and came back to her side.

"I shall kiss you," he said, not in any tone of either doubt or
entreaty, rather with an imperativeness that was final. "In the music
that I go to write to-night I want to put your eyes and also your kiss."

He put his arms about her and raised her to his bosom.

"_Regardez-moi!_" he commanded, and she lifted her eyes into his.

Their lips met, and the kiss endured.

Then he replaced her gently upon the sofa, took up the violin and went
out.

Later that night she reproached herself bitterly.

"I ought to have a chaperone," she told her pillow in strict confidence.

But the kiss had a place now in her life, and the place, like the kiss
itself, endured.

Von Ibn, in his room at the hotel, paused over his manuscript score,
laid down his pen and closed his eyes.

"_Elle sera a moi!_" he murmured, and smiled.

For him also the kiss was enduring.

Chapter Thirteen

Jack was expected on the morrow, and on the day after the start for
Genoa was to be made.

Under these cheerful circumstances Von Ibn came to call at the pension,
and Amelia tapped at Rosina's door to announce to the "_gnadige Frau_"
that "_der Herr von Ibn ist im Salon_."

Rosina was dressed for dinner and when her visitor saw her gown with its
long trailing skirt his face fell.

"We go to walk, yes?" he said, in a doubtful tone. She looked from the
window out upon the rainy view.

"It's too wet," she said hopelessly; but the hopelessness was
hypocritical, because she had resolved to never walk alone with him
again.

He threw himself down upon the divan and entered into a species of
gloomy trance. She took a chair by the window and unfolded her
embroidery. Since the night of the music their mutual feelings had
become more complicated than ever, and sometimes she wanted to get away
with a desperation that was tainted with cowardice, while at other times
she almost wondered if she should ever have the strength to go at all.
What he was meditating in these last days she could not at all divine.
He continued to have fits of jealousy and periods of long and absorbing
thought. The new knowledge of the spirit which he revealed in his art
was always with her and always held her a little in awe. Also the
recollection of the Englischergarten and of her own overwhelming
sensations there stayed by her with a persistence which knew no
diminution.

"I wouldn't be off like that with him again for anything," she thought