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

It was Peter.

The moment he caught sight of Rosemary he jumped up, and then made a movement as if he meant to run away. But Rosemary, with sudden impulse, called to him at once:

“Don’t go, Peter.”

It seemed as if the magic of her voice rooted him to the spot. He stood quite still, but with his back to her; and then he took off his képi with one hand, and passed the other once or twice across his forehead.

Rosemary felt strangely disturbed and puzzled. Why was Peter here? How did he come to be here? And in this uniform?

“Aren’t you going to speak to me, Peter?” she asked, because Peter being here seemed so amazing that for the moment she thought that she was seeing a vision; “or even look at me?” she added.

“I did not suppose you particularly wished me to speak to you,” he said, without turning round to face her.

“Why should you say that?” she asked simply.

“Because I imagine that you look upon me as such an unmitigated blackguard that the very sight of me must be hateful to you.”

She said nothing for a moment or two. Perhaps she was still wondering if he was real, and if so, how he came to be here⁠—just today and at this hour. Then she went deliberately up to him, put her hand on his arm, and forced him to look at her.

“It is true, then?” she asked, and her eyes, those pixie eyes of hers, luminous and searching, were fastened on his as if seeking to penetrate to the very soul within him. But a look of dull and dogged obstinacy was all that she got in response.

“It is all true, Peter?” she insisted, trying with all her might to steady her voice, so that he should not hear the catch in her throat.

He shrugged his shoulders, indifferent and still obstinate.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he retorted, almost roughly.

“I mean,” she said slowly, “that these last few days have not just been a hideous nightmare, as I still hoped until⁠—until two minutes ago. That things have really happened⁠—that you⁠—that you⁠—”

She paused, physically unable to continue. It was all too vile, too hideous to put into words. Peter gave a harsh laugh.

“Oh, don’t spare me,” he said, with a flippant laugh. “You mean that you did not believe until two minutes ago that I was really a spy in the pay of the Romanian Government, and that you did not believe that I had intrigued to have Philip and Anna arrested, stolen your articles for the Times, and bought Kis-Imre over Aunt Elza’s head, and turned her and Maurus out of their home. Well, you believe it now, don’t you? So that’s that. And as I am on my way to meet a friend, you’ll excuse me, won’t you, if I run away? Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes,” she said. “You can look me straight in the eyes and tell me what has brought you down to⁠—to this. Is it money?”

Peter shrugged. “The want of it, I suppose,” he replied.

“I have no right to ask, I know. Only⁠—only⁠—we were friends once, Peter,” she went on, with a note of pleading in her tone. “You used to tell me all your plans⁠—your ambitions. You used to say that you did not want to⁠—to bind me to a promise until you had made a name for yourself. If you had told me that you were short of money, and that you were actually thinking of taking up this⁠—this sort of work, I could have helped you. I know I could have helped you. I know I should have found the right words to dissuade you. Oh, Peter!” she went on almost wildly, unable to hold her tears longer in check, or to control the tremor in her voice, “it is all so horrible! Can’t you see? Can’t you see? We were such friends! You used to tell me everything. You were taking up your father’s work. Some of your scientific experiments were already attracting attention. And you were a sportsman, too! And your V.C. And now this⁠—this! Oh, it is too horrible⁠—too horrible!”

Her words were carrying her away. The murmur of the water grew louder and louder in her ears, and in the trees the soughing of the wind among the leaves grew almost deafening. She felt herself swaying, and for a few seconds she closed her eyes. But when she put out her hand she felt it resting on Peter’s arm. There was the feel of the rough cloth of his tunic. So she opened her eyes and raised them slowly until they met his. Her glance had wandered on the ugly uniform, the livery of his unspeakable shame. Her eyes expressed the contempt which she felt, the loathing which was almost physical. But Peter’s glance now was not only dogged, but defiant. In it she read the determination to follow in the path of life which he had chosen for himself, and a challenge to her power to drag him away from it. This was no longer the Peter of Kis-Imre, the irresponsible young English athlete, whose thoughts would never soar above the interest in a cricket-match. It was more the Peter of olden times⁠—the tempestuous lover, the wayward creature of caprice, the temperamental enthusiast capable of heroic deeds, and always chafing under the restraint imposed by twentieth-century conventions; the Peter whose soul had once been equally great in virtue as it was now steeped in crime; the gallant soldier, the worthy descendant of the Scarlet Pimpernel. It was the Peter of olden times, but his love for her was dead. Dead. If one spark of it had remained alive, if something of her image had remained in his heart, he could never have given himself over to this vile, vile thing. But while she had been battling bravely to banish from her mind all memories of