By this time they were come to her door and paused there.
“I’m going in with you,” the cousin said. “Madame was so glad to see me again that she wanted me to come back and sit next to her at supper. I was awfully glad to see her. She’s even younger and prettier than when I last saw her—when you and I were kids there that winter, don’t you remember?”
Von Ibn was staring sombrely at Rosina and she was sure that Jack would notice it, and wished that he wouldn’t. Then he gave a little start and held out his hand.
“I shall not come to-night,” he said, “and to-morrow I go to the Tagernsee; so it is ‘good-bye’ here.”
She felt choked.
“Good-bye,” she said, keenly aware of being watched, but striving to speak pleasantly notwithstanding. He shook her hand, raised his hat, and left them.
Then her cousin swung the big porte open and they entered the passage and went towards the stairs. At the first step he paused and said in a peculiarly pointed tone of voice:
“Well, are you going to marry him?”
She jumped at the suddenness of the question, and then, recovering herself quickly, answered coldly:
“Of course not.”