Rosemary did not see Peter again before he left. Somehow that last
vision which she had of him, hitting at a rubber ball with a stick, and
his utterly callous suggestion of a game of tennis at an hour which he
must have known was fateful to all his kindred, had caused a revulsion
in Rosemary's heart. She felt that never again would she feel tempted to
break her work to Jasper. Indeed, she felt how right Jasper had been all
along in insisting that she should not discuss the grave events that
affected the lives of all the inmates of Kis-Imre with such a callous,
empty-headed, irresponsible young jackanapes as Peter had lately become.
So she had gone upstairs to her room, and with a curious heartache, for
which she was unable to account, she listened to the familiar bustle and
noise that always filled the château whenever visitors came or went.
Somehow she could not bring herself to say "Good-bye" to Peter. Elza had
told her that he would be coming back within the next week or so, but
Rosemary, who felt too tired for introspection, could not have told you
whether she was glad or sorry at the prospect of seeing him again quite
so soon.
The rest of the day, as well as the long, interminable evening, were
taken up with the discussion of household affairs--the luncheon, the
dinner, the ball, and even into these Philip and Anna entered
whole-heartedly and with apparent complete disregard of what that fateful
morrow might bring them. As for Elza, she was perfectly marvellous!
Kind, fussy as usual, her menus and the airing of the guest-rooms being,
to all appearances, the most important matters in her mind.
After everyone had gone to bed little Anna came to Rosemary's room and
sat for a while beside her on the sofa, holding the Englishwoman's hand
as if she wished to transfuse through those slender fingers strength and
courage into her soul. When Rosemary made a passing allusion to the
wonderful stoicism that could allow trivial matters to seem so important
at a moment when life and worse were at stake, Anna explained quite
gently:
"We are made like that, we Hungarians. We hold our lives cheap, I think,
because throughout our history we have always had to sacrifice them for
our country. And also, I think, that we have a certain Oriental fatalism
in us. Not the fatalism of the Moslem, who abdicates free will, but the
faith of the Christian who believes that God ordains everything and that
it is useless to fight His decrees."
"And yet you are not a religious people," Rosemary riposted, thinking of
what Elza had said to her the night before.
"Only in the sense that children are religious," Anna rejoined. "We
accept blindly what some kind nuns and ignorant priests have taught us,
and we believe in an Almighty God more absolutely and ingenuously than
the more thoughtful people of the West."
Long after Anna had gone Rosemary thought over what the child had said.
Well, perhaps it was true. There certainly was an exquisitely beautiful
passage in the New Testament where the Divine Master enjoins his
disciples to become as little children. And, recollecting Anna's words,
Rosemary caught herself wondering whether the childlike faith of these
people here would not open the Kingdom of Heaven more easily for them
than would a more considered, more rational religion--a compromise
between a very erring human reason and the Divine Mysteries which no
human thought could fathom.
As for the next day, it was just a whirl, a jumble of gaieties and talk,
of arrivals and merry greetings, of meals and tennis and walks, and of
talk, talk, talk and endless laughter. Rosemary, when she rose, had made
up her mind that she would just shed her real personality for the whole
of the day. She would cease to be Rosemary with the aching heart, the
soul rent by conflicting duties, by anxieties, determination and sorrow;
she would become the "dear Lady Tarkington," the "Rosemary darling" of
all these kind, hospitable, wonderful people. She would laugh with them,
play with them, and with them lay aside for the next few hours the
torturing anxiety of the day.
She would forget, she would laugh, she would talk. The effort would do
her good, and when the hour came when the fate of all those she cared
for would have to be decided, when on one word, one smile, would perhaps
hang the destiny of Philip and of Anna, then she would be strong enough
to play the part allotted to her in the tragic farce--the farce that had
found birth in the brain of a heart-broken mother.