clever enough to read minds,” she said mildly, “and still be dense about divining shoulders; I confess I miss the point that you’re trying to make with yours.”

He was silent.

She glanced sideways at him and was thoroughly startled at the black humor displayed in his countenance.

“What is really the matter?” she asked, anxiously.

“Nothing.”

She gave him another quick look, and saw that he saw her look and avoided it. Then she was angry at such poor taste displayed in the first hour of a new acquaintance, and almost thought of turning from him and insisting on being left to return to the Schweizerhof alone. But something kept her impulse in check.

“He is a genius,” she thought, “and they are entirely different from other men,” so she waited a moment and then spoke with the utmost earnestness.

“Please tell me what it all means, monsieur; why are you like this?”

“Because,”—he cried with a sudden passionate outburst of feeling,—“because you have lied to me!”

“Monsieur!” she exclaimed, in a shocked voice.

“You have done that,” he cried; “you have lift your eyes to heaven and swear that you were not interested in him, and then—” he stopped, and put his hands to either side of his collar as if it strangled him.

She grew pale at the sight of his emotion.

“Is it that man still?” she asked.

“But naturally it is that man still! Je ne me fâche jamais sans raison.”

“But what is there new to worry about him?”

She dared not contemplate smiling, instead she felt that the Englishman was rapidly becoming the centre of a prospective tragedy.

Von Ibn scowled until his black brows formed a terrible V just over his eyes.

“You do expect to see him in Zurich,” he declared.

“But I told you that I didn’t.”

He laughed harshly.

“I know; but you betrayed yourself so nicely.”

“How?”

“Just now, when I say where do you go from Constance, you quite forget your part, and you say, ‘I do not know where we shall go next.’ Yes, that is what you say, ‘We—we!’”

“And if I did.”

“But of a surety you did; and I must laugh in my interior when I hear your words.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed quickly, “you must not say that you laughed in your interior, it isn’t good English.”

“Where must I laugh within myself?”

“We say, ‘I laughed to myself.’”

He gave another shrug, as if her correction was too petty a matter to rightfully command attention at that crisis.

“This all does seem so foolish,” she said, “the idea of again having an explanation.”

“I do not care for you to explain,” he interrupted.

“Don’t you want to know what I meant?”

“I know quite well what you meant.”

“I meant my maid, she always travels with me.”

He looked his thorough disbelief.

“Very pretty!” he commented.

She glanced at him and wondered why she was not disgusted, but instead her heart swelled with a pity for the unhappiness that overlaid the doubt in his face.

“Just think,” she said softly, “our friendship is so very young, and you are already so very angry.”

“I am not angry; what I feel is justified.”

“Because I call my maid and myself ‘we’!”

He stopped short, and held out his hand.

“Will you say that it is only the maid?”

Then she felt sure that she should be obliged to scream outright, even while she was summoning all her self-control to the rescue.

They were come to an angle where two streets met steeply and started thence on a joint pitch into the centre of the town. She ran her eyes quickly up and down each vista of cobblestones, and, seeing no one that she knew either near or far, put her hand into his.

“Upon my word and honor,” she declared, with all the gravity which the occasion seemed to demand, “I swear that when I leave Constance my maid will be my only—”

“Assez, assez!” he interrupted, hastily dropping her hand, “it is not need that you swear that. I can see your truth, and I have just think that it may very well come about that I shall chance to be in Constance and wish to take the train as you. It would then be most misfortunate if you have swear alone with your maid. It is better that you swear nothing.”

This kaleidoscopic turn to the conversation quite took Rosina’s breath away, and she remained mute.

“What hotel in Constance do you stop at?” he asked presently.

“The Insel House, of course.”

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a note-book.

“Perhaps I will want to remember,” he said, as he wrote. Then he put up the book and smiled into her eyes; he had a beautiful smile, warm and winning. “I find that we are very sympathique,” he went on, “that is why I may perhaps come to see you again. People who can enjoy together are not many.”

“Have you enjoyed this morning? I thought you had not at all.”

“But, yes,” he protested gravely, “I enjoy it very much. How could you think otherwise?”

She felt silence to be safest, and made no reply. He too was silent for a little, and then spoke suddenly.

“Oh, because of that Englishman! But that is all over now. We will never speak of him again. Only it is most fortunate that I am not of a jealous temperament, or I might very well have really offended me that you talk so much about him.”

“It is fortunate,” she agreed.

“Yes,” he answered, “for me it was very good.”

They had come to the crossing of the great square, and the sunlight was dazzling and dancing upon the white stones of the bridge and the molten gold of the Vierwaldstattersee. The Promenade was deserted and even its shade was unpleasantly warm.

“Shall I see you this afternoon?” Von Ibn asked as they went leisurely through the heat.

“Perhaps.”

“I wish it was after the déjeuner,” he said, looking out upon the lake and the crest of the mountain beyond.

She wondered if she had better say “Why,” or not, and finally decided to say it. He brought his eyes back from the Rigi and looked at her.

“Because I have the habit of always sleeping after déjeuner,” he explained.

They crossed to the hotel. It was late, and more people were coming down in the lifts than going up.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“Yes, I think that I am—a little.”

“I advise you to sleep too,” he said gravely.

“I always do.”

“So,” he cried triumphantly, “you see I say the truth when I say that we are very sympathique!”

Rosina looked up at him and her eyes danced; he returned the look with a responsive glow in his own big pupils.

“I am so glad we meet,” he exclaimed impulsively.

She stepped out of the lift and turned to dismiss him.

“And you?” he asked, bowing above her hand.

“I’m glad too,” she said, and her tone was most sincere.

Chapter Three

LATE in the afternoon of the same day Ottillie, coming in to wake her mistress from a nap which the morning’s long walk had resulted in stretching to a most unusual duration, brought with her a great bunch of those luxuriantly double violets which brim over with perfume and beauty. There was also a note, very short, and couched in a flawless French.

If one