“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.