It was only a couple of days later that Rosemary broached to Jasper Tarkington the subject that was uppermost in her mind. She had lunched with him at the Ritz, and they walked together across St. James's Park to her flat in Ashley Gardens. It was one of those rare days of June which make of England one of the most desirable countries to be alive in. The air was soft, with just that delicious feeling of moisture in it that gives additional fragrance to the scent of the hawthorn: it vibrated with the multitudinous sounds of bird-song, a twitter and a singing and a whistling that thrilled the ear with their heavenly melodies.
Rosemary Fowkes was very nearly as tall as her fiancé, and Jasper Tarkington had a slight stoop which brought his eyes on a level with hers. Scoffers were wont to say that Tarkington's stoop was nothing but affectation; it certainly was a characteristic of him as is a monocle with some men. His whole appearance was one of super-refinement: he essentially gave the impression of a man who had seen so much of the world that he had become surfeited with it, and thoroughly weary. The weary expression was never absent from his eyes, which were very dark and set rather close together, and though he was quite a young man—still on the right side of thirty—there were a good many lines round them—as well as round his expressive mouth and firm chin. He had slender, beautifully shaped hands which, when he walked, he kept behind his back holding a malacca cane that was adorned with a green tassel. There is no doubt that there was a hint of affectation about Jasper Tarkington's appearance, and manner, although in conversation he spoke with true Anglo-Saxon directness. He was always dressed with scrupulous correctness, and affected the Edwardian rather than the ultra-modern modes. On the whole an arresting personality, whose kindly expression attenuated the somewhat harsh Wellingtonian features, and the hard outline of the narrow hatchet face.
Rosemary Fowkes, walking beside him in her irreproachably cut tailor-made looked like a young Diana, radiant with youth and health. Her skin, her eyes, her hair, the jaunty little hat she wore, the trim shoes and neat silk stockings appeared strangely out of harmony with the stooping figure of this disillusioned man of the world, with that vague air of Buckingham Palace about his grey frock coat and silk hat.
It was whilst walking through the park that Rosemary spoke to her fiancé about Naniescu's proposal. Jasper listened attentively and without interrupting her, until she herself paused, obviously waiting for him to speak. Then he said:
"And you have fallen in with General Naniescu's views?"
"Yes!" she replied, after an instant's hesitation. "The whole thing appeals to me very much, and I am flattered by the confidence which the Roumanian Government apparently has in my judgment. And of course," she added, "I am not bound in any way." "Have you made any definite promises to Naniescu?"
"Not quite definite. I wanted first of all to consult your wishes."
"Oh, my dear!" Tarkington interjected, and for one instant a light of youth and folly illumined his tired eyes. "Did I not promise you when you made me so immeasurably happy that you should be absolutely free to follow your career in whatever manner you choose? I am far too proud of you to wish to hamper you in any way."
"You have always been the dearest, kindest, most considerate creature on God's earth," Rosemary rejoined, and in her eyes there came a look so soft, so tender, so womanly that the man on whom it fell hardly dared to meet it. "But you are not forgetting, are you, Jasper," she went on earnestly, "that politically we don't always see eye to eye, you and I?"
"So long as we see eye to eye in other things," he said, "what does it matter? When I asked you, my dear, to be my wife, I knew that I would not be mating with a silly doll. I am not fatuous enough to imagine that you would change the trend of your beliefs in order to harmonise them with mine."
Rosemary made no reply for the moment. Probably had they been alone she would have put out her hand and given his a grateful and understanding squeeze. As it was, the tears gathered in her eyes, for Jasper had spoken so naturally and at the same time so nobly, that her heart was more than ever touched by those splendid qualities in him, which his actions and his words were constantly revealing to her. Perhaps she was nearer to being in love with Jasper Tarkington at this hour than she had been since first he asked her to be his wife; and when the glory of this June afternoon, the twittering of birds, the scent of syringa and lilac in the air brought back with nerve-racking insistence memories of Peter's voice and Peter's touch, it was by mentally comparing the character of the two men as she knew them, that she succeeded in casting those memories away.
"You are wonderfully good to me, Jasper," she sighed.
"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 to-night."
