“Oh, so very much,” he declared, with a sincerity that drew no veil over the truth of his statement.
Rosina, remembering the American’s views in regard to him, stifled a smile.
“Our friend,” she asked, “the man who presented you to me, you know, does he weary you?”
Von Ibn frowned.
“But he is a very terrible bore,” he said; “you surely know that, since you know him.”
Then she could but laugh outright.
“And I, monsieur,” she demanded merrily, “tell me, do you think that I too shall some day—?”
He looked at her in sudden, earnest anxiety.
“I hope otherwise,” he declared fervently.
While talking they had passed the limits of the Quai, crossed the big, sunny square, and come to the embankment that leads to the foot-bridge. The emerald-green Reuss rushed beside them with a smooth rapidity which seemed to hush the tumult of its swift current far underneath the rippling surface. The old stone light-house—the town’s traditionary godfather—stood sturdily for its rights out in mid-stream, and helped support the quaint zigzag of that most charming relic of the past, the longest wooden foot-bridge of Lucerne. A never-ending crowd of all ages and sexes and conditions of natives and strangers were mounting and descending its steps, hurrying along its crooked passage, or craning their necks to study the curious pictures painted in the wooden triangles of its pointed roof.