Pimpernel and Rosemary

Anyway, the sensation soon wore off. She had a very happy time in Budapest. The Paysons were charming; she met several friends, both English and Hungarian, who made her very welcome, and Jasper was, as usual, thoughtfulness itself. The journey across Hungary filled her with that gentle melancholy which those limitless expanses of earth and sky engender in the mind of imaginative people. It was close on harvesting time, and to right and left of the permanent way the great fields of corn stretched out like a sea of ruddy gold to the purple line of the horizon far away. Rosemary loved to gaze on these measureless stretches of country, whereon for mile upon mile nothing showed above the line of waving corn save, at rare intervals, the thatched roof of a tiny homestead peeping from behind a clump of grey-green willow, or an isolated well, with one gaunt arm stretched skywards, around which a herd of young horses had halted for the midday rest. Her eyes followed with loving intensity the winding ribbon of the dust-laden road, bordered by tall, slender poplars or twisted acacia trees, and at intervals the great patches of vivid green amidst the gold, where row upon row of water-melons turned their huge, shimmering carcases to the warmth of the sun.

A faint perfume of heliotrope and mignonette hung in the air, and just for one moment Rosemary's dreamy gaze caught a glimpse of an exquisite mirage on the far distant horizon-a vision of towers and minarets and of a cool, shady stream painted with fairy brush upon the moisture-laden atmosphere. It was a phantom picture that vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but upon the watcher's super-sensitive mind it left in its swift transit an impression as of a magic land, a paradise the gates of which had for one brief second been opened by celestial hands, so that she might glimpse the garden of Eden beyond-the world of happiness and of love which for her must ever remain elusive and unattainable.

The arrival at Cluj was dreary and disappointing. From Budapest she herself had telegraphed to the hotel she knew so well, and had sent a letter at the same time asking the proprietor to have a hot supper ready for herself and Lord Tarkington. The hotel appeared unfamiliar when she stepped out of the little cab which had brought them from the station. The smiling hall-porter who used to greet Mrs. Blakeney with respectful familiarity on arrival was no longer there; an out-at-elbows, ill-dressed, unwashed porter took charge of their luggage. The proprietor, he said, was not in the house, and he himself was in charge of the place. He bluntly explained in broken German that under the new management no meals except early morning coffee were served in the hotel, the restaurant being now under separate ownership. The lady and gentleman could get something to eat there, no doubt.

It was all very cheerless, and to Rosemary very strange. The gay little town of Kolozsvár, usually so full of animation at this late evening hour, seemed already asleep. The streets were ill-lighted; there was an air of desolation and melancholy about this place. The hotel itself had become stuffy, dirty and ill-lighted. The furniture looked dilapidated, the bed-linen was coarse and the rooms none too clean. Rosemary spent a wretched night; but she was a hardened traveller and had before now put up with worse inconveniences that these. There was always the comforting thought that it was the only night that she would spend in Cluj. The next day Count Imrey's carriage and horses (he was not allowed to have a motor-car) would be taking her and Jasper to Kis-Imre, where a big welcome and every conceivable luxury awaited them both.

All that she was waiting for now was to see Anna Heves; little Anna, as Peter called her, the pretty, enthusiastic child to whom Rosemary had promised to give a kiss for Peter's sake. And in the morning, just as Rosemary had finished putting up her hair and slipped into a dressing-gown preparatory to going in to breakfast with Jasper, there was a knock at the door and Anna came in. Sweet, enthusiastic Anna, who gazed at her shyly with Peter's eyes and then smiled with Peter's smile. She would have been pretty, too, but for the unhealthy pallor of her cheeks and the dark rings that circled her eyes-Peter's eyes!

"I am so ashamed, Miss Fowkes," Anna murmured shyly; but at once Rosemary broke in, stretching out her arms:

"Aren't you going to kiss me, Anna?"

With a pathetic little cry the girl ran into Rosemary's arms, and, her head buried on her friend's shoulder, she burst into tears. Rosemary let her cry for a moment of two; her own eyes were anything but dry, for with a quick glance she had taken in the girl's changed appearance, also the shabby clothing, the worn boots, the unmistakable air of grinding poverty and, worse still, of insufficient food. Poor little Anna! If Peter saw her now!