“I’ve sent her out to do some errands. Why, do you want anything done?”
“No;” he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I do love you, Rosina,” he added, half joking, half serious; “I wonder what sort of a show I’d have had if I’d tried—ever?”
She shrank from him with a quick breath.
“Oh, Jack, I beg of you, don’t tease me these days.”
He straightened up and laughed, taking out his watch.
“It’s quarter after four,” he said, reflecting. “The mail must be in; I’ll see if there are any letters,” and he went out.
She remained by the window, twirling the shade-tassel with her idle fingers, and seeing, not the rattle and clatter of Italian street-life, but the great space of the Maximilian-Joseph Platz, with the doves pattering placidly over the white and black pattern of its pavement, and the Maximiliansstrasse stretching before her with the open arches of the Maximilianeum closing its long vista at the further end....
Quick steps in the hall broke in upon her day dream, and her cousin re-entered, an open letter in his hand and his face curiously drawn. He gave her one strange look and halted.
“What has happened?” she asked hastily and anxiously.
He went to the window and looked out, so that his back was turned towards her and his face concealed from her view.