A Woman's Will Part 53

"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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sed 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 fumer une cigarette_," he said suddenly, "_ca 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.'"