A Woman's Will by Anne Warner (best 7 inch ereader txt) 📕

/> “Then it’s settled,” cried the Irish girl despairingly; “when her hair is done, the end of all is at hand. What train do we go by, Claudine?”

“I am not of all sure, mademoiselle; madame has spoken of he who runs by Schaffhausen.”

The Irish girl sighed heavily.

“Very well, Claudine, you and I know what it is to travel as we do. Go to madame and tell her I will come as soon as I am dressed,” and then she picked up the honey-jar and sighed again.

The maid went out.

“What makes you go?” Rosina asked; “I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, my dear, I’ve stayed at their place in the Caucasus weeks at a time, and I have to be decent, and she knows it.”

“Why did you ever accept an invitation to travel with such a horrid person?”

Molly was out of bed and jerking her hair-ribbons savagely loose.

“She isn’t a horrid person,” she said; “they are very nice princes and princesses, all of them. Only I hate to lead an existence like the slave of the ring or the genii of the lamp, or whoever the johnny was who had to jump whenever they rubbed their hands. It riles my blood just a bit too much.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Rosina decidedly; “I certainly wouldn’t.”

“I wish I’d taken the Turk,” the Irish girl exclaimed, as she wove her hair back and forth and in and out upon the crown of her head, “I’d have been free of Russia then; ’tis a hint for European politics, my present situation.”

Rosina suddenly gave a sharp cry.

“Oh, Molly,--and me?”

Molly looked over her shoulder.

“What is it?” she asked anxiously.

“Why, what am I to do? I came here to be with you, and now you’re going away.”

“You’ll have to go too if you can’t stay behind without me.”

“But I only came yesterday.”

“Well, what of that?”

“And, oh Molly, that man! I’ll _have_ to go!”

“Why?”

“Why, because--because--Oh, you know why. And then,--if I go--what _do_ you suppose he will think?”

Molly snatched her dressing-gown.

“He’ll come too, I fancy. At least, judging from what I’ve seen of him I should suppose that he’d come too.”

“Come too!” Rosina gasped.

“Why not? He’ll be just as interesting in Constance as he is here, or in Lucerne.”

“You don’t really think that he would come too; Molly, not _really_?”

“Certainly I think that he would.”

“Oh, Molly!”

“’Tis their way here on the Continent; they’ve nothing else to do, you know. I know a man who went from Paris to St. Petersburg after a girl (I know it for a fact, for the girl was myself), and another who came from Naples to Nice just to call, and went back at midnight.”

Rosina appeared most uncomfortable.

“I don’t want him to go to Constance--I don’t want to go myself!”

“Oh, if it comes to that, you can both remain in Zurich indefinitely, of course.”

“No, we can’t; that is, I can’t. You know that. If he’s going to stay I’ve got to go. Oh dear, oh dear, how aggravating it all is! I don’t _want_ him to follow me about.”

“Why don’t you tell him so, then?”

“Molly!”

“Yes, just tell him so, and if you really mean it, he’ll understand, never fear.”

“But I don’t want to do that.”

“No, I didn’t expect that you would. One never likes to do that, which is one reason why I am myself betrothed to three different men at the present minute.”

“But, Molly--”

“I thought that you liked him.”

“I do like him, but there’s a wide difference between liking a man and wanting to have him tagging along behind all the time.”

“Oh, as to that, I don’t believe that _der_ Herr von Ibn will stay enough behind to be considered as tagging very long.”

Rosina twisted uneasily in bed.

“I don’t see what to do,” she murmured.

Molly was getting into her clothes with a rapidity little short of marvellous.

“I’ll be curious to see what you _do_ do,” she said, sticking pins recklessly into herself here and there, while she settled all nice points with a jerk. “It’s ten o’clock,” she added, with a glance towards the chimney-piece, “you’d better be arising, for I presume he is coming this morning?”

Rosina smiled delightfully.

“You heard him say so last night, didn’t you?”

“Perhaps; somehow the remark didn’t make an impression on me, if I did.”

“I’ll get up directly you go. And oh, Molly, do tell me just once more before you leave me that you think he’s--”

Molly slashed the end of her four-in-hand through the loop and drew up the knot with a single pull; then she approached the bed and leaned over the face upon the pillow.

“I think he’s desperately in love,” she said, “and I’ve no blame for him if he is.”

“But do you really think that he is?”

“Well, of course one can never be sure with foreigners.”

“_Molly!_”

“’Tis a fact, my dear. But then you know one can never be sure with one’s self either, so there you are.”

Rosina laughed ringingly. Then they kissed one another and Molly departed.

* * * * *

Then came work for Ottillie, and her mistress was hardly completed as to embroidered batiste and black moiré ribbon, when the large and remarkable card with which the more distinguished portion of European masculinity announce their presence was brought to the room by one of the hotel _garçons_.

