Her hours were long and late, but she had two half-days free in the week, and for these of course I engaged myself.
Meanwhile I spent as much time as I decently could at her side; but it was impossible to monopolise her, and the rest of my time there was no difficulty in filling up, you may be sure, in so gay a place.
Two or three nights after this, a little before dinner-time, while I was standing talking to her, she suddenly went very white, and in a fluttering voice gasped, "Look yonder!" I looked. A rather slight dark-haired young man was entering the bar, with a very stylish pretty woman at his side. As they sat down and claimed the waiter, some distance away, Rosalind whispered, "That's my husband!"
"Oh!" I said; "but that's no reason for your fainting. Pull yourself together. Take a drop of brandy." But woman will never take the most obvious restorative, and Rosalind presently recovered without the brandy. She looked covertly at her husband, with tragic eyes.
"He's much younger than I imagined him," I said,—reserving for myself the satisfaction which this discovery had for me.
"Oh, yes, he's really quite a boy," said Rosalind; adding under her breath, "Dear fellow! how I love him!"
"And hate him too!" she superadded, as she observed his evident satisfaction with his present lot. Indeed the experiment appeared to be working most successfully with him; nor, looking at his companion, could I wonder. She was a sprightly young woman, very smart and merry and decorously voluptuous, and of that fascinating prettiness that wins the hearts of boys and storms the footlights. One of her characteristics soothed the heart of Rosalind. She had splendid red hair, almost as good as her own.
"He's been faithful to my hair, at all events," she said, trying to be nonchalant.
"And the eyes are not unlike," I added, meaning well.
"I'm sorry you think so," said Rosalind, evidently piqued.