Walking across the lawn toward the château half an hour later, Rosemary
found herself once more laughing at her own suspicions of Peter. Peter!
Heavens above! what turn were her suspicions taking?
Did she really believe for one moment that Peter was intriguing with
these crafty Roumanians for the undoing or the persecution of his own
kith and kin? The very thought was preposterous. The suggestion
untenable. Whatever Jasper might think, whatever he might fear, she,
Rosemary, was nothing but a traitor if she allowed herself for one
moment to harbour such thoughts of Peter.
He was changed, certainly he was changed. But between that and Jasper's
suspicions----! It was Jasper who had first put thoughts into Rosemary's
head by extracting that strange promise from her. Not to talk to Peter.
Not to discuss the situation with Peter. Otherwise she would never for
one moment----
Of course, of course, the thought was preposterous. Peter and intrigue!
Peter and crafty Machiavellism! Peter and a double game he was ashamed
to avow! Why, reason should have rejected the first hint of such a
possibility, even if loyalty did not.
"Hallo, Rosemary!"
Peter's voice brought Rosemary back to reality. She had wandered up the
veranda steps, hardly conscious of where she was. Thank Heaven, after
her musings she was able to look Peter loyally in the face. He had his
hands buried as usual in the pockets of his trousers, and the inevitable
cigarette between his lips. Rosemary felt hot and tired; the sun had
been baking the lawn while she walked across it, and she had no parasol.
With a contented little sigh she sank into the basket chair that Peter
pulled forward for her.
"I suppose," he said abruptly, "that they have been telling you about
the nonsense that's going on in their dear, silly heads."
And with a nod he indicated the summer-house, where, against the
creeper-clad entrance, Elza's white dress gleamed in the sunshine.
Rosemary made no reply. Peter's words had somehow acted like a douche of
cold water upon her sense of rest and well-being. It was true then! He
did know. Though Elza and Anna had told him nothing, he knew. How?
Rosemary would have given worlds for the right to ask him, but suddenly
her promise to Jasper loomed before her with paramount importance, and
put a seal upon her lips.
"Won't you tell me?" Peter insisted.
Of course there was a simple explanation for the whole thing. Those dear
people, Elza, Maurus, even Anna, were not models of discretion. Their
voices were loud and penetrating, and, when they were excited about any
project or event, they would discuss it here, there and everywhere at
the top of their voices, and with a total disregard of possible
eavesdroppers. Peter's knowledge of Elza's plans may have come about
quite innocently. Rosemary was quite sure it had come about innocently.
But somehow she longed for that perfect security and trust in Peter
which she used to feel even when he was most capricious and his
love-making most tempestuous. Why hadn't he told Elza that he knew? Why,
instead of discussing the plan over with Elza or one of the others, did
he feign ignorance with them, and suddenly elect to go away on an
obviously futile excuse?
Oh, how Rosemary hated all this mystery! And how she feared it! And how,
above all, she hated that promise which she had made to Jasper, and
which prevented her at this moment from having a straight talk with
Peter.
"So you won't tell me?" he reiterated, and his voice sounded curiously
harsh, quite different to his usual very pleasant, musical tones. Peter
had the voice of a musician. It was deep in tone and beautifully
modulated. Peter's voice had been one of the things about him that had
captivated Rosemary's fancy in the past. Now, he spoke through his
teeth, with that hateful cigarette in the long holder held between the
comers of his lips. Rosemary tried to be flippant.
"Dear me!" she exclaimed, with a little broken laugh, "are you trying to
play the _rôle_ of the heavy father, Peter, or of the silent strong
man? And now you are frowning just like the hero in one of Ethel M.
Dell's books. When are you going to seize me by the wrist and whack me
with a slipper?"
It was very easy to make Peter laugh. He was laughing now, and the scowl
fled for the moment from his face.
"Don't play the fool, Rosemary," he said in his slangy, boyish way.
"Tell me what Aunt Elza has been saying to you out here?"
"But, you silly boy," she riposted, "there's nothing to tell."
Back came the scowl on Peter's face, darker than before.
"So," he said curtly, "I suppose that you and Aunt Elza and Anna have
been discussing frocks for the past hour and a half."
"No, dear," she replied coolly, "only the arrangements for to-morrow's
ball."
Whereupon Peter said "Damn!" and swung round on his heel, as if he meant
to leave her there without another word. But for this move of his
Rosemary was unprepared. She did not want Peter to go. Not just yet. She
was perfectly loyal to him in her thoughts, and she was irrevocably
determined not to break her promise to Jasper, but she was not going to
let Peter go off to-day without some sort of explanation. She might not
see him again after this--for weeks, for months, for years! So she
called him back.
"Peter!" she cried.
He swung back and returned to her side. His deep, changeful eyes, which
at times were the colour of the ocean on the Cornish coast, and at
others recalled the dark tints of his Hungarian ancestors, looked
strangely resentful still. But as his glance rested on Rosemary,
wandered from her delicate face in the pearly shadow of her garden hat,
along the contour of her graceful body in repose, down to the tips of
her dainty white shoes, the resentful look fled. And Rosemary, glancing
up, caught a momentary flash of that soul-holding gaze which had taken
her captive that lovely night in June by the river, when she had lain
crushed and bruised in his arms, the gaze which that other night in the
Albert Hall box had filled her soul with abiding regret.
