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

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“Let us sit down here and talk, it may be the last time for long.”

She hesitated, thinking of Molly.

“It is so nice here,” he declared, persuasively; “only for a few minutes we stay.”

She sat down forthwith; he followed suit. A maid came and took his order, and then he clasped his hands upon the table before him and was still, appearing to be overtaken by some sudden and absorbing train of thought.

After a little the music recommenced, and his soul returned to his eyes with a quick upblazing light. He reached out his hand and touched hers.

“Listen!” he exclaimed imperatively; “you go to learn something now. Pay much notice.”

The violins of the orchestra were pouring forth their hearts in a sweet treble song, whose liquid liaisons flowed high above the background of a dark monotony of single chords. The air was singularly full of feeling, and reached forth its individual pleading to each individual listener.

“You have hear that?” he whispered with a smile.

“Never,” she whispered in return.

“You shall wait a little,” he murmured, resting his chin on his hand and turning his eyes on the lake again; “in a moment you shall hear.”

At that instant the song appeared to terminate, and bass and treble ran together in long, sweeping arpeggios; and then, out over the merry crowd, out over the infinite peace of the Bodensee, there rang and resounded four notes,--E, F, F sharp, G; four notes, the pain, the prayer, the passion of which shrieked to the inmost mysteries of every hearing heart.

Rosina started; her companion turned quickly towards her.

“It is what you told me of at Lucerne that night on the steamer?” she asked, with no question in her voice.

He moved his head slowly in assent to her certainty. The cascading song was already running its silvery course again; he leaned far towards her.

“Have you comprehend, do you think?” he asked.

She nodded. And then she too leaned her chin on her hand, and looked to the lake to guard her eyes, while the music invaded and took complete possession of her senses.

“Do you play that on your violin?” she asked, when all was over.

“There is no music that I may not play,” he replied, “unless I have never see it, or hear it, or divine it for myself.”

“Do you play the piano also?”

“Only what I must. Sometimes I must, you know. Then I say to my hands, ‘You shall go here, you shall go there!’ and they go, but very badly.”

She looked straight at him with a curious dawning in her eyes.

“I wonder, shall we ever make any music together?” she murmured.

“Much,” he said tritely.

She was conscious of neither wonder nor resistance, as if the music had cast a spell over her self-mastery.

“I want to hear you play,” she said, with an echo of entreaty.

He shook his head, brushing a lock of hair off of his temple as he did so. There was a sort of impatience in each movement.

“Not these days; no! I played once after I saw you first, but only once. Since that the case is locked; the key is here.” He interrupted himself to draw out his keys, and separating one from the rest held it up to her. “Let us hope that in Munich, perhaps.”

The waitress had returned with their ices. He watched her arrange them, and she watched him. The heavy circle under his eyes was especially noticeable this night, the eyes themselves especially laughless.

“You are glad that I go?” he asked suddenly as he picked up his spoon and plunged it into the saucer before him; “yes?”

“I shall be more glad when I know that you are really gone.”

“But this time it is sure. This time it is really a true going.” He stopped and broke a piece of cake into tiny morsels, pushing them together into a neat little pile. “Why were you unhappy in your husband?” he asked slowly.

“He drank,” she replied.

“Perhaps he was unhappy?”

“Perhaps.”

“And you?”

“Beyond a doubt.”

He took another bit of cake and crumbed that up as he had the first.

“Don’t do that.”

“Why shall I not?” with an air of surprise.

“It isn’t right.”

“But I shall pay for it,” he said remonstrantly.

“It’s bad manners, anyhow.”

“What does it matter if I like, and pay for it too?”

“Well, then, if you must know, it makes me horribly nervous!”

He looked at her quickly.

“Are you nervous?”

“Yes, when people waste cake like that.”

He sighed and stopped his play.

“Did you ever love after?” he asked presently.

“No, never! Good Heavens, once was enough!”

“Was your husband so very bad?”

“He wasn’t bad at all; he was only disagreeable.”

“Perhaps he made you nervous?” he queried.

“Perhaps,” she answered dryly.

There was a long, long pause. The band now played “_Doch Einer Schoner Zeit_,” and some peasants in the native costume sang the words.

Finally he pushed his plate away and crossed his arms upon the table; his eyes were very earnest.

“Once I loved,” he said; “I have speak of that to you before.”

She made no reply.

“It was no passion of a whole life, but for a boy, as I was then, it was much. I was quite young, and, _Gott_! how I _did_ love! She was such a woman as says, ‘I will make this man absolutely mad;’ and she did so. She made me crazy--_tout-à-fait fou_; and then, when I could only breathe by her eyes, she showed me that she was uncaring!”

