The next two or three weeks were like a dream for Rosemary Fowkes. She
left herself no time to think. The future beckoned to her with enticing
arms, holding prospects of activities, of work that would fill the mind
to the exclusion of memory. That evening, when she rose from her knees,
she rose with a resolve, and never for one moment after that did she
allow herself an instant of regret. She wrote a line to Jasper to tell
him that she would do as he wished; she was prepared to marry him as
soon as his own arrangements were completed.
She also wrote to General Naniescu, agreeing to his proposal. She
reserved to herself complete freedom of action to send any articles or
reports she chose to English or foreign Press; all that she desired from
him was a confirmatory letter, promising that nothing she ever wrote
would pass through the censor's hands. This he at once sent her. Nothing
could be more fair, more straightforward. Rosemary's chivalrous mind
responded whole-heartedly to Naniescu's generosity, and the feeling that
it would probably be in her power to do real good, not only to
individuals but to peoples, acted as a soothing balm upon her bruised
heart.
On the other hand, nothing could have exceeded Jasper's kindness and
consideration during the days immediately preceding her marriage. It
almost seemed as if his super-sensitive soul had received a faint
inkling of what was going on in Rosemary's mind. Nothing appeared too
onerous, no sacrifice too great where Rosemary's comfort and desires
were at stake, and at times--such are the contradictions of a woman's
nature--she felt almost impatient with him for his magnanimity, almost
obsessed by the unselfishness of his love.
She only saw Peter Blakeney once before she and Jasper left for
Budapest, and that was on the day of her wedding. By one of those
involuntary blunders so peculiar to dim-sighted lovers, Jasper
Tarkington had asked Peter to be his best man. What it was that had
induced Peter to accept, Rosemary could not conjecture. His impulses had
always been strange and unaccountable, and this one was more
unaccountable than most. Perhaps he merely wished to pander to his own
mad desire to see her once again, perhaps it was just a semi-barbaric
instinct in him that pushed him to self-torture. Rosemary by now had
sufficient hold over herself to meet him calmly; not one line in her
beautiful face, not one look in her haunting eyes, betrayed what she
felt, after the wedding ceremony, when she accepted Peter's warmly
expressed good wishes for her happiness. Even her sensitive ear could
not detect the faintest note of irony or bitterness in his voice. After
that he said a few words about the projected journey to Hungary, about
which Jasper had spoken to him. She would be seeing his relatives
there--the Imreys, the Heves. Elsa Imrey was his mother's sister and
such a dear, and Philip used to be a jolly boy; but Rosemary knew them
all. She knew she would be made very welcome. Peter ended by speaking
with great earnestness about his little cousin Anna Heves; her father,
who had been Mrs. Blakeney's only brother, was dead, and Peter had an
idea that Anna was not altogether happy.
"She has left home for some reason I can't quite fathom," he said, "and
lives now at Kolozsvár--I mean Cluj. She writes to me sometimes, and
when I know the exact day when you will be in Cluj I will write and tell
her to go and see you. I suppose you will put up at the 'Pannonia.'"
Rosemary nodded and Peter went on talking about little Anna, as he
called her. "I know you will be kind to her," he said. "You remember her
as a child, of course; in a way she is still a child, and so pretty and
enthusiastic. Give her a kiss from me when you see her."
Which Rosemary, of course, promised to do. Then she gave him her hand,
without saying anything, for she could not trust herself to speak much,
and he kissed it just above the wrist, but more like a knight doing
homage to his lady than a lover who gazed, perhaps for the last time, on
the woman he worshipped.
It was after the marriage ceremony that the dreamland in which Rosemary
had moved these past days became more intangible, more of a spirit-world
than before. The brief days in a dreary hotel at Folkestone would have
been unendurable but for her state of mind, which almost amounted to
semi-consciousness. Then came the weary journey to Budapest, the
sleepless night in the train, the awful meals in the crowded, stuffy
restaurant-car, the ceaseless rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub of the wheels
that bore her away farther--ever farther from that bygone world which
had become the might-have-been. And through it all, like a ray of light,
so persistent that it ceased to impress, was Jasper's constant,
unwearying care of her. He never seemed too tired to minister to her
wants, to arrange cushions for her, a footstool, to open or close the
window, the thousand and one little attentions, in fact, which most
travellers are too self-engrossed to render.
And as Rosemary sat in her corner seat during those two wearisome days
gazing out of the window with eyes that failed to take in the beauties
of successive landscapes, her mind gradually became at peace with her
heart. Her youth, her buoyancy of spirits, reasserted themselves, made
her envisage life in all its brightest aspects, as it presented itself
before her with cornucopia filled to the brim with all that made it
worth the living. Work and a noble mate! What more could heart of woman
desire? And Rosemary closed her eyes, and in a quickly fleeting dream
sighed for the one thing that would have made her life a paradise,
and--still dreaming--she felt hot tears of regret trickle slowly down
her cheeks.
She woke to feel Jasper's arms around her and his lips kissing away her
tears.