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

He was once more all kindness and consideration, more like the charming companion of the early days of her brief married life. With utmost patience he discussed the whole situation with her: the possibility of getting in touch with Elza and the advisability of communicating with the Times in any case, leaving it open for an ultimate change of tactics.

But though he was so kind, so unselfish, so generous, Rosemary could not respond in the same way as she had done in the past. Her confidence in him had been wavering for some time, whenever those wild outbursts of ungovernable passion, when he claimed her body and her soul as he would a slave or a chattel, had outraged as well as mystified her, and she could not free her mind from that vision which she had of him in the mirror yesterday, with his mouth parted in a cruel, wolfish grin. The dual nature in him puzzled her. She would not admit that she feared him, because she had never in her life been afraid of anyone, but she did own to a certain vague dread which would creep into her heart whenever she found herself alone with him; she had accepted his kisses at first, hoping that in time friendship and confidence would turn to warmer feeling, but she had a horror of them now, and knew that the last shred of friendship was being torn to rags by all that was violent, passionate and cruel in him. At the same time she did admit quite readily that he was very helpful and kind in the present emergency, and gladly did she accept his final offer to motor straightway to Cluj to see if he could find out something definite about Elza.

“If she was not at Cluj,” he said, “I would go on to Ujlak; and, in any case, I can be back by about eight o’clock. If in the meanwhile, as I hope and think, Elza has turned up, we can make our plans in accordance with what she has decided, and either start for England at once, or leave matters as they stand.”

The suggestion was so practical that Rosemary felt really grateful. She walked with him to the village where he garaged the car that Naniescu had leant him. It was a powerful little car, of a well-known French make and built for speed. The soldier-chauffeur was fortunately on the spot, and with a friendly handshake Rosemary wished her husband Godspeed.

“I don’t know how I shall live through this day!” she said to him at the last.

Jasper was very self-contained and practical. He satisfied himself that everything about the car was in order, then only did he get in. He took the wheel and waved Rosemary a last farewell, and very soon the car disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust.

General Naniescu was enjoying himself thoroughly. He had his friend Number Ten sitting there opposite him, and Number Ten was looking as savage as a bear. Naniescu had offered him a cigar, a glass of fine, even whisky and soda, but Number Ten had declined everything and remained very truculent.

“You had no right,” he said, with a savage oath, “to go behind my back.”

But Naniescu was at his blandest. “What could I do, my dear friend?” he asked, and waived his white, downy hands to emphasise by appropriate gesture, both his perplexity and his contrition. “What would you have had me do? Decline to deal with that young Blakeney? Then those precious articles would have been lost to me forever. Lady Tarkington would not have written them all over again.”

“I told you the other day that I would get those articles for you. Ask M. de Kervoisin here if I have ever failed in anything I have undertaken. I had the manuscript in my hand when that young blackguard snatched it out of my hand. Curse him!”

Naniescu leaned back in his chair and gave a guttural, complacent laugh: “I do agree with you, my dear friend,” he said. “That young Blakeney is an unmitigated blackguard. I have had to deal with some in my day, but never with such a corrupt, dirty scoundrel. Yes, dirty, that’s what he is. But you know, you English, you are astonishing! Everything big with you⁠—big fellows, big Empire, big money, big blackguards! Yes, big blackguards! Oh, là, là!”

“Yes,” Number Ten assented drily. “And the big blackguard who is also a big fellow, got big money out of you, for you have been a fool, as well as a knave, my friend. I only asked you ten thousand sterling for the manuscript.”

“Are you pretending that you know what I paid Blakeney?” Naniescu asked, with his most fatuous smile. “Because, my friend, in picturesque poker parlance⁠—I am very fond of a game of poker myself⁠—and in poker language, we call what you are doing now ‘bluff.’ You don’t know what I paid Blakeney for the manuscript. But I don’t mind telling you that I paid nothing at all. Yes, my dear friend, nothing at all.”

And with the tip of his well-manicured little finger, Naniescu emphasised every syllable with a tap on the table.

“I am glad to hear it,” Number Ten retorted curtly, “because that will make it easier for you to pay me the ten thousand now.”

But this idea amused the General so much that he nearly rolled off his chair laughing.

“Ils sont impayable ces Anglais!” he said, when with streaming eyes and scanty breath he found words to express his sense of the ludicrous. “Why in the name of Tophet should I pay you ten thousand pounds sterling?”

“Because if you don’t, those newspaper articles will never be published.”

“Ah, bah!” Naniescu exclaimed with a mocking grin, “who will prevent it?”

“I, of course.”

“You, of course? How, I should like to know?”

“That’s my business.”

“You can’t do it, my friend,” Naniescu rejoined complacently. “You can’t do it. I