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

“Dear,” she murmured, and nestled her hand in his. Wasn’t Jasper wonderful too? With his marvellous understanding and that utterly selfless love for her, who, alas! gave so little in return. He bent his head and pressed his lips upon her wrist.

“You guessed right,” she said. “Something is very much amiss.”

Then she told him everything. He listened to the whole tale without a comment, and even after she had finished speaking he sat in silence with her hand held between his own, only bending his head now and again in order to kiss her wrist.

“There’s nothing to be done!” she reiterated, with a pitiable little catch in her voice.

And after awhile he said quite quietly and deliberately:

“The only thing to be done, my dear, is to comply with Naniescu’s wish.”

But against this she at once exclaimed, hot with indignation, and he went on with a sigh: “I know, I know. You are such a sweet, enthusiastic creature, and you have embraced the cause of these good people wholeheartedly, injudiciously. I don’t want to influence you, of course⁠—”

“You promised me that you would not,” she retorted.

“I know! I know! You would not be the adorable creature that you are if you were not unreasonable sometimes. But⁠—I put it to you⁠—what harm would you do in writing the articles that Naniescu wants?”

This question roused Rosemary’s indignation once more.

“How can you ask?” she queried. “To begin with I should alienate from these wretched people over here all the sympathy which Philip Imrey’s articles have aroused for them abroad. Never again after that could any friend raise a voice on their behalf. Naniescu or his kind would have a free hand. He knows that well enough. Not only he, but all the waverers, all the selfish and the indifferent could in the future point to the Times and say: ‘Hardship! Nonsense! Why, here was an independent lady journalist⁠—and a woman at that⁠—with every opportunity for getting at the truth, and she writes at full length to tell the entire world that the administration in Transylvania is a model of equity and benevolence.’ And mothers like Elza would cry in vain because their sons had been torn from them, families would be sent into exile, fathers, brothers murdered, oppression, confiscation, outrage would go unpunished, all because one woman had been too great a coward to smother sentiment under the mantle of justice.”

Jasper had not uttered a word, hardly made a sign, while Rosemary spoke her impassioned tirade. Only from time to time his dark eyes flashed with a glance of admiration on his beautiful wife, who, with flaming cheeks and slightly dishevelled hair, looked perhaps more desirable in her indignation than she had ever done in repose.

When she paused for want of breath he slowly shook his head.

“And do you really think, my darling,” he said softly, “that you can permanently influence English and American opinion by a few newspaper articles, even if these are written by a well-known person like yourself? Dear heart, in order to do that you would have to go at your subject hammer and tongs, never allow one article to be forgotten before you write another; you must be at your subject all the time if you want to create an impression⁠—hammer away at the newspaper-reading public until its stupid wooden head is saturated with the stuff you give it. Naniescu thinks a great deal of these articles which he wants you to write. Well, in my opinion their effect would last just one week after the last of them has appeared. After that some philanthropist or other will have his say on the maladministration of Transylvania, and you are not bound to refute that again, are you? But in the meanwhile Philip and Anna will be comfortably out of the country, and even Elza and Maurus will have settled down somewhere in Hungary to await better times; you will have saved the lives of two young things whom you love, and spared these good people here a terrible sorrow.”

While Jasper spoke Rosemary could not do anything but stare at him. His sophistry amazed her. That there was a modicum of common sense in his argument was not to be gainsaid, but that the suggestion of such bargaining with truth and honour should come from Jasper, her husband, horrified Rosemary and revolted her. And men often accused women of a feeble sense of honour! From the first Rosemary had turned away from Naniescu’s proposal as from something unclean. She had never dwelt on it, not for a moment. Even this morning, when first she felt herself sinking into an abyss of despair, she had not dwelt on that. But Jasper had not only dwelt on it; he had weighed its possibilities, the “for” and “against” which, with unanswerable logic and not a little sarcasm, he had just put before her. And even now, when she could not keep the look of horror out of her eyes, he only smiled, quite kindly and indulgently, as if she were just an obstinate child who had to be coaxed into reason; and when indignation kept her dumb he patted her hand and said gently:

“You will think over it, I am sure!” Then he rose and started pacing up and down the room, as was his custom when he was irritated or worried, with his head thrust forward and his hands clasped behind his back.

“You will think over it,” he murmured again.

“Never!” she retorted hotly.

“You have another fifteen days before you.”

“Never!” she reiterated firmly.

He looked at her for a moment or two with an indefinable smile on his lean, dark face, then he shrugged his shoulders.

“How much longer can you stand the mother’s tears,” he asked, “and the father’s despair?”

“Elza, if she knew,” Rosemary rejoined, with an obstinate toss of her head, “would be the first to wish me to stand firm.”

“Try her!” Jasper retorted laconically. Then as Rosemary, reproachful, indignant, made no attempt to reply, he went