“It’s too wet,” she said hopelessly; but the hopelessness was hypocritical, because she had resolved to never walk alone with him again.
He threw himself down upon the divan and entered into a species of gloomy trance. She took a chair by the window and unfolded her embroidery. Since the night of the music their mutual feelings had become more complicated than ever, and sometimes she wanted to get away with a desperation that was tainted with cowardice, while at other times she almost wondered if she should ever have the strength to go at all. What he was meditating in these last days she could not at all divine. He continued to have fits of jealousy and periods of long and absorbing thought. The new knowledge of the spirit which he revealed in his art was always with her and always held her a little in awe. Also the recollection of the Englischergarten and of her own overwhelming sensations there stayed by her with a persistence which knew no diminution.
“I wouldn’t be off like that with him again for anything,” she thought, as she drew a thread of red chenille from the skein upon her knee, and stole a glance at the dark face opposite her.
“Why may we not walk?” he asked, looking up as if she had spoken aloud. “I will be très raisonable.”
“It isn’t that,” she replied, annoyed to feel herself blushing; “it is that it is so wet. I should ruin a skirt.”
He started to argue the question but just then the salon door opened and Mrs. Jones came in with a book in her hand. He saw the book and she knew it. Mrs. Jones had evidently come to stay. The salon was public property, and Mrs. Jones had just as much right there as they had. Nevertheless when she smiled and said, “Shall I disturb you?” they resented her question as a sarcasm unworthy of Genoa’s proximity. Von Ibn stood up and said, “Certainly not,” with a politeness which did credit to his bringing up, but Rosina as she threaded her needle took a vow to remember to never, in all time to come, pause for an instant even in a room where two people were talking together.
Mrs. Jones seated herself and then made the discovery that she had left her glasses in her own room; she rose at once and started to get them.
“Now we must go out,” he exclaimed, hurriedly, “we may not talk here with her. She speaks French as well as we, and German much better than you;” he referred to the cosmopolitan custom of altering one’s tongue to disagree with an (unwelcome) third party.
Rosina was already huddling her work together in hot haste.
“Yes,” she said, “I have a short skirt that I can wear.” She rose and went towards the door. “I won’t be five minutes,” she said, turning the knob.