes, I will pardon you," said Rosina gently. She too was looking thoughtfully out into the twilight on the water. "Only don't do so again."

"It is that that I would ask," he went on, looking always at the lake, never at her; "that is what I would beg of you. Let us promise sincerely--let us take a vow never to be angry again. I have suffer enough last night both with my own anger and from yours. I will believe what you may tell me. And let us never be angry so again."

"It is you who are so unreasonable," she began.

"No," he interrupted quickly, "not unreasonable. _Jamais je ne me fache sans raison!_"

"Yes, you do too. Just think of last night, you were twice angry for nothing at all. It was terrible!"

He stared afar and seemed to reflect doubly.

"He was _bete_, that man," he said at last.

"He wasn't either. He was very nice; I don't know how I should have gotten along coming over if I had not had him on the steamer to amuse me."

"You could have done very well without him at Zurich," said Von Ibn doggedly; "myself, I did not like him the first minute that I see him."

"When did you first see him?"

"He was there at the table beside you."

Rosina laughed a little. He turned towards her and smiled.

"Then you will forgive me?"

"Yes, this one time more. But never, never again."

He turned to the lake and consumed five minutes in a.s.similating her remark. Then his look came back to her.

"I was awake so much last night that my eyes burn me; do they show it?"

She looked into his eyes, and they burned indeed--burned with a latent glow that forced her own to lower their lids.

"Do they look strangely to you?" he asked.

"No," she said in a low tone.

"That is odd, because in all my life they have never look at any one as they look at you to-night."

She drew herself together suddenly.

"Don't talk foolishly," she said distinctly.

"That was no foolishness; it is true."

"It is just the sort of thing that all men say, and I like you because you do not say things like all other men."

"Do all other men say to you that?"

"Not just that, but its equivalents. Men in general are not very original."