A Woman's Will Part 42

"Certainly; if you will wait while I have some proper boots found for me."

"Yes, I will wait."

He came towards her.

"Oh, you had better go into the corridor and wait," she exclaimed hastily. "I'll come in a moment."

He stopped short and smiled his irresistible smile.

"You are so madly queer. _Qu'est-ce que vous avez_? You scream always, and yet I have not done nothing."

Then without another word he left the room.

When she was alone Rosina rang for her maid. As Ottillie knelt at her feet, she frowned deeply, thinking how more than horrid it was that Jack should have come, that she should be obliged to go, and that women may not allow themselves to be kissed. Later she recollected that Jack was in Vienna, that there was the half of October yet to be lived, and that all disembodied kisses must of necessity have an incarnation yet to come. And then she smiled once more.

Ottillie brought her wraps and adjusted her hat.

"Will madame take supper here?" she asked.

"_Je le pense, oui._"

The maid m.u.f.fled a sigh; she would have made Von Ibn a conquering hero indeed, if her heartfelt wishes could have given him the victory. And apropos of this subject, it would be interesting, very interesting, to know how many international marriages have been backed up by a French _femme-de-chambre_ burning with impatience to return to her own continent.

Rosina went to the salon and found her hero looking at a "Jugend" with a bored expression. When he saw her he sprang to his feet and sought his hat and umbrella forthwith.

Then they went down the three flights of stairs to the street, and found it wet indeed.

"We cannot go on the Promenade," he said, after casting a comprehensive glance about and afar. "I think we will go by the Hofgarten and walk under the arcade there; there will it be dry, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"Yes, surely it will be dry there," she acquiesced. "It is always dry under cover in Europe, because your rain is so quiet and well behaved; it never comes with a terrible gale, whirling and twisting, and drenching everything inside and outside, like our storms."

"Why do your storms be so?"

"We haven't found any way of teaching them better manners yet. They are like our flies; our flies are the noisiest, most intrusive, most impertinent creatures. You don't appreciate your timid, modest little flies."

"I do not like flies."

"Yes," she laughed, "that is the whole story. You 'do not like flies,'

while we go crazy if there is one around, and have our houses screened from cellar to garret."

"I do not find this subject very amusing," he said; "let us speak of another thing."

Rosina glanced up at the prison-like facade which they were pa.s.sing.

"I find the architecture of the Hoftheater terribly monotonous," she said warmly. "Why do you not have a more diversified style of windows where so many must be in a straight row?"

"Munich is not my city," he responded, shrugging his shoulder; "and if you will to find fault with the way those windows go, you must wait to meet the shade of Klenze in the after-world. He made it all in 1823."

"When I get among the Bavarian shades," she said thoughtfully, "I want to meet King Louis more than any one else. I think that he is the most interesting figure in all the history of the country."

"Perhaps he will be there as here, and not care to meet any one."

"Oh, no," she said hopefully; "he was crazy here, but he will be sane there and--"

"_Mon Dieu_, madame, have a care!" he cried in a low tone, glancing apprehensively about.

"What is it?" she asked, alarmed.

He lowered his voice to an almost inaudible pitch.

"It is that we do not discuss our kings in public as you are habited to do. _Voyons donc_," he continued, "if I said, '_Oh, je trouve l'Empereur tres-bete!_' (as I well might say, for I find him often bete enough); if I say that, I might find a _sergeant-de-ville_ at my elbow, and myself in prison almost as the words were still in the air."

Rosina looked thoroughly frightened.

"And what would they do to you?" she asked, looking up at him with an expression which brought a strange answering look into his own eyes.

"That would depend on how _bete_ I had found the emperor," he declared, laughing; "but, madame, do not be so troubled, because no one has heard this time."

They were walking at a good pace, the puddles considered, and came now to the arched entrance into the Hofgarten, where a turning brought them beneath the arcades. The south side was crowded, thanks to the guide-book recommendation to examine the frescoes there on a day when it is too wet to "do" other sights about the city; but the west side, where the frescoes are of landscapes only, and sadly defaced at that, was quite deserted, and they made their way through the crowd to the grateful peace of the silence beyond. It was a pleasant place to walk, with the Hofgarten showing its fresh green picture between the frames of the arcaded arches. The facade of the Hof formed the background to all--a background of stone and marble, of serried ranks of windows marshalled to order by lofty portals and balconies.

"Why are women always like that?" he asked, when they had paced in silence to the other end and turned to return.

"Like what?"

He threw a quick glance of exasperation at her.

"When I say a question, it is always with another question that you reply!"

"Well," she said, "we were talking of the emperor, and now you say 'why are women always like that?' and I ask 'like what?'"

He looked more exasperated than before.

"I have all finished with the emperor," he said, as if outraged by her want of comprehension as to his meaning. "Is it likely that I will wish to talk of the emperor when on the nineteenth you sail from Genoa?"

She felt her eyes moistening afresh at this recurrence to her departure, and made no answer. He slashed along vigorously for two or three yards, cutting a wide swathe with his umbrella, and then his grievance appeared somewhat appeased, and he explained in a milder tone:

"I ask you why are women like that,--like that, that they never will like to be kissed?"

Rosina halted in astonishment.

"What is it now?" he asked, turning because he missed her. "Have I not yet made myself plain?"

"The idea--after all this while--of your going back to that subject!"

"I have not go back to it," he said coolly; "I have thought of no other thing while you were booting yourself or now. Why do women say 'No'?

Why do you say 'No'?"

"Let me see," she said thoughtfully. "I think it is like this: if I allowed you to, you would naturally feel that hereafter you could, whereas I very much prefer that you should know that you can't."