,
as she drew a thread of red chenille from the skein upon her knee, and
stole a glance at the dark face opposite her.

"Why may we not walk?" he asked, looking up as if she had spoken aloud.
"I will be _tres raisonable_."

"It isn't that," she replied, annoyed to feel herself blushing; "it is
that it is so wet. I should ruin a skirt."

He started to argue the question but just then the salon door opened and
Mrs. Jones came in with a book in her hand. He saw the book and she knew
it. Mrs. Jones had evidently come to stay. The salon was public
property, and Mrs. Jones had just as much right there as they had.
Nevertheless when she smiled and said, "Shall I disturb you?" they
resented her question as a sarcasm unworthy of Genoa's proximity. Von
Ibn stood up and said, "Certainly not," with a politeness which did
credit to his bringing up, but Rosina as she threaded her needle took a
vow to remember to _never_, in all time to come, pause for an instant
even in a room where two people were talking together.

Mrs. Jones seated herself and then made the discovery that she had left
her glasses in her own room; she rose at once and started to get them.

"Now we _must_ go out," he exclaimed, hurriedly, "we may not talk here
with her. She speaks French as well as we, and German much better than
you;" he referred to the cosmopolitan custom of altering one's tongue to
disagree with an (unwelcome) third party.

Rosina was already huddling her work together in hot haste.

"Yes," she said, "I have a short skirt that I can wear." She rose and
went towards the door. "I won't be five minutes," she said, turning the
knob.

Mrs. Jones was leisurely about coming back. She did not want to
inconvenience them too much, but she did want to find the salon empty on
her return, and she found it so.

While she was smiling and settling herself, they were going down the
three flights of stairs and out of the large main door. The rain had
ceased but it was still blackly and distinctly wet. Von Ibn had a
tightly rolled umbrella which he held with a grasp that somehow
suggested thoughts of their other promenade at nightfall.

"You can walk well, yes?" he said, as they turned in the direction of
the Isar.

"In this skirt," she laughed, glancing down at her costume whose
original foundations had been laid for golf, "in this skirt I am equal
to anything!"

"But if you slip?" he supposed, anxiously.

"You ought to see the soles of my boots.