"Is that what you have been thinking of all this long time?" she asked in astonishment.
"Was it so long?"
"I thought so."
"What did you think of in that so long time?"
She told him about the bank, and the Englishman on the Gotthardbahn, and her dress. He smiled.
"How _drole_ a woman is!" he murmured, half to himself.
"But I think that you are droll too," she told him.
"Oh," he said energetically, "I a.s.sure you, madame, you do not as yet divine the tenth part of _my_ drollness."
She smiled.
"Do you think that I shall ever become sufficiently well acquainted with you to learn it all?"
He regarded her seriously.
"If you interest me," he remarked, "I shall naturally see much of you, because we shall be much together. How long do you stay in Lucerne?"
"Until Monday. I leave on Monday."
He looked at her in dismay.
"But I do not want to leave on Monday. I have only come the last night.
I want to stay two weeks."
She felt herself forced to bite her lips, even as she replied:
"But you _can_ stay two weeks, monsieur."
He looked blank.
"And you go?"
"Naturally; but what does that matter? You would not be going where I went anyway."
"Where do you go?"
"To Zurich."
"Alone? Do you go alone?"
"I have my maid, of course; and I am to meet a friend there."
"A friend!" His whole face contracted suddenly. "Ah," he cried, sharply, "I understand! It is that Englishman."
"What Englishman?" she asked, utterly at a loss to follow his thought.
"Your friend."
"But he"s an American."
"You said he was an Englishman."
"I never did! How could I? Why, can"t you tell at once that he is an American by the way that he talks?"
"I never have hear him talk."
She stared afresh, then turned to walk on, saying, "You must be crazy!
or aren"t you speaking of the man who presented you to me?"
"Why should I be of any interest as to that man? Naturally it is of the Englishman that I speak."
"What Englishman?"
"But that Englishman upon the Gotthardbahn, of course; the one you have said was so nice to you."
She began to laugh.
"Oh, pardon me, but you are so funny, you are really so very funny;"
then pressing her handkerchief against her rioting lips, "you will forgive me for laughing, won"t you?"
He did not smile in the least nor reply to her appeal for forgiveness; he only waited until she was quiet, and then went on with increased asperity veiled in his tone.
"You are to see him again, _n"est-ce pas_?"
"I never expect to."
"Really?"
"Really."
He stopped short and offered her his hand.
"Why?" she asked in surprise.
"Your word that you do not hope to meet him again."
She began to laugh afresh.
Then, still holding out his hand, he repeated insistently.
"Tell me that you do not expect to meet him again."