"What do you want me to tell you, Peter?" she asked in that stupid way
that comes to the lips when the soul is stirred and the mind commands
self-control.
"Nothing," he replied roughly, "that you don't want to."
"Peter," she retorted, "why are you so strange with me? One would think
I had done something to offend you. You scarcely will speak to me; when
you do you are so rough and so abrupt, as if--as if----Oh, I don't
know," she went on rapidly, and her voice shook a little as she tried to
avoid that memory-conjuring glance of his. "It seems as if something had
come between us, almost as if we were enemies."
Peter laughed at this, but his laugh sounded rather forced and harsh.
"Enemies!" he exclaimed. "Good God, no!"
"But something has happened, Peter," she insisted. "I cannot tell you
how I find you changed."
"Well," he said curtly, "something did happen, you know, when you
married Jasper."
"I don't mean that, Peter. I saw you in London after I was engaged, and
you had not changed then. It is here--in this place--that you seem so
different."
"You must admit the place gets on one's nerves," he said with a shrug.
"You must make allowances, Peter," she rejoined gently. "They are in
such trouble."
"Are they?" he retorted.
"Why, you know they are!" And her voice rang with a note of indignant
reproach. "How can you ask?"
"I ask because I don't know. You say that they--I suppose you mean Aunt
Elza and Maurus and the kids--are in trouble. How should I know what you
mean? Since I've been here they have done nothing but shout, dance and
make plans for more dancing and shouting, and when I ask you anything
you only tell me lies."
"Peter!"
"I beg your pardon, dear," he said with sudden gentleness. "I didn't
mean to be caddish. But you know," he went on, harshly once more, "you
did tell me that Jasper had gone to Budapest on business."
"Well?" she queried.
"Well! Knowing you to be truthful by nature, I am wondering why you
should have told me such an unnecessary lie." Then, as Rosemary was
silent, he insisted: "Won't you tell me, Rosemary?"
"You are talking nonsense, Peter," she replied obstinately. "There is
nothing to tell."
"Which means that Jasper has told you--or insinuated--that I am not to
be trusted."
She protested: "Certainly not!"
"Then," he concluded, "the mistrust comes out of your own heart."
"That again is nonsense, Peter. There is no question of trust or
mistrust, and I have no idea what you mean. It is you who try to deceive
me by feigning ignorance of what is going on in this house. If Aunt Elza
has not spoken openly with you, it certainly is not for me to enlighten
you. There," she added, as she caught a look of eager questioning in his
eyes, "I have already said more than I have any right to say. Elza and
Anna are coming across the lawn. If you want to know anything more, you
had better ask them."
And abruptly she rose and left him and went into the house. She felt
hurt and angry and not a little ashamed. She felt hurt with Peter, angry
with Jasper and ashamed of herself. Peter was quite right. She had told
him lies--unnecessary lies. And Jasper had forced her to tell them and
to be disloyal to Peter. The present situation was a false one, utterly
false. It was Peter who should take over the direction of Elza's plan.
With his help the chances of Philip's and Anna's escape would be
increased ten-fold. It seemed an awful thing--it was an awful
thing--that he should be shut out of Elza's councils, that he should go
away on a futile and trivial errand while those of his own kith and kin
were in such terrible danger, and running into dangers that were worse
still.
For the last time the temptation returned, and with double violence, to
break her promise to Jasper and go straight back to Peter and tell him
everything. She paused in the centre of the drawing-room and looked back
through the wide-open glass doors. Peter was still on the veranda. He
had picked up a stick and a tennis ball and was hitting the one with the
other and humming a tune. He caught Rosemary's eye as she glanced back
to look at him.
"Hallo!" he called gaily.
Rosemary went deliberately back to the glass door. She paused under the
lintel; then she said earnestly:
"Don't go to Hódmezö to-day, Peter. I am sure there is no necessity
for you to go. You can book rooms by telephone, and, anyway----" She
paused a moment and then went on more earnestly still: "Wait another
twenty-four hours, Peter. Don't go till--till after the ball."
Peter did not look at her. He was taking careful aim with the stick and
the tennis ball. He made a swinging hit and watched the ball fly away
over the lawn. Then he threw the stick down and turned to Rosemary.
"Sorry," he said lightly, "but I have promised."
She gave an impatient sigh, and after another second's hesitation once
more turned to go.
"I say," he called after her, "what about a game of tennis? There's just
time for a set before I need make a start."
But by now all temptation to talk openly with Peter had vanished. What
would be the use of telling this irresponsible boy anything? Jasper was
right. Elza was right. Only she, Rosemary, was foolish, and her vaunted
knowledge of human nature nothing but vanity. She had only sufficient
self-control left to call back lightly to him:
"No, thank you, Peter, I am rather tired."
Then she fled precipitately out of the room.