A Woman's Will - Anne Warner (english novels for students txt) 📗

herself smilelessly, and the electric deck-light which faced her seat showed up her sobriety in unmistakable colors.

“Watch me!” she said briefly, and her enunciation was clear and very distinct.

He heard.


Chapter Two

There was at that particular date a man in Düsseldorf who was quite as set in his ideas as Rosina was in hers. He was lingering from day to day at the Hotel Heck, engaged for the most part in no more arduous pursuit than the awaiting of a telegram from his family. His family were at Evian, on the Lac de Génève, and if they decided to go from there to Paris, he wanted very much to visit Switzerland himself. But if, on the contrary, they merely ended in transferring their abode from Evian to Ouchy, as was very likely to prove to be the case, he had fully made up his mind to pass the early summer months in Leipsic. In Leipsic he had an interest--the one great interest of his existence. The family had but scant sympathy with the force of the Leipsic attraction; their ambitions were set in quite another direction, and all their hopes and plans and wishes were bent to the accomplishment of that one end. They desired most ardently that he should take unto himself a wife, because he was the last of his race, and there was a coronet hung up in the skies above his head. The natural effect of such anxiety upon the uncommon temperament of this particularly uncommon man was to decide him definitely to remain single forever, and because he had always proved himself of a strength of resolve and firmness of purpose quite unequalled in their experience, they felt justified in the gravest fears that in this case, as in all others, he would remain steadfast, keeping the word which he declared that he had solemnly pledged himself, and so become the last of a line whose castle had crowned the crag which it defended since the Goth was abroad in the land.

To be sure, he was not yet so old but that, when he casually glanced at a girl, the girl, her mother, and his mother all immediately held their breath. But he was old enough to have proved the futility of the hope by the casualty of the glance over and over again. And so his people were completely out of patience with him, and he and they found it accordingly more agreeable to take even their Switzerland in individual communion-cups. Therefore he remained in Düsseldorf, wandering in the Hofgarten, listening to the music in the Tonhalle, and occasionally quieting his impatience for the Lake of Lucerne, where his childhood had been passed, by writing a few pages to Leipsic, the scene of his studies and the spot where his one incentive to labor dwelt.

After three weeks of manifold hesitation the family at last concluded to let it be Paris, and thus Southeastern Europe was thrown open to the recalcitrant. It being now quite middle June, he took his way southward with a leisure born of the warm summer sun, and spent a month _en route_. The Storks of Strasbourg and the Bears of Berne both ate of his bread before the final definite checking of his trunks for Lucerne took place. But the cry at his heart for the Vierwaldstattersee and the Schweizerhof became of a strength beyond resisting, and so he turned his back upon the Jungfrau and his face towards the Rigi, and slept beneath the mist-wreaths of Mount Pilatus that very night.

* * * * *

It was the next morning that Rosina, walking on the Quai with an American man (not the one on the “Kronprinz,” however), first observed an especially tall and striking-looking individual, and wondered who he was. With her the wonder was always straightway followed by the ask, so she voiced her curiosity forthwith.

“That man?” said her companion, turning to make sure who she was referring to, “that dark man with the gray gloves? oh, that’s Von Ibn. He’s to be very great indeed some day, I’m given to understand.”

“Hasn’t he stopped growing yet?”

“There is ‘great’ and ‘great,’ you know. He is in for both kinds, it appears.”

“Because of his ‘von’?” demanded Rosina, whose thirst for knowledge was occasionally insatiable.

“No, because of his violin.”

“Does he play?”

“You show ignorance by asking such a question.”

“He plays well, then?--is known?”--

“He is a composer.”

She turned abruptly to the side and sank down on one of the numerous seats before which the endless procession of morning promenaders were ceaselessly defiling.

“Let me look at him!” she cried below her breath; “how more than interesting! He appears just as one might imagine that Paganini did before he made his famous bargain.”

The American stood beside her and waited for the object of their watching to turn and pass again. He was quite willing to humor his charming country-woman in any way possible. He did not care who she might take a fancy to, for he was himself engaged to a girl at Smith College, and men who fall in love with college girls are nearly always widow-proof.

Presently Von Ibn came strolling back. He was very tall, as befitted one half of his name, and very dark, as befitted the other, and around his rather melancholy eyes were those broad spaces which give genius room to develop as it will. He had black hair, a black moustache, and a chin which bore witness to the family opposition. Rosina, who chanced to be a connoisseur in chins, looked upon his with deep approval.