He stopped, stared sightlessly out at the black water beyond, and then turned towards her.

“Is it so in _your_ mind towards me?” he asked, and in his voice and eyes was that heartrending pathos which once in a lifetime a man’s soul may come to share with childhood’s heavy sorrows.

She drew a quick breath. The pointed roofs of the Inselhaus off there beyond the trees printed themselves darkly and forever upon her brain; the scattered lights in the windows, the inky spots where the ivy trailings were massed thickest,--all those details and a dozen others were in that instant photographed upon her spirit, destined to henceforth form the background to the scene whose centre was the face opposite to her, all of the expression of which seemed to have condensed itself into the burning gaze of those two great eyes, so vastly sad.

“Oh, monsieur,” she said, with a tone of deep appeal, “believe me, I have never done so cruel a thing as that in all my life!”

“Are you to all men as to me?”

“I hope so.”

“That American in Zurich! when you met him again was it as to meet me again?”

“But he is no especial friend of mine.”

“And am I especial?--Am I?--Yes?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I feel as if I had known you all my life.”

“Yes,” he answered quickly, “just so I feel also.”

He put up his hand and again brushed the loose lock of his wavy hair back from his forehead.

“_Vraiment_,” he exclaimed, “I begin to feel that it is impossible that I go to-morrow.”

“Oh, but you must,” she cried, much alarmed.

“We are so happy; why can we not let this pleasure last?”

“You _must_ go!” she reiterated with decision.

“We understand so well,” he went on, without noticing her words; “you understand, I understand. I wish nothing of you, I require nothing of you, only the friendship--only these good hours that we know together, only the joy of our sympathy. Why can I not be where you are everywhere? _Warum nichts_?”

“It isn’t possible!” she said firmly.

He turned about in his seat and called for the reckoning. After it was paid they went together back towards the hotel.

“You have told me that you will never marry again,” he said presently, “and I have told you that I also intend never. But--” he stopped short. The hotel court was there before them, and the scent of some night flowers came on the evening breeze from those beds of riotous color which fill the central space of the old Cloister.

“Let us walk once around the Kreuzgang,” he suggested, “and after that we will go in.”

She assented, and they followed the vivid outline of Constance’s history as portrayed in the large frescoes upon the inner wall of the vaulted passage.

“I do not breathe here,” he said suddenly; “come into the garden with me once again. But for a moment? I beg--I pray!”

They went out on to the terrace, passing through the Refectory, now thick with smoke and scintillating with beer-steins.

“You say that you will never marry,” he said again, as they encircled the base of Huss’ Tower, “and I tell you that I also have the idea to never marry. But--”

He paused again, just by that bit of the old monastery wall which extends out towards the bathing-houses.

“But if--_if_,” he emphasized the monosyllable with marked emphasis,--“_if_ I asked you to marry me, what would you say?”

Rosina did not stop for an instant’s consideration.

“I should say ‘no.’”

He received the blow full in his face.

“Why?” he asked.

“I do not want another husband. I don’t like husbands. They are all alike.”

“How?”

“You can’t tell a thing about them beforehand; they always change, and are different after marriage from what they were before.”

“I shall never change,” he declared positively.

“They all say that.”

“But I speak truth!”

“They all say that too.”

“But with me it will arrive;” then he added, “with me it will arrive that I shall never change, because I shall _never_ marry.”

His remark was such a complete surprise to her that she could hardly master her shock for a moment.

“If that was the point that you were leading up to,” she said finally, “I’m certainly glad that I did not say ‘yes.’”

He surveyed her, smiling.

“I particularly said ‘if,’” he reminded her; “I said, ‘_if_ I asked you to marry me,’ you know?”

Rosina felt a strong inclination to bring the evening to a close. She wanted to be alone and think.

“We must go in,” she said.

“I also feel it,” he answered.

So they went in. The hall and staircase were quite deserted. He walked with her to the top of the first flight.

“Do we leave good-bye here?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said smiling; “I think so.”

He stood looking at her, and out of the depths of his nature various phantoms strove into shape.

“It is well that I go,” he said seriously; “after all, we are not children, you and I, and however we laugh it is always that, that we really are not children.” He put out his hand and took hers. “I shall be away, and the time will be long, and--” he paused abruptly.

Her eyes almost closed beneath the unbearable heat of his gaze.

“Shall you remember me?” she asked, faintly this time.

“Yes, much.”

Then she opened her eyes and withdrew her hand.

“For how long?” she said as before.

He