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

The waitress then retired and they were left alone in their corner.

“The other lady is getting kissed,” Rosina said. The publicity of a certain grade of continental love-making is always both interesting and amazing to the Anglo-Saxon temperament.

He looked behind him without at all disturbing what was in progress there. After a minute’s quiet stare he turned back in his seat and shrugged his shoulders.

“You see how simple it is when the woman is still,” he said pointedly. “There is no fainting there; he loses no seventeen-mark umbrella from Baden-Baden.”

She ignored the gist of this remark, and began to unhook the collar of her jacket. Then she decided to take it off altogether.

“You find it too warm?” he said, rising to assist her.

“I certainly do.”

“It is curious for you and I to be in such a place, _n’est-ce pas_?”

“Very curious.”

“But it is an experience, like eating in the woods.”

“I don’t think that it is at all like eating in the woods; I think that nothing could be more different.”

“We are so alone.”

“Oh!”

“Now you understand what I mean.”

“Yes, now I understand what you mean. And it is really a little like the woods, too,” she added. “Those iron acorns and leaves are the branches, and the stuffed eagles are the birds.”

He looked at the oak-branches and the eagles for some time, and then he said:

“Let us talk.”

“What are we doing now?”

“We are waiting for what is to be to eat.”

“I thought that that in itself was always sufficient entertainment for a man.”

“I like better to talk. I have not much time more to talk with you, _vous savez_.”

“We will talk,” she said, hastily. Her eyes wandered vaguely over the room seeking a subject for immediate discussion; all that she saw was the perpendicular cue of one of the billiard players.

“Watch!” she exclaimed. “He’s going to make an awfully difficult shot.”

Von Ibn looked towards the player with very little interest depicted on his countenance.

“Oh, he missed,” she exclaimed disgustedly.

“But of course. How could a man like that do such a _massé_? You are so hopeful ever. You say, ‘See him make so difficult a play,’ when only looking upon the man’s face tells that he himself is sure that he is about to fail.”

“I’ll give you a riddle,” she went on, receiving his expostulation with a smile. “But perhaps you don’t know what a riddle is?” she added questioningly.

“Yes, I do know what a riddle is; it is what you do not know and must tell.”

“Yes, that is it.”

“And your riddle is?”

“Why am I like a dragon?”

“Like a--” he faltered.

“Dragon.”

“What is a dragon?”

“It’s a horrible monster. Don’t you know the picture in the Schaak Gallery of that creature running its neck out through the slit in the rock so as to devour the two donkeys?”

“Yes, I know the picture. But that creature is blue.”

“Oh,” she said hopelessly, “it’s no use trying to tell you riddles, you don’t understand.”

“Yes, I do,” he cried eagerly. “I understand perfectly and I assure you that I like very much. Dragon is ‘_drachen_,’ _n’est ce pas_?”

“Yes.”

“And you are as one?”

“I ask _why_ am I like one?”

He looked particularly blank.

“You are perhaps hungry?” he hazarded.

She began to laugh.

“No, it’s because I’m breathing smoke.”

“Do dragons breathe smoke? It is a salamander you are believing in.”

“In pictures dragons always breathe smoke and fire.”

“But there is no fire here.”

“There must be somewhere, because there is so much smoke.”

He was unmoved and ruminative.

“I do not find your riddle very clever,” he said at last.

Rosina buried the poor, weak, little scintillation at once and stamped on its grave in hot haste.

“I think that our dinner is coming,” she announced presently, turning her veil above her brows, “and I am so hungry.”

“I find your hunger a much better answer of that riddle than to be breathing smoke,” he said.

“Of course you do, because that is the answer that you thought of.”

The waitress began to arrange the dishes upon the table and when all was in order he prepared to serve them both.

“I often start to say most clever things,” he said, as he carved the fish, “but before I can speak you have always say something else.”

She took the plate that he passed her, and picked up her fork at once.

“Then when you are silent for a quarter of an hour or so it would really pay me to keep still and wait; wouldn’t it?” she inquired.

He took a mouthful and deliberated.

“I think so,” he said at last.

A deep stillness fell over the festal board. Von Ibn was mute and his companion felt that, the preceding remarks considered, she would be dumb herself. The entire meal was accordingly eaten in absolute silence, until, when she had finished, she could not refrain from stealing one amused glance in his direction.

“You laugh,” he said, returning the smile in kind.

“I am sure that it is going to be something very brilliant this time,” she told him.

He stared for a minute; and then he understood and laughed aloud.

“I only eat then,” he exclaimed, “_mais, Dieu! quels enfants nous sommes ensemble_. I must often wonder if you are so happy with me as I am with you? I cannot say why it is, but if you only be there I am content. Tell me, is it at all so for you?”

“I enjoy you,” she answered; “most men are stupid or horrid.”

“When?” he asked anxiously.

“When one is much with them.”

He looked at her with some alarm.

“But are many men much with you?”

Rosina laughed merrily over the trouble in his face.

“You would have been unbearable if you had been of a jealous disposition,” she said, nodding.

“Yes,” he replied gravely, “I have always feel that myself; for with me it is very strong that there shall be no other. But tell me now, truly are many men much with you?”

“Why I have hosts of friends,” she declared, “and, on account of the way that the world is made, half of them are obliged to be men.”

“But you said that they were all stupid or horrible,” he reminded her carefully.

“I said that most of them were.”

He thought a moment.

“I wish that there had been a bouillon here,” he said then.

She began to put on her gloves, thinking that the hour of departure was close at hand.

“_J’ai envie de fûmer une cigarette_,” he said suddenly, “_ça ne vous fait rien d’attender un peu_?”

“I don’t care,” she answered, and laid her gloves down again.

“Am I ever horrible to you?” he asked, taking a match from the white china pyramid that ornamented the centre of the table.

“I didn’t say ‘horrible;’ I said ‘horrid.’”

“Is there a difference?” he lit his cigarette.

“Yes, indeed.”

He crossed his arms upon the table, and smiled at her through his own personal quota of smoke.

“Tell me the difference. Why are we horrid?”

“Because you so often are. Men never understand.”

“_Au contraire_,” he said quietly, “men always understand. It is the woman who will not believe it, and it is cruel to say her the truth. A woman is always _genée_, she will sob in a man’s arms and still declare that ‘No.’ Why is it necessary for her to be so? That I cannot understand.”

Rosina caught a quick little breath; she had not been prepared for such a turn of conversation. Von Ibn went on with a degree of nonchalance that masked his close observance admirably.

“When a man loves a woman, he knows certainly if she loves him or not. It is there every minute in her eyes and on her lips; and yet he must ask her, and she must pretend a surprise. Why? We are altogether human. Then why must women be different? I am most sorry for a poor woman; she cannot be kissed or caressed or loved without the pretence that she dislikes it. It must be very difficult.”

She felt her face getting warm.

“You do not like what I have say?” he asked.

“No.”

“Because it is true?”

“It isn’t true.”

“An American would not say that to you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Do you like better the American way of covering up all truth?”

“It is politer, I think.”

He looked at her for a moment.

“I have been horrible, _n’est-ce pas_?” he asked.

She felt very uncomfortable indeed.

“Do let us go now,” she said in a low tone.

He struck his water-glass with a knife, and their waitress, who was near by, looked around.

“_’Zahlen!_” he called to her. She nodded. He went for his coat and hat, and when he returned Rosina was fastening the frogs on her jacket.

“I would have put it on if you had waited,” he said in a tone of remonstrance.

“I am used to getting into it,” she assured him.

He looked attentively at her and perceived more than she thought. Then the waitress came up and recited all that they had eaten in a sing-song tone, and he pushed some money towards her with a gesture that disposed of the question as to making change.

“We will go out now,” he said, turning towards the door, and the next minute they were in the cool, fresh night air. He put his hand upon her arm, and bent his head a little.

“Do not be vexed with me,” he said softly; “even a little vexing of you makes me great pain.”

Then he pressed her arm closely.

“It is not long that we have now to talk. I beg you talk to me; do not be so sad.”

“I’m not sad.”

“Then talk.”

She gathered up her energy with a mighty effort.

“What shall we talk about?”

“Anything. Have you a letter to-day?”

“Yes.”

“From who? From Jack?”

“No, from the Marquis de W----.”

His fingers came together over her arm in a vice-like grip.

“I have never heard of him,” he cried; “where have you know him?”

“In Paris. And then I met him on the train--”

Von Ibn’s eyes grew large with fright.

“But you must not meet men on trains,” he said; “that is not at all proper for you.”

“He took charge of me from Paris to Lucerne,” she said soothingly; “he is really very delightful--”

“I did not see him at Lucerne,” he interrupted.

“No, he was gone when you came.”

“How old is he?”

“He is seventy.”

His heat subsided suddenly, and there was a pause during which she felt circulation returning slowly to her arm.

“And you have a letter from him to-day?” he asked, after a while.

“I have a letter from him almost every day.”

He looked down at her with an air of genuine astonishment.

“What can a man of seventy say in