He awaited her in the salon below, and when she appeared there to him, such an expression dawned within his eyes as altered completely not only their habitual melancholy, but the customary shadows of his whole face as well. There is no flattery so subtle in its charm or so deeply touching in its homage as such a change, and Rosina felt as much complimented as any other woman would have been, had it been in her to work so great a miracle in so great, and such, a man.

“_Vous allez bien?_” he asked eagerly, as he came quickly forward to bow over her hand.

“Yes, very well;” and then, because she always became nervous directly she lived beneath his steady look, she plunged wildly into the subject uppermost in her mind. “And I ought to feel very well, because in all probability I must travel again to-day.”

“You leave Zurich already so soon?” he asked, and his voice betrayed neither surprise nor even interest.

“Yes,” she answered, “we are all going to Constance this afternoon.”

“You have change your plans?” he inquired; “yes?”

She looked up quickly at the much-objected-to word, and he received the little glance with a shrug of apology and a smile.

“Madame la Princesse wishes to go on,” said Rosina, “and mademoiselle thought that I would be so lonely without her that I--”

“You would have wished to stay, _n’est-ce pas_?” he asked, interrupting her.

“I don’t like to travel two days in succession.”

“I would beg you to stay,” he said, looking at his gloved hands, “but I also go to-day.”

She felt her heart jump suddenly; Molly’s prediction assaulted her memory with great violence.

“Yes,” he went on, “it happens oddly that my plans are also suddenly changed. It is to say good-bye that I am come.”

Ah, then he was not going to Constance.

“I am called to Leipsic by a telegram.”

“No one is ill, I hope?”

“No, fortunately,” he replied pleasantly; “but in Leipsic I am much interested.”

Rosina felt a sudden shock, not the less disagreeable because it was so undefined, but she pulled herself together at once and promptly swallowed it whole.

“I do hope that you will have a pleasant journey,” she said cordially.

He was staring steadily at her.

“Shall we meet again?” he said at last.

“Very likely.”

“And your address?”

“You have it.”

“Ah, yes, truly.”

Then he stood up.

“I go at one, and I have ordered to eat at twelve. I must therefore leave you this shortly. You will make my adieux to your charming friend, _n’est-ce pas_?”

“I am so glad that you came to Zurich and met her,” she said, rising also and lifting her eyes to his.

He was looking so indifferent that she felt for the instant both puzzled and hurt, and was angry at herself for ever having blushed on his account. Then she recollected the telegram from Leipsic and drew herself up well.

“Is it only because that I have the pleasure to meet mademoiselle that you are glad I come?” he asked, holding out his hand.

She nodded, smiling, but ignoring the hand.

“In Lucerne you gave me your hand in good-bye,” he said presently.

She offered her fingers with a frankness unequalled.

“Good-bye,” she said.

He kissed her rings.

“It is ‘_au revoir_,’” he replied, in an almost inaudible tone.

She wondered which was true, the indifferent look or the inaudible tone.

He took up his hat.

“_Pensez à moi quelquefois_,” he said cheerfully, and departed.

When Molly was made acquainted with this piece of news her comment was simplicity itself.

“How queer!” she said, folding a lace fichu into a tulle hat, for she was packing fast and furiously.

“Of course I shall not go now; I shall stay here until Thursday and buy silk stockings.”

“Very commendable in you.”

“I’m really too tired to go before Thursday. I’ve been around night and day in Lucerne until I’m all worn out.”

“Yes?” said Molly, ramming down shoes into the corners; “well you can rest now, sure.”

“You will engage rooms for me near yours for Thursday, won’t you?”

“I will.”

“I’ll sleep and shop to-morrow, and come on that ten o’clock express Thursday.”

“’Tis settled,” said Molly, slamming down the trunk-lid; “we’ll be at the Insel, and expect you day after to-morrow.”

“What number do you wear?” Rosina asked, as she watched the trunk locked.

“Where,--round my neck or my waist?”

“On your feet?”

“Two-and-a-half.”

“Oh, what a fairy!”

Then they hurried down to lunch.


Chapter Eight

That afternoon Rosina took her maid and went for a walk. As a companion Ottillie was certainly less congenial than the lofty and eccentric gentleman who had just taken his departure for Leipsic; but going out alone with a maid is such an eminently proper occupation for a young widow travelling abroad, that the knowledge that she was entirely above suspicion should have compensated for any slight ennui which Rosina may have suffered.

They first went a few blocks up and down the Bahnhofstrasse, and sent the various packages which were the natural result of such a course of action to the hotel; then came the Stadthaus Garten and the Alpen-Quai.

The Quai was as gay as the Quai in Lucerne, or as any other Promenade in Switzerland at that hour and season. Rosina, tired with her shopping, seated herself upon a bench and watched with interest the vast variety and animation of the never-ending