begin to tell you there in that one piece of music. There is love singing up and up in the treble, and one listens and finds that nothing may be sweeter or of more beauty, and then, most sudden and terrible there sounds there, below, a cry, ‘E, – F, – F sharp, – G;’ and it is not a cry, rather a scream, strength, force, – a Must made of the music, – and one perceives of a lightning flash that all the love was but the background of the passion of that cry of those four notes; and one listens, one trembles, one feels that they were to come before they are there, and when they have come, one can but shake and know their force.” He stopped and took his cigarette from between his lips. “Mon Dieu,” he cried violently, “of what was the composer thinking when he beat out those bars? When you shall play them you shall take only your forefinger and draw all your strength within it, and when the notes shriek in pain you shall have one secret of passion there beneath your hand.”
He spoke with such force, – such a tremendous force of feeling, that her face betrayed her wonder.
“I frighten you, – yes?” he asked with a smile of reassurance; “oh, that must not be. I only speak so because I will that you know too. It is good to know. Many go to the end and never know but love and are very well content, but I think you will know more. I did love myself once. She was never mine, and the time is gone, and I have thought to suffer much forever, and then I have stop to suffer, and now I am all forget. But,” he flung his cigarette to the waves, and for the first time during his monologue turned squarely towards her, “but if I have a passion come to me now, that woman shall be mine! If I die for it she shall be mine. Because what I feel shall be so strong that she shall of force feel it too. Every day, every night, every hour, the need of me will go to her strongly and make her weaker, and weaker, and weaker, until she have no choice but of the being all mine. And so you are quite decided to go to Zurich to-morrow?”
He brought forth the question in such sudden change of subject that she started involuntarily. But then relief at the descent into the commonplace came on her and she replied:
“Yes, I want to go there to-morrow.”
“But why do you not want to on Tuesday – or next week?”
“My friend is there,” she reminded him.
His brow clouded, and she knew the reason why.
“You are so typically European,” she laughed; “I do believe that humanity over here has only two bases of action, and they are governed by ‘Cherchez la femme’ and ‘Cherchez l’homme.’”
“Mais c’est vrai, ça!” he said doggedly.
“Not always,” she replied; “or perhaps not always in the usual sense. It is true that I am going to Zurich to meet some one, but it is so very innocent when a woman goes ‘cherchant la femme,’ and, as I told you before, it is a woman that I go to meet, or, rather, it is a girl.”
“Are you sure?” he asked suspiciously.
“You don’t believe my word yet, do you?”
“I did not say that.”
“No, but really you do not.”
He gave a slight shrug.
“My friend is an Irish girl,” Rosina went on placidly. “I do love her so. We shall have such a good time being together next week.”
“You are sure that she is not English?” the man asked, with a little touch of sarcasm in his inflection.
“If you could hear her speak you could tell that from her accent.”
Von Ibn took out his case and lit another cigarette.
“What hotel do you go at in Zurich?” he asked presently.
“I shall go wherever my friend is.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know; I write her Poste Restante. She has been travelling for a long time with a Russian friend, – a lady,” she added, with a jerk.
“I hope you will go to the Victoria,” Von Ibn said slowly; “that is where I always have stay in Zurich.”
“So that we may have our dining-room souvenir in common, I suppose?”
“It is a very nice place,” he cried hotly; “it is not at all common! It is one of the best hotels in Zurich.”
She hastily interposed an explanation of the error in his comprehension of her meaning, and by the time that he understood, the lights of Lucerne were hazing the darkness, while the Rigi and Pilate had each hung out their rope ladder of stars.
“What time do you travel in the morning?” he asked then, turning his eyes downward upon her face.
“By the first express; it goes, I believe, about eight o’clock.”
“I shall not be awake,” he said gloomily.
“I shall not be, either; but Ottillie will get me aboard somehow.”
“If it was noon that you go, I should certainly come to the Gare,” he said thoughtfully; then he reflected for a short space, and added eagerly, “why do you not go later, and make an excursion by Zug; it is just on your way, and a so interesting journey.”
“I know Zug, and the lake too; I’ve coached all through there.”
“Then it would not again interest you?”
“No; I want to go straight to Molly as fast as I can.”
“To Molli! Where is that? You said to Zurich you went.”
She laughed and explained.
“Molly is the name of my girl friend.”
“Ah, truly.”
Then he was silent, and she was silent, and the lights of Lucerne continued to draw nearer and nearer.
“I wonder if I shall really never see you again,” he said, after a long interval.
“I wonder.”
“It is very unlikely that we shall ever meet again.”
“Very.”
In spite of herself her voice sounded dry.
“Where is your bank address?”
“Deutsches-Filiale, Munich, while I am in this part of the world. But why? Were you thinking of writing me weekly?”
“Oh, no,” he said hastily, “but I might send you a carte-postale sometimes, if you liked.”
She felt obliged to laugh.
“Would you send a colored one, or just one of the regular dix-centime kind,” she inquired with interest.
Von Ibn contemplated her curiously.
“You have such a pretty mouth!” he murmured.
She laughed afresh.
“But
