A Woman's Will Part 40

It was three o'clock on the last day of September, and the last day of September had been a very rainy one. Little draggled sparrows quarrelled on the black asphalt of the Maximiliansstra.s.se because it was wet and they came in for their share of the consequent ill-humor; all the cabs and cabmen and cab-horses were waterproofed to the fullest possible extent; all the c.o.c.ks' plumes in the forlorn green hats of the forlorn street-sweeping women hung dolefully and dejectedly down their backs.

People coming to the Schauspielhaus lowered their umbrellas at the entrance and scooted in out of the drizzle; people coming out of the Schauspielhaus raised their umbrellas and slopped away through the universal damp and spatters.

All of which but served to deepen the already deep melancholy and _ennui_ of Rosina, who leaned in her window across the way, staring upon the outer world with an infinite sense of its pitiful inadequacy to meet her present wishes, and a most profound regret that her cousin had ever crossed the ocean on her account.

For they had not returned from the Tagernsee. On the contrary the expedition had stretched to other "sees," to the Herrn-Chiemsee, to Salzburg, and now she held in her hand a hastily pencilled scrawl, brought by the two o'clock post, which said:

"Ho for Vienna. Always did want to see Buda-Pesth. J."

And nothing more!

"It's so like a man," she told herself without troubling to think just what she did mean by the words. "Oh, dear! oh, _dear_!" and she turned from the window and flung herself despairingly into one of the big red velvet chairs, preparing to read or to cry as the fancy might seize her.

There came a light tap at the door and then it opened a very little.

"Oh, pardon me," cried a sweet, sweet voice, "I think you are perhaps gone out!"

Then the door opened and the speaker showed herself. It was the daughter of the house, an ideally blonde and bonny German girl. She came across the room and her face shaded slightly as she asked:

"You have no bad news? no?"

"No," said Rosina, forcing a smile; "I'm only very cross."

"Cross? Why cross? You are but laughing at me. You are not really cross."

Rosina was silent; her lip quivered slightly.

"Oh," said Fraulein quickly. "I am come that I may ask you a favor! The parlor has a workman to make the window again; it is not good closed, and the French lady wishes to call on you. May she come here?"

"Yes," Rosina said, "I shall be so very glad to have her come here, and Ottillie can bring us some tea after a while."

She dried her eyes openly in preparation for the visit to be.

"You are lonely to-day," said Fraulein sympathetically. "I am glad that your cousin did come."

"Yes," said Rosina, "but he went away so soon again."

Her eyes immediately refilled.

"You love each other so very much in America," said the German girl gently; she stood still for a minute and then smiled suddenly. "I will tell madame to come here," she added, and left the room.

Rosina went back to the window and her unseeing contemplation of the outdoors. Presently some one knocked and she turned, crying:

"_Entrez!_"

The door opened, and instead of the French lady whose husband was fleeing the revolution in Caraccas by bringing his family to Munich for the winter, a man entered.

The man was tall and dark, with brown eyes and a black moustache, and his eyes were oddly full of light and laughter.

She stood still staring for one short minute, and then suddenly something swallowed up all the s.p.a.ce between them, and her hand was fast between his grasp, pressed hard against his lips, while the pleasure in her eyes rose and fell against the joy of his own.

"_Vous me voyez revenu!_" he said.

"Where is Jack?" she asked; both spoke almost at once, and Von Ibn was conscious of sharing a divine sense of relief with her as he replied:

"He is gone alone to Vienna!"

It was as if a heavy cloud had been lifted from her horizon. She sank down in one of the big easy-chairs and he dragged another close, very close to her side.

"Not so near!" she exclaimed, a little frightened.

He withdrew the chair two inches and fixed his eyes hungrily upon her face.

"Has it been long to you?" he asked, his tone one of breathless feeling.

And then she realized to the full how very long it had been, and confessed the fact in one great in-drawn sigh.

"Why did you go so far?" she demanded.

"It was one step beyond the another; I have no idea but of the Tagernsee when we leave."

"You've been gone weeks!"

He leaned forward and seized her hand again.

"Was it so long?" he questioned softly.

"You know that I only saw my cousin just that one evening!" she had the face to say complainingly.

"Yes," he said sympathetically; "he is so nice, your cousin. I have learned to like him so very much; we have really great pleasure together. But," he added, "I did not come back to talk of him."

"Why did you come back?" she asked, freeing herself and pushing her chair away.

He smiled upon her.

"You ask?" he said, in amus.e.m.e.nt; "shall I say that it was to see you?"

"I hope that you did not return on my account."

He paused, twisting his moustache; then started a little and said:

"No, I am returned wholly for business."

Rosina received the cold douche with a composure bred of experience, and after a liberal interval he went on.

"But I wanted also to see you too."

"Well, you are seeing me, are you not?"