"Monsieur le General," she resumed, after a while, "I know that you will forgive me for my seeming ill-humour. I have witnessed so much sorrow these last few hours that I suppose my nerves are rather jarred. I