"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 pin-pricks 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 re-name 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 Roumania 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 passer-by 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 or 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 truth she was very much taken aback. Her engagement to Jasper Tarkington was very recent, and up to now he had not once spoken of a definite date for the marriage. She felt herself placed in an awkward position, for the fact that only a few seconds ago she had assured him that there was nothing she would not do for him. And now this request for an immediate marriage. She certainly was not prepared for it. Everything in her urged her to refuse. The memory of that hour in the box at the Albert Hall, her talk with Peter, her realisation that Peter still held her heart, still ruled over her thoughts, everything, in fact, except a sense of gratitude urged her to refuse. And yet she could not—not after what she had said, not after all that Jasper Tarkington had done for her. While all these thoughts were whirling in her brain as she walked along, mechanically now, all the spring gone out of her step, something of the joy of living gone out of her spirits, she vaguely heard Jasper's quiet, gentle voice.
"You mean so much to me, Rosemary," he was saying, "that life here in England while you were God knows where, in tribulation, perhaps, perhaps in danger, needing me too, perhaps without knowing it, would be unendurable. I could not do it. I should follow you, anyway, and come as near to you as I dared, yet without the right to look after you as closely as I would wish. Well, my dear, you are far too womanly and kind to inflict such torture upon me. For it would be torture, and I would go under through it all. I don't know if you quite understand, but——"
There was an unusual vibration in his voice; it seemed as if, for once, passion would get the better of his habitual restraint. Tarkington always spoke slowly and directly, but for once words appeared to be failing him. However, just then they turned into Victoria Street, and the noise and bustle of traffic, his meticulous care of Rosemary while they crossed the road, brought him back to the prosiness of life. Nor did he speak again till they had reached the quietude of Ashley Gardens.
"Will you come up?" Rosemary asked, pausing at the entrance of one of the blocks of flats.
He shook his head.
"I think I would like you to think it all over quietly," he said. "I want you to remember that when I am asking you to hurry on our marriage, I only do it because I want to have the right to look after you. I won't interfere with you in any way whatever. I give you my word that as my wife you will be every bit as free as you are now—more so, really, because in that part of Europe a married woman can claim an independence which convention absolutely denies to a girl. In Budapest you will meet people of your own nationality, and of your own set. I could not bear the thought that your loveliness would leave you a ready prey to gossip or malice. There now," he added, with a self-deprecatory smile, "I have said more than I meant to. My first excuse is that you are more than life to me, and as you are so precious, I foresee dangers where perhaps none exist. My second is that I am pleading for my own happiness—I was almost going to say for my life. You are not like other women, Rosemary; you are above the petty conventions of trousseaux and crowded weddings. As soon as I have your answer I will get the special licence and we'll be married in your parish church without fuss and ceremony. So think it over, my dear, and let me have your answer as early to-morrow morning as you can. Remember that I shall scarcely live until I have your answer."
She made no reply; only put out her hand, which he took in his. There was no glove on it, and for a moment it seemed that in spite of passers-by, in spite of the conventional atmosphere of this part of London, he would raise that little hand to his lips. His eyes rested on her with a look of passionate desire; so intense was his gaze that suddenly she felt almost afraid. Rosemary had never seen Jasper's eyes look quite like that. As a rule they were so gentle, sometimes mildly ironical, at others only weary. But now it almost seemed as if, in order to bend her will to his, he was striving to exert some kind of power that was outside himself, as if he had called to his aid forces that would prove more invincible than those that were within him. The spell—it seemed like a spell—only lasted a couple of seconds; the next instant his look had turned to one of infinite tenderness. He patted her hand and reiterated gently:
"Think it over, my dear, when you are alone."
Instantly she felt the tears gathering in her eyes. His gentleness, his tender care of her, appealed to all that was truly womanly in Rosemary Fowkes. Self-reliant, brilliantly clever, independent in thought and actions as she was, she responded all the more readily to a man's desire for the right to protect as well as to cherish. Her independence had found its birth in loneliness. Fatherless, motherless in very early life, she had soon enough shaken herself free from any trammels that well-meaning relations desired to put over her actions. Her genius had consolidated her independence, but it had never stifled those vague longings for submission and self-abnegation which are the sublime satisfaction of a true woman's soul.
After Jasper Tarkington left her, and when she was alone in her flat, Rosemary Fowkes turned to the one thing that had never failed her in the great moments of her life. She turned to prayer. On her knees, and with her heart filled with longing and a sorrow that she dared not face, she prayed for help and for guidance. She had no one to turn to but Him who said with infinite understanding and love: "Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will refresh you."
In the midst of worldly joys, satisfied ambition, hopes for the future and pride in the past, Rosemary Fowkes would to-night have felt desperately lonely and lost in bewilderment before a divided duty—duty to self, duty to Jasper—but for the comfort of prayer, the thought of all that lay beyond this world of ours, a world that is so sordid and petty even at its best.