A Woman's Will Part 43

He looked in a despair so complete as to be almost ludicrous.

"Oh, say slower," he pleaded, earnestly. "It is so very important to well understand."

She laughed at his serious face. For the moment Jack and Genoa were both forgotten, and nothing but the pleasure of good company and an atmosphere breathing the perfume that follows rain where there are flowers, were left to joy her.

"It isn't worth repeating slower," she said, with a smile. "It was a positive negative which even if developed in a dark room would make a proof that I did not want to be kissed."

They went the entire length of the arcade while he endeavored to work out the solution of her second riddle, and then he shrugged his shoulders, remarking:

"I have never interest myself in a kodak any," and appeared to regard the subject as finished.

They came back up the arcade, and, the sidewalks being now fairly dry, went out under the stairway at the corner, into the Galleriestra.s.se.

"Do you like this country?" he asked presently.

"Bavaria? Immensely."

"I mean, do you like the Continent--Europe?"

"Yes."

"What do think about it?"

"I think Europa showed great good taste in getting down from the bull just where she did."

"Then you like this land?"

"I love it! It hurts me whenever I hear my countrymen malign it."

They were in the Ludwigsstra.s.se, and the scene was like a holiday in America. Every one was out after the rain and all faces reflected that exuberant gayety which seems to be born about five o'clock in each continental city. People in carriages, people in cabs, people on horseback, people on bicycles, people walking, people leading dogs, people wheeling babies, people following children, all one laughing, bowing, chattering procession, coming and going ceaselessly between the Feldherrnhalle and the Siegesthor, with the blue Bavarian sky blessing all the pleasure, and the tame doves of Munich under the feet of each and every one.

Von Ibn stopped to watch the brilliant scene; Rosina stood beside him.

"What ill can one say of us?" he asked, after a while. "How can a place be better than this?"

"_I_ never said that any place could be better than this," she a.s.severated; "but I am uncommon in my opinions. The average American is born in a land overflowing with steam-heat, ice-water, and bath-tubs, and he suffers when he has to lose the hyphens and use the nouns separately."

Von Ibn frowned.

"You amuse yourself much with queer words to-day," he said discontentedly. "I wish I have stayed with Jack. I was much pleasured with him."

"But you said that you had to return because of some business," she reminded him.

He raised his eyebrows, and they went on again. After a little she turned her eyes up to his and smiled.

"Don't say that you wish you were with Jack. I am so glad that you are here."

He returned the smile.

"I have no wish to be with your cousin," he said amicably; "I find you much more agreeable."

Then a little dog that a lady was leading by a long chain ran three times around his legs and half choked itself to death, and the lady screamed, and it was several minutes before all was calm again.

"I find it _bete_ to have a dog like that," he said, looking disgustedly over his shoulder at the heroine of the episode, as she placidly continued on her way. "It was _grand merci_ that I am not fallen, then.

What was about my feet I could not fancy, and also,"--he began to laugh,--"and also it was droll, for I might not kick the dog."

Rosina laughed too.

"But in America," he went on, suddenly recurring to their earlier topic, "have you no art?"

"Oh, yes; but nothing to compare with our sanitary arrangements. Our president's bath-tub is cut out of one solid block of marble," she added proudly.

"That is not so wonderful."

"Isn't it? The head-lines in the papers led me to think that it was. But I'll tell you what I think is a disgrace to America," she went on with energy, "and that is that the American artists who come to study abroad must pay duty on their own pictures when they take them back."

"Is that really so?" he asked.

"Yes, that is really so. And it is very unjust, for the musician and surgeon and scientist can bring all the results of their study in duty free."

"They have them within their heads."

"Yes; but they have them just the same."

"Everything costs a great deal with you, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"I should say it did. No one ought to blame us for telling what things cost, because everything costs so much. A carriage is six to ten _marks_ an hour."

"_C'est a.s.sez cher!_" he said, laughing.

"_C'est un peu trop!_" she rejoined warmly. "But the well-to-do certainly do revel in griddle-cakes and hot-water faucets, and when I meet an American man in Europe I am forced to believe that they are the only really worthy ambitions to be striven for."

"I could not live there, I think," he exclaimed.

"I'm afraid not," said she sadly. "You don't play golf or drink, and men of leisure have almost no other careers open to them with us."

"I have my music."

"But you could never enjoy that there," she cried, shivering involuntarily. "Every one talks during music, and some cough, and gentlemen clear their throats--"

"And does no one hiss them?" he interrupted, wide-eyed.

"Hiss them? Never! The idea!"

He stopped and lit a cigarette.

"But one can travel?" he suggested.