He paused and looked round at Rosemary. Then, as she seemed to persist in her silence, he insisted:
"Don't you agree with me?"
"Perhaps," she replied, with a weary sigh.
"Anyway, you'll think it over, won't you?" Peter went on. "I am sure you could fix it up with old Naniescu. He admires you tremendously, you know."
It was all wrong, all wrong. Peter used to be so fond of little Anna. "Give her a kiss for me," were almost the last words he had spoken to Rosemary on the day of her wedding. His own affairs evidently pushed every other consideration into the remotest corner of his brain; and cricket matches were apparently of more importance than the danger which threatened Anna and Philip. Nor had Rosemary any longer the desire to break her promise to Jasper. She no longer wished to speak to Peter about Anna and Philip, or about the horrible alternative which Naniescu had put before her. Peter-this Peter-would not understand. Jasper had not understood either-but he had misunderstood in a different way. Rosemary realized how right he had been to extract that promise from her. Was not Jasper always right? And was it intuition that had prompted him, after all, rather than an attack of jealousy of which Rosemary, in her heart, had been so ready to accuse him?
Suddenly she felt a longing to get away from Peter, from this Peter whom she neither knew nor trusted. "I'll go in now, I think," she said abruptly; "the dew is rising, and my shoes are very thin."
And she started to walk more quickly. Slowly the shades of evening had been drawing in. Rosemary had not noticed before how dark it was getting. The line of shrubbery behind the perennial border was like a solid wall; and on the other side of the path the stretch of lawn, with its great clumps of pampas grass and specimen trees, became merged in the gathering shadows. Beyond the lawn glimmered the lights of the chateau, and the veranda in front of the drawing-room was like a great patch of golden light, broken by the long, straight lines of its supporting columns. There was no moon, only an infinity of stars; and in the flower border the riot of colour had faded into the gloom, leaving just the white flowers-the nicotiana, the Madonna lilies, a few violas-to break the even mantle spread by the night.
From the direction of the chateau there came a loud call of "Hallo!" to which Peter gave a lusty response. A voice shouted: "We are going in!"
"Right-o!" Peter responded. "We'll come in too!"
Then suddenly he gave a bound, and in an instant had leaped the border and disappeared in the shrubbery beyond. Rosemary, taken completely by surprise, had come to a halt. From the shrubbery there came a loud cry of terror, then a swear-word from Peter, and finally a string of ejaculations, all in Hungarian, and of distressful appeals for mercy in the name of all the saints in the calendar. The next moment Peter's white flannels glimmered through the foliage, and a second or two later he reappeared lower down, coming up the path and half dragging, half pushing in front of him a huddled-up mass, scantily clothed in ragged shirt and trousers, and crowned with a broad-brimmed hat, from beneath which came a succession of dismal howls.
"What is it?" Rosemary cried.
"That's what I want to know," was Peter's reply. "I caught sight of this blighter sneaking in the shrubbery, and got him by the ear, which he does not seem to like, eh, my friend?"
He gave the ear which he held between his fingers another tweak, and in response drew a howl from his victim, fit to wake the seven sleepers.
"Mercy, gracious lord! Mercy on a poor man! I was not doing anything wrong; I swear by holy Joseph I was not doing anything wrong!"
The creature, whoever he was, succeeded in wriggling himself free of Peter's unpleasant hold. At once he turned to flee, but Peter caught him by the shoulder, and proceeded this time to administer something more severe in the way of punishment.
"Leave the man alone, Peter," Rosemary cried indignantly. "You have no right to ill-use him like that!"
"Oh, haven't I? We'll soon see about that!" Peter retorted roughly. "Now then, my friend," he went on, speaking in Hungarian to the bundle of rags that had collapsed at his feet, "listen to me. You have tasted the weight of my boot on your spine, so you know pretty well what you can expect if you don't tell me at once what you are doing at this hour of the night in the gracious count's garden?"
The man, however, seemed unable to speak for the moment; loud hiccoughs shook his tall, spare frame. He held his two hands against the base of his desperate contortions in a vain attempt to get his right shoulder out of Peter's grip.
"Peter," Rosemary cried again, "let the poor wretch go. You must! Or I shall hate you."
But Peter only retorted harshly: "If you weren't here, Rosemary, I'd thrash the vermin to within an inch of his life. Now then," he commanded, "stop that howling. What were you doing in their shrubbery?"
"I only wanted to speak with the gracious countess," the man contrived to murmur at last, through the hiccoughs that still seemed to choke the words in his throat. "I have a message for her!"
"That's why I caught you with this in your belt, eh?" Peter queried sternly, and drew something out of his pocket, which Rosemary could not see; he showed it to the man who promptly made a fresh appeal to the saints.
"The roads are not safe for poor gipsies, gracious lord. And I had the message—"
"Who gave you a message for the gracious countess?" Rosemary asked him gently.
"I-I don't know, gracious lady. A fine gentleman on a horse called to me when I was gathering wood over by the forest of Normafa. He gave me a letter. 'Take it,' he said, 'to the gracious countess over at Kis-Imre, but do not give it into any hands but hers, and only give it to her when she is alone.'"
"Where is the letter?"
"It is here, gracious lady," the man replied and fumbling with the belt that held his ragged trousers round his waist, he drew from underneath it a oiled and crumpled rag that effectively looked like a letter in a sealed envelope. Peter would have snatched it out of his hand, but Rosemary interposed.
"Peter," she said gravely, and stretched a protecting arm over the gipsy's hand, "the man was told not to give it in any hand but Elza's!"
"The man is a liar," Peter riposted harshly.
Just then Philip's voice reached them from across the lawn.
"What are you two doing over there?"
"Philip, is your mother with you?" Rosemary shouted in response.
"Yes! We are just going in."
"Ask her to wait a moment then."
"What has happened?" Elza called.
"Nothing, darling," Rosemary replied. "Send the others in and wait for me, will you?" Then she turned to the gipsy, and said kindly: "Walk beside me, and don't try to run away; the gracious lord will not hurt you if you walk quietly beside me."
And so the three of them walked across the lawn toward the chateau, Rosemary in front, and beside her the gipsy, whose long thin hands almost swept the grass as he walked with bent knees and arched back, throwing from time to time anxious glances behind him. But Peter was lagging behind.
When they were close to the chateau, they saw Elza coming down the veranda steps. Rosemary ordered the gipsy to wait, and ran to meet Elza; in a few words she told her what had occurred. Elza then came across the gravel path, and said to the gipsy: "I am the Countess Imrey. You may give me the letter!"
The man's back became more curved than ever; he nearly touched the ground with his forehead. In the darkness Rosemary seemed to see his long, thin body curling itself up almost into a ball.
"I was told," he murmured meekly, "to give the letter into the hands of the gracious countess only when she was alone."