A Woman's Will Part 59

Ottillie unfastened one of the small valises and handed her mistress a fresh pocket-handkerchief, an attention which was most welcome just at that juncture.

About ten o'clock Jack opened his eyes and yawned vigorously twice or thrice. Then he got up on his elbow.

"You _are_ a pretty sight!" he said, after a lengthy contemplation of her woe; "you look like--like--well, you look pretty bad, and you haven't a soul to blame for it all but yourself."

She made no reply.

"There's Von Ibn gone north, declaring that his future is completely ruined, and you sit crying like a baby because you must leave him, and yet you won't marry him. If he was some worthless scoundrel that couldn't be thought of, you know very well that all we might try to say or do wouldn't keep you from him for three minutes; but just because he is so eminently all right you see a necessity for cooking up a sort of tragedy out of nothing, and making him crazy, and yourself about as bad."

"Have you heard from him?" she asked coldly.

"I know that he left Munich yesterday early. He must have been awfully cut up to have been willing to undertake a trip at that hour. He hates to get up early--"

"That's no crime."

"Who said it was? So far from being a crime, it ought to have been another bond of congeniality between you two."

"Do you know where he went?"

"If he was a man at home he'd take to drink and go to the devil, but being a fellow over here I suppose that he'll just go up the Zug-spitz and down the Matterhorn, and up Mont Blanc and down the Dent du Midi, until he considers himself whole again."

She choked and said no more.

The train guard came through soon after and put the usual question:

"_Wo fahren Sie hin?_"

"Zurich," said Jack, as he produced their tickets; "about what time do we get there?"

"Are you going straight through?" the guard inquired as he punched a page in each little book and restored the library to their rightful possessor.

"Yes."

"Then why did you not take the express?"

Jack fairly bounded in his seat.

"The express!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Great Scott, do you mean to say that we are not on it!!!"

"Oh, no," said the guard, "you are upon the way-train that follows half an hour later. The express arrives at two-forty; this train gets in between seven and eight at night."

Nothing could bear deeper testimony to the state of Rosina's crushed sensibilities than the way in which she received this bit of information. While Jack swore violently she continued to look out of the window with an indifference that was entirely genuine.

"To think that that other train must have been right there within a hundred feet of us!" cried her cousin.

She did not turn an eyelash.

"By George, Rosina, I don't believe I ever was as mad as this in all my life before!"

She sighed.

"I don't mind anything," she said sadly.

"You ought to mind getting to Zurich at eight o'clock instead of half-past two; there's quite a little difference."

"I don't mind," she repeated.

"Well, I do," said Jack. After a pause of stormy thought he unclenched his fist and said, "I bet I get even for this some day, but just at present I think that I'll go to sleep again."

Which he did forthwith.

About noon they came to Lindau on the Bodensee. Rosina shivered and felt sick, because Constance lay upon the further side. The train did not run beyond Lindau and a change was necessary. The change revealed the fact that there was a custom-house at that point. An unexpected custom-house is one of the worst features of continental travel; but the officials of Lindau were delightful, drew chalk circles on everything, and sent every one upon their way rejoicing. Our party went around the little station and were halted by a guard with the common greeting:

"_Wo fahren Sie hin?_"

"Zurich," Jack answered, hauling out his tickets.

"_Fahren Sie mit Bahn oder fahren Sie mit Schiff?_"

Jack looked nonplussed.

"Which are the tickets for?" he asked.

"Either."

He turned to where Rosina waited, her eyes gazing in the direction of Constance.

"Oh, Rosina," he called out, "do you want to _fahr_ from here on _mit_ the _Bahn_ or the _Schiff_?"

"I don't care," she replied.

"What's the difference, anyhow?" he asked the man.

"With the boat you do not connect with the train on the other sh.o.r.e," he was told.

"You don't, eh? Well, I'm very anxious to make that train upon the other sh.o.r.e, so I think we'll _fahr_ right along _mit_ the _Bahn_. Come on!"

he called again to his cousin, "we must get aboard."

They went slowly along the platform to the train gate.

"They call Lindau the German Venice," he said, as they waited to pa.s.s the gate, "but I don't think that it looks very Venetian; do you?"

She choked, because Venice began with V, and felt herself quite unable to frame an answer to his question.

As every one but themselves seemed to have elected for the "Schiff,"

they found an entire wagon empty and spread their luggage out well. Jack even went so far as to establish himself in solitary state in an adjoining compartment, to the end that he might consider the proposition of more sleep. Before the train was well under way the guard came through, and past experience led Rosina to call through the connecting door:

"Do ask him if we must change again."