“I wonder,” he said slowly,—“I wonder if we are to be together ever after these days?”
“Why do you wonder that? Would you rather never see me again than do something to please me?”
“No, no,” he said hastily, a little shock in his tone, “but you must understand that if we are to be much together I cannot begin with the making of my obedience to suit you. And yet, if it is but for these two days, I can very well do whatever you may wish.”
He moved out of the line so as to think maturely upon such a weighty matter. She covered her real interest in his meditations with an excellent assumption of interest in the superb view before her. The Rigi was towering there, and its crest and the crests of all its lofty neighbors were brightly silvered by the descending sun. From Pilatus on the right, away to the green banks of Weggis and Vitznau on the left, the lake spread in blue and bronze, and by the opposite shore the water’s calm was such that a ghostly Lucerne of the under-world lay upside down just beneath its level, and mocked reality above by the perfection of detail. Little bright-sailed boats danced here and there, a large steamer was gliding into the landing by the Gare, and the music from a band aboard came floating to their ears.
That little gray mother-duck who raises so many families under the shelter of the Schweizerhof Quai presently noticed these two silent people, and, suspecting them of possessing superfluous bread, came hastily paddling to the feast. It made Rosina feel badly to see the patient little creature wait there below; but she was breadless, and could only muse over the curious similarity of a woman’s lot with a hungry duck’s, until the duck gave up in despair and paddled off, leaving a possible lesson in her wake.
“Oh dear!” she exclaimed then, “I’m going to Zurich Monday, and you’re going to stay here all summer; we shall never meet again, so what is the use of thinking so long over nothing!”
Then he put his hand up, gave his moustache ends a twist, and turned to walk on. He was still on the same side, and there was a sort of emphasis about his being there which made her want to laugh, even while she recognized the fact that the under-current of the minute was a strong one—stronger perhaps than she was understanding just then.
“You don’t feel altogether positive as to your summer plans, I see?” she queried, with a little glance of fun.
“I never am positive,” he said, almost grimly. “I will never bind myself even by a thread. I must go free; no one must think to hold me.”
“I’m sure I don’t want to hold you,” she laughed; “I think you are dreadfully rude, but of course you can do what you please.”