Pimpernel and Rosemary, Baroness Orczy [i have read the book a hundred times .txt] 📗

“One cannot,” he retorted simply, “be good to that which is most precious in life: one can only worship and be grateful. But now tell me something more about your plans. I feel a little bewildered, you know, at the suddenness of them.”

“I have not yet made any definite plans,” she replied, “and as I told you, I have made no definite promise to General Naniescu. As a matter of fact, I intend writing him a final acceptance or refusal tonight.”

“But you incline towards an acceptance?”

“Frankly, yes!”

“That would mean⁠—?” he queried.

“That I start for Budapest within the next few days.”

“What about your passport?”

“General Naniescu assured me that he would see to that.”

“But you would not stay long in Budapest?”

“No, only a couple of days. I shall go straight on to Transylvania. I have been there before, you know.”

“No, I did not know.”

“Peter’s mother was a great friend of mine. You know I was a motherless kid, and she took me under her wing on many, many occasions. At one time I travelled with her a good deal, and she took me several times with her when she went to Transylvania to stay with her relations. I know them all. They are dears.”

“And, of course, they are extraordinarily hospitable over there,” Tarkington admitted dryly.

“Hospitable to a fault! Mrs. Blakeney’s sister, who is Countess Imrey, was kindness itself to me when I was in Transylvania two years ago for the International. In any case, I should go to her first. The Imreys have a beautiful château not far from Kolozsvár.”

“I am afraid we must call it Cluj now,” Jasper interposed with a smile.

“Yes,” Rosemary retorted hotly. “Aren’t those little pinpricks damnable? Changing the name of a city that has been Hungarian for centuries, and that has been the centre of some of the most epoch-making movements in Hungarian history. It is mean and petty! You must admit, Jasper,” she insisted, “that it is mean and far more galling to a proud, if conquered, nation than other more tangible deeds of oppression. Why, even the Germans when they took Alsace-Lorraine from France did not rename their towns!”

Jasper Tarkington smiled at her vehemence.

“Naniescu, I perceive,” he said, “has set himself a difficult task.”

“He has,” she admitted with a merry laugh. “But I left him no illusions on the subject. He knows that at the present moment, and with all the knowledge which⁠—as I reminded him⁠—I gathered at first hand two years ago, I am just as severe a critic of his government as I was then. He, on the other hand, declares that if I will divest myself of every prejudice and go to Transylvania with an open mind, I shall understand that Romania is acting not only in her own, very obvious, interests, but also in the interests of European peace. Well,” Rosemary concluded gaily, “I am going to accept General Naniescu’s challenge, and I am going to Transylvania with an open mind. I am to have a perfectly free hand. Not a word in any article I choose to write is to be censored: he declares that he will show me the truth, and nothing but the truth, and that his government is only too ready to accord me every facility for investigation and for placing the case before the British public.”

She paused to draw breath after this long peroration. As she walked so freely along, the eyes of many a passerby were cast with undisguised admiration on the graceful girlish figure, the face aglow with youth and animation, the sparkling eyes, the lips which Nature had so obviously framed for a kiss. Jasper Tarkington said nothing for the moment; when she had finished speaking he sighed, involuntarily perhaps, and his tired eyes took on a still more wearied look. Was it that he felt he could not altogether follow this exquisite woman along the path of ambition which she trod with so youthful a step? Was he just a little too old, a little to blasé, to share all that enthusiasm, that pride, that burning desire to live every moment of the span of life, to fill every hour with deeds and spoken thoughts which would abide when youth had gone?

Who shall say? Jasper Tarkington had never been communicative; his best friends knew little of his life, and though he, too, in his day had used his unquestioned mental gifts for political journalism, he had never been the ardent propagandist that this beautiful apostle of lost causes desired to be. His silence now acted as a slight damper on Rosemary’s enthusiasm.

“I am sorry, dear,” she said gently. “I always seem to forget that you and I are in opposite camps over this one thing.”

“We shan’t be that for long,” he retorted lightly, “if Naniescu’s hopes are fulfilled.”

Strangely enough, just as he spoke he saw General Naniescu and M. de Kervoisin, who were entering the park at Queen Anne’s Gate as they themselves were coming out of it. The three men raised their hats, and Rosemary gave Naniescu and his friend a pleasant nod.

“I don’t think,” Tarkington said after a moment of two, “that our friend Naniescu will be very fond of me after this.”

“Why? On the contrary, he should be grateful that you have not tried to oppose him in any way.”

“I am going to oppose him in one way, though,” Jasper resumed earnestly. “I don’t intend to interfere with his plans or yours, my dear, as I said before; but there is one thing I am going to ask you, Rosemary.”

“What is it, dear?” she asked impulsively. “I am so glad you are going to ask me for something. All the giving has been on your side up to now.”

“Not so fast, little one. You mayn’t be ready to do what I want.”

“Is that likely?” she retorted. Then added with gentle earnestness: “There is nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you, Jasper.”

“Will you marry me,” he asked abruptly, “before you go away?”

She did not reply immediately, for in