“Do you know him?” she asked, looking up at the man beside her; “oh, if you do, I do so wish that you would present him to me. He looks so utterly fascinating; I am sure that I shall like to talk to him.”

The American appeared frankly amused.

“I should really enjoy seeing you turned loose upon Von Ibn,” he said, “it would be such wild sport.”

“Then be nice and bring him to me, and you can have all the fun of standing by and watching us worry one another.”

Her friend hesitated.

“What is it?” she asked impatiently; “why don’t you go? Is there any reason why I may not meet him? Is he a gambler who doesn’t settle fair? Has he deserted his own wife, or run away with any other man’s? Does he lie, or drink beyond the polite limit, or what?”

“Why, the truth is,” said the American slowly, “many people consider him an awful bore. The fact is, he’s most peculiar. I’ve had him stare at me time and again in a way that made me wonder if he was full-witted. I don’t know anything worse against him than that, though.”

“If that’s all,” Rosina answered, laughing, “you need not fear for me. I’ve lived in good society too many years not to know how to deal with a bore. A little idiosyncrasy like that will not mar my enjoyment one bit. Do go and get him now.”

“But some consider him a very big bore indeed.”

“One can see that at the first glance, and just on that account I shall have infinite patience with him.”

“I warn you beforehand that he’s very much of a character.”

“I always did like characters better than people who were well-behaved.”

The American took one step away and then halted.

“Your mind is set upon meeting him?”

“Yes, quite; and do hurry. He may disappear.”

[Illustration]

He laughed.

“Possess yourself in patience for five short minutes,” he began, but she cut his speech off.

“There, there, never mind; while you’re talking he’ll take a train or a boat, and I’ll be left to go geniusless to my grave.”

He lifted his hat at once then and walked away without another word, although inwardly he marvelled much that any woman should care about meeting that man--that particular man; for he was one of those whom the man bored out and out.

The Schweizerhof Quai is long, but not so long but that you may meet any one for whom you chance to be searching within ten minutes of the time of your setting out. The young American was favored by good luck, and in less than half that time returned to Rosina’s bench, his capture safely in tow. She rose to receive them with the radiant countenance of a doll-less child who is engaged in negotiating the purchase of one which can both walk and talk. Indeed her joy was so delightfully spontaneous and unaffected that a bright reflection of it appeared in the shadows of those other eyes which were now meeting hers for the first time.

“Shall we walk on?” she suggested; “that is the pleasantest, to walk and talk, don’t you think?”

Von Ibn stood stock-still before her.

“What will monsieur do?” he asked, with a glance at the other man.

“He will enjoy walking,” Rosina answered.

“But I shall not. I find nothing so tiresome as trying to walk with two people. One must always be leaning forward to hear, or else hearing what is not amusing.”

After which astonishing beginning he waited, pulling his moustache as he contemplated them both. The American glanced at Rosina as much as to say, “There, I told you that he was the worst ever!” But Rosina only smiled cheerfully, saying to her countryman:

“Since Herr von Ibn feels as he does, I think _you’d_ better go and study the Lion or meditate the glaciers, and leave me here with this lion to do either or both.”

The American laughed. He might not have been so amused except that he knew that she knew all about the girl in Smith College. Such things count sadly against one’s popularity, and being a man of sense he recognized the fact.

“At your service, madame,” he said; “I’m going to turn the care of you over to our friend for the remainder of the promenade hour. He will no doubt appreciate to the fullest extent the honor of the transferred charge.”

Von Ibn bowed.

“I do appreciate,” he said gravely; “thank you. Good-morning.”

Then as the other walked away he turned to Rosina.

“Was I impolite to him?” he asked, in quite the tone of an old and intimate friend.

“Yes, very,” she answered, nodding.

“You are then displeased?”

“Not at all; I wanted him to go myself.”

“Ah, yes,” he exclaimed eagerly, “you feel as I. Is it not always _ungemüthlich_, three people together?”

“Always.”

He glanced about them at the crowd of passers-by.

“It is not pleasant here; let us take a walk by the river, and then we can talk and come to know each one the other,”--he paused--“well,” he added.

“Do you really want to know me--well?” she asked, imitating his pause between the last two words.

“Yes, very much. I saw you in the hotel this morning when you came down the stair, and I wanted to know you then. And just now when we passed on the Quai I felt the want become much greater.”

“And I wanted to know you,” she said, looking and speaking with delicious frankness. “I wanted to know you because of your music.”

“Because of my music!” he repeated quickly; “you are