urally I must listen, because no one
can arrive at speaking louder surely. And so I must always hear how good
the light is in America, and how warm the houses are in America, and how
high the buildings are in America, and how much everything has
cost--always how much everything has cost; that is always very
faithfully told to me. And while I listen I must feel how very narrow to
so speak is. And afterwards when I go on to hear how very poor the light
is here, and how very cold the hotels are here, I certainly must feel
how very ill-bred that is."

He paused to get a fresh violet, and then continued:

"I see no possible beauty for a place of four walls fifty _metres_ high;
and there can be no health where all is so hot night and day; and so I
only listen and am content to be counted so stupid. Why do you go to
Zurich Monday?"

The question terminated his monologue with such suddenness that she
started involuntarily.

"Why do you ask?"

"Naturally because I want to know."

"I go because I am anxious to be out of Switzerland before the first of
July."

"But Switzerland is very nice in July."

"I know; and it is also very crowded."

"Where shall you be in July?"

"I am not sure; probably in the Tyrol."

He got up from his seat, went to the chimney-piece, lifted up a vase and
turned it about in his hand with a critical air. Then he faced her again
and said, with emphasis:

"I shall remain here all summer."

"In Lucerne?"

"Yes; not perhaps always at the hotel, but somewhere on the lake. I am
born here."

"You are Swiss, then?"

"Yes; if I am Swiss because I am born here."

"Were you born in Lucerne?"

"No, but at a place which my father had then by Fluellen. It is for that
that I love the Vierwaldstattersee."

"I wish that I had been born here," Rosina murmured thoughtfully.

"Where are you born?"

"In the fourth house of a row of sixteen, all just alike."

"How most American!"

She laughed a little.

"I amuse you?" he asked, with a look of pleased non-understanding.

"Oh, so very much!"

He came a little forward and smiled down at her.

"We are really friends, are we not?"

She looked into his big, earnest eyes.

"I think so," she answered simply, with a little nod.

He moved slowly across the room and, going to the window, turned his
back upon her.

"It is cooler out now, let us go out and walk. I like to walk, and you
do too, do you not? yes?"

"Oh, _please_ stop saying 'yes'