A Woman's Will Part 10

"In dead--in dead--" he stammered hopelessly; "oh," he exclaimed, "perhaps it is that I am really stupid, after all."

"No, no," she laughed; "it is I that am behaving badly. It amuses me to tease you by using words that you do not understand."

"But that is not very nice of you," he said, smiling. "Why do you want to tease me?"

"I don't know, but I do."

He laughed lightly.

"We amuse ourselves together, _n'est-ce pas_?" he asked. "It is like children to laugh and not know why. I find such pleasure very pleasant.

One cannot be always wise--above all, with a woman."

"I do not want to be wise," she said, as they joined the promenading crowd; "I much prefer to have my clothes fit well."

Then he laughed outright.

"_Vous etes si drole!_" he said apologetically.

"Oh, I don't mind your laughing," she said, "but I do wish that you would walk on the other side."

"The other side of the street?" he asked, with surprise.

"No, no; the other side of me."

"Why should I not be on this side as well as on that?"

"Because that's the wrong one to be on."

"It is not! I am on the very right place."

"No; you should be between the lady and the street."

"Why?" he demanded, as he raised his hat to some one.

"To protect her--me."

"To protect you how? Nothing will come up out of the lake to hurt you."

Then he raised his hat to some people that she bowed to.

"It isn't that, it is that the outside is where the man should walk.

It's the custom. It's his proper place."

"No, it is not. I am proper where I am; I would be improper if I was over there."

"In America men always walk on the outside."

"But we are not in America, we are in Lucerne, and that is Europe, and for Europe I am right. _Mon Dieu_, do you think that I do not know!"

Rosina shrugged her shoulders.

"I am really distressed when we meet any Americans, because I am sure that they think that you have not been well brought up."

Von Ibn shrugged _his_ shoulders.

"There are not many Americans here to think anything," he said carelessly, "and all the Europeans whom we meet know that I am well brought up whichever side I may choose to walk upon." He bowed again to some carriage people.

She trailed her pace a little and then paused; he was such a temptation that she could not resist.

"I do wish," she said earnestly, "that to please me you would do as I ask you, just this once!"

He stopped short and stared first at her and then at the lake.

"I wonder," he said slowly,--"I wonder if we are to be together ever after these days?"

"Why do you wonder that? Would you rather never see me again than do something to please me?"

"No, no," he said hastily, a little shock in his tone, "but you must understand that if we are to be much together I cannot begin with the making of my obedience to suit you. And yet, if it is but for these two days, I can very well do whatever you may wish."

He moved out of the line so as to think maturely upon such a weighty matter. She covered her real interest in his meditations with an excellent a.s.sumption of interest in the superb view before her. The Rigi was towering there, and its crest and the crests of all its lofty neighbors were brightly silvered by the descending sun. From Pilatus on the right, away to the green banks of Weggis and Vitznau on the left, the lake spread in blue and bronze, and by the opposite sh.o.r.e the water's calm was such that a ghostly Lucerne of the under-world lay upside down just beneath its level, and mocked reality above by the perfection of detail. Little bright-sailed boats danced here and there, a large steamer was gliding into the landing by the Gare, and the music from a band aboard came floating to their ears.

That little gray mother-duck who raises so many families under the shelter of the Schweizerhof Quai presently noticed these two silent people, and, suspecting them of possessing superfluous bread, came hastily paddling to the feast. It made Rosina feel badly to see the patient little creature wait there below; but she was breadless, and could only muse over the curious similarity of a woman's lot with a hungry duck's, until the duck gave up in despair and paddled off, leaving a possible lesson in her wake.

"Oh dear!" she exclaimed then, "I'm going to Zurich Monday, and you're going to stay here all summer; we shall never meet again, so what is the use of thinking so long over nothing!"

Then he put his hand up, gave his moustache ends a twist, and turned to walk on. He was still on the same side, and there was a sort of emphasis about his being there which made her want to laugh, even while she recognized the fact that the under-current of the minute was a strong one--stronger perhaps than she was understanding just then.

"You don't feel altogether positive as to your summer plans, I see?" she queried, with a little glance of fun.

"I never am positive," he said, almost grimly. "I will never bind myself even by a thread. I must go free; no one must think to hold me."

"I'm sure I don't want to hold you," she laughed; "I think you are dreadfully rude, but of course you can do what you please."

"You find me rude?" he asked soberly.

"Yes, indeed, I think you are very rude. Here we are still on the first day of our acquaintance, and you refuse absolutely to grant me such a trifling request."

They had continued to follow the stone dalles of the embankment and were now near the end of the Quai; he stopped short again, and again stared at the mountains.

"Ask me what you will," he said, after a moment's pause, "and you shall have it; but to that first most absurd asking I shall always refuse."

Her eyes began to dance.

"If I asked you to buy me an automobile!" she ventured.

He glanced at her quickly.

"Do you ask me for an automobile?" he demanded.