Anne Warner - A Woman's Will

“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 assumption 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 shore 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.

Her eyes wandered towards a certain shop on the other side of the carriage way.

“If I asked you for that necklace in the window there!”

He raised his shoulders slightly.

“Ladies prefer to buy their own necklaces,” he said briefly.

She gave him a furtive look out of the corner of her eye.

“Monsieur, suppose I beg you to take me back to the hotel and henceforth never speak to me!”

He did not appear in the slightest degree alarmed. Instead he put his hand beneath her arm and turned her for another round of promenade.

“I think the automobile will be best,” he said tranquilly. “I will find you a good chauffeur, and you can go to Zurich on its wheels.”

“I only said ‘if,’ you know,” she murmured.

“Yes, I know,” he replied; “but an automobile is always useful.” He thought a moment and then added, “About how much will you choose to pay for it?”

In spite of herself she started and stared at him. He met her eyes with a smile of mockery; Its innuendo was unbearable.

“You know very well,” she burst forth impetuously, “that I would never have thought of really accepting an automobile from you!”

Then he laughed again with fresh amusement.

“ Comme madame se fâche! ” he cried, “it is most droll! All that I may say you will believe.”

“I find you very exasperating,” Rosina exclaimed, her cheeks becoming hotly pink; “you amuse yourself in a way that transcends politeness. I honestly think that you are very rude indeed, and I am in earnest now.”

He made a careless movement with his head.

“Would you have preferred that I should believe you really expect of me an automobile?” he asked.

“You could not possibly have thought that anyhow, and so why should you have spoken as if you were afraid lest I might have meant it?”

He rapped on a tree with his cane as he passed it.

“‘Might,’ and ‘would,’ and ‘should,’” he said placidly, “those are the hardest words for a stranger to learn correctly.”

She felt her temper slipping its anchor.

“Probably when your tutor endeavored to teach you their difference you feared that yielding to his way might be sacrificing your independence, and so you refused to consider his instruction.”

He struck another tree with his cane.

“When you talk so fast and use such great words I cannot understand at all,” he said calmly.

Then she fairly choked.

“Are you quite really angry?” he asked with curiosity. She turned her face away and kept it averted.

“Let us go into the café of the Nationale and dine,” he proposed suddenly.

“No,” she said quickly, – “no, I must go home at once. I have a dinner engagement, and I must change my dress before I go.”

“Then I shall not see you this evening?”

“No” (very bitterly); “what a pity that will be!”

“But to-morrow?”

“I am going with a party to the Gutsch.”

“But that will not be all day?”

“Perhaps.”

He hesitated in his step, and then came to a full stop.

“Let us go up this little street,” he suggested. “I was there yesterday; it is interesting really.”

She continued to walk on alone and he was obliged to rejoin her; then he glanced downward somewhat anxiously.