Pimpernel and Rosemary

"You-you will care for me some day, Rosemary?" he asked with passionate earnestness. "Say that you will some day, when all this-all this is forgotten, and we are back again in England, free to live our own lives, free to love. You will care for me then, Rosemary, will you not? For I could not live beside you for long, feeling all the time that you did not belong to me with your whole soul. You have such haunting eyes-eyes such as pixies and fairies have-maddening eyes. I should go crazy presently if I failed to kindle the love-light in those eyes."

He kissed her eyes, her mouth, her throat. Rosemary would have struggled, would have screamed if she dared. Fortunately a knock at the door and the entrance of one of the menservants, who came to fetch milord's luggage, put an end to a situation which Rosemary found very difficult to endure. After the man had gone the spell appeared to be broken. Jasper became once more the courteous, grave man of the world he had always been. The episode of a moment ago did not seem to have occurred at all, as far as he was concerned, and while Rosemary felt her teeth chattering and the palms of her hands were covered with a cold sweat, Jasper moved about the room and spoke to her about his proposed journey, his certain return in a fortnight, as if nothing had happened.

CHAPTER XVI

The carriage which took Jasper to Cluj brought back Philip and Anna. After that the house was full of animation, like a beehive in May. Rosemary only saw the two young people for a moment. She felt a stranger in this family gathering, and her heart was so heavy that she soon found a pretext for going up to her room. Later on she pleaded a headache. Kind and hospitable as were these dear people, Rosemary felt that they must wish to be alone amongst themselves after the terrible time they had all gone through. They would have so much to talk over that the presence of a stranger, even so welcome as one as Rosemary Tarkington, must of necessity be irksome. It was clear to her from the first that Philip and Anna knew little, if anything, of the conditions attached to their release. Philip talked lightly of their being under surveillance for a time, and then added quite gaily that he would gladly lead the life of a hermit in Kis-Imre and never go outside the gates until the present clouds blew over. He gave himself up wholly to the joy of watching his mother's happiness and seeing her dear eyes beaming on her returned boy. Altogether he was more like a schoolboy who by a fluke has escaped punishment than a man conscious of a deadly peril that had not ceased to threaten him.

They all sat up talking late into the evening, and when Rosemary found herself at last alone in her room, trying to think things out before she went to bed, little Anna came up to her. The child looked hollow-eyed and grave; the joy that had been on her face when she first found herself in this second home of hers had all gone. She looked old, wan and tired out.

Rosemary put out her arms, and Anna ran up to her and snuggled up close to her, just like a child. For a long time she was quite silent, with her head against her friend's shoulder, her little thin hands held in Rosemary's kind, firm grasp. Now and again a hot tear would fall on Rosemary's hands. Anna was crying quietly to herself, and Rosemary waited until the girl was calm enough to speak.

"I don't understand the whole thing, Rosemary," were the first words that Anna spoke.

"What is it you don't understand, dear?" Rosemary asked.

"It is not like them to be lenient, is it?" the girl retorted, looking up with quick, eager inquiry into her friend's face.

"Oh, in this case," Rosemary rejoined vaguely, "you are both so young!"

Anna shook her head vigorously.

"That wouldn't worry them," she said, "after all the trouble they must have taken to track us down."

"You were caught in the act, I suppose?" Rosemary queried.

Anna nodded.

"Yes," she said. "And that was strange too. I had all my parcels ready-the usual ones for Budapest, and Philip's manuscript at the bottom of a box of vegetable seeds. Half a dozen soldiers and an officer came into the shop and walked straight up to the place where the parcels were stacked. They seemed to know all about everything, for the officer just ordered his men to undo all the parcels, and, of course, there was Philip's manuscript."

"There is nothing strange in all that, Anna," Rosemary said. "I have no doubt in my mind that you both have been watched for some time by secret service men, and at last they closed their trap on you."

But once more Anna shook her head.

"I can't explain what I mean," she said, and puckered her fine straight brows together. "It is a kind of intuition that came to me when I saw those soldiers walk in. I am absolutely convinced that we were not denounced by regular Government spies. They are too clumsy, and we were too careful. I am certain," she reiterated obstinately, "that we were not denounced by one of them."

"By whom, then?"