IT was very late that night—indeed the hour was dangerously close upon the morning after—before the two friends found themselves alone together again. Rosina lay up among the pillows, the centre of a mass of blue cambric, with tiny bands of lace confining the fulness here and there; while Molly, in such a dressing-gown as grows only in the Rue de la Paix, sat on the foot of the narrow continental bed and thoughtfully bound the braids of her bonny brown hair.

“Well, you know him now,” Rosina said at last, the inflection of her voice rampant with interrogative meaning.

“Yes,” was the non-committal answer.

“Don’t be horrid, Molly; you know I want so much to know what you think of him? Isn’t he delicious? Isn’t he grand? Didn’t he impress you as being just an ideal sort of a celebrity?”

Molly opened her eyes to an exceeding width.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.“Don’t know! then you don’t like him? What don’t you like about him?”

“Well, I’d prefer a Russian myself.”

“Why! what do you mean?”

“They’re not so fierce, and if one likes fierceness they’re plenty fierce enough.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The way that he came bursting in on us to-day.”

“But that was splendid! it was lovely to see him so worked up.”

“You never can count on when he’ll work up, though.”

“But I like men you can’t count on.”

“Do you?”

“You see, I could always count on my husband, and that sort of arithmetic isn’t to my taste any more.”

“Well, dear, from the little I’ve seen of Herr von Ibn I should say that it would be impossible to ever work him by any other rule than that of his own sweet—or otherwise—will.”

“But I like that.”

“Yes, so I gathered from your actions.”

“And, after all, whatever he is—” Rosina paused and ran her fingers through her hair. “It doesn’t any of it amount to anything, you know,” she added.“Oh, dear no. That’s evident enough.”

Rosina started.

“What do you mean?” she cried.

“Oh, nothing as far as he’s concerned;—only as far as you are.”

“But,” Rosina insisted, “you did mean something. What was it? You mean—”

“I don’t mean anything,” said Molly; “if he don’t mean anything and you don’t mean anything, how in Heaven’s name could I mean anything?”

“I only met him Saturday, you know,” Rosina reminded her. “And this is Monday,” she reminded her further. “Nothing ever can happen in such a short time,” she wound up airily.

“No,” said Molly thoughtfully, “to be sure you can die and they can bury you between Saturday and Monday, but nothing ever happened to living people in such a short time, of course.”

“I wish you wouldn’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing, I’m thinking.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking that if I met a man in Lucerne on Saturday and he came stalking me to Zurich on Monday, I certainly should—” she hesitated.

“Well, I shouldn’t,” Rosina declared flatly.

There was a pause, during which Molly finished her braids and proceeded to establish herself on the foot of her friend’s bed in a most confidence-provoking attitude.

“Let’s talk about the lieutenant,” the American suggested at last.

“He’s too mild for to-night,” her friend said; “it would be like toast and rain-water after a hunt meet to discuss him just now. Let’s talk about Dmitri.”

“Whose Dmitri? another one of your fiancÉs?”

“Oh, dear no. He’s a cross Russian poodle that was given me last Christmas. When you try to be nice to him he bites. I don’t know what makes me think of him just now.”

Rosina laughed, and held her hand out lovingly towards the pretty girl at her feet.

“Forgive me, Molly. I really didn’t mean to be vexed. Let us talk of something pleasant and leave my latest to sleep in peace at the Victoria.”

“Are you sure that he’s at the Victoria?”

“Not at all; he may have moved to this hotel, or returned to Lucerne.”

“I should think so, indeed.”

“But never mind.”

Molly took her knees into the embrace of her clasped hands.

“I wonder if you ever will marry again,” she murmured curiously.“Never.”

“Are you sorry that you ever married?”

“No-o-o,” said the other reflectively, “because I never could have known the joy of being a widow any other way, you know.”

“Would you advise me to marry,” Molly inquired; “one can’t be sure of the widowhood, and if one has courage and self-denial a life of single blessedness is attainable for any woman.”

“I don’t believe it is for you, though.”

“Why not, pray?”

“Your eyes are all wrong; old maids never have such eyes.”

“I got my eyes from my father.”

“Well, he wasn’t an old maid, surely?”

“No, he was a captain in the Irish Dragoons.”

“There, you see!”

Molly stood up and shook her gown out, preparatory to untying its series of frontal bows.

“But if you were to marry again—” she began.

Rosina threw up an imploring hand.

“You send cold December chills down my warm June back,” she cried sharply.

Molly flung the dressing-gown upon a chair and proceeded to turn off the lights.

“I don’t want you to think I’m cross,” began an apologetic voice in the dark which descended about them.“I wasn’t thinking of you at all.”

“What were you thinking of?”

“Of Dmitri.”

Then low laughter rippled from one narrow bed to the other and back again.

Five minutes later there was a murmur.

“I do wish, Molly, that you’d tell me what you really thought of him.”

“I thought he was grand. How could any one think anything else?”

Then through the stillness and darkness there sounded the frou-frou of ruffles and the sweetness and warmth of a fervent kiss.