osed that you were in New
York. I did not think that there was a man on this continent who had a
right to kiss me. And even if there was I shouldn't be expecting him to
do so in public. You never kissed me in the street yourself before. What
possessed you to do so this time?"

She faced about on the stairs as she spoke, and he stopped and drew a
deep breath or two. It takes time to become acclimated to the stairs
abroad.

"Don't be vexed at me," he implored, "or I shall think that you are not
glad that I came; and you are, aren't you?"

"Yes, of course I am."

"And after supper to-night we'll go out and take a good old-fashioned
tramp and talk a lot, won't we?"

They were now before the door of the _pension_ and he was pressing the
electric bell. She sighed a resigned sigh of utter submission, nodded
acquiescently, and waited beside him.

Anna, a maid whose countenance left much to be divined at pleasure,
finally let them in. When she saw that the lady had changed her escort,
her face fell and she slightly shook her head as if regretful that one
who was so generous should own openly to the vice of fickleness. They
went into the long hall and Jack paused to hang his hat upon one of the
hooks in that angle by the door; then he overtook his cousin and they
went together to the salon, the pretty little salon with its great
window, tall white-tiled stove, piano, corner-ways divan, tabouret,
table of magazines, quaint Dutch picture of Queen Wilhelmina, and the
vase in the corner--that green vase from whose stem hangs the
flower-like body of a delicate porcelain nymph.

"You can't smoke here, you know," she cautioned him. "If you want to
smoke you must go into the corridor."

"I don't want to smoke," he said. "I'll look out of the window. I like
to watch the people."

So she left him there and sought Ottillie.

* * * * *

After supper that night they did go to walk; and if Rosina's cousin came
abroad with a mission he certainly went in for fulfilling it
vigorously.

"Who wrote you about him, anyhow?" she demanded at last, when her
patience was nearly exhausted by the mercilessness of his
cross-examination. She was inwardly furious at whoever had done so, but
it seemed wisdom to conceal her fury--for the present at least.

"You can't travel about all summer with the same man everlastingly at
your heels, without other people's seeing him as well as yourself."

"But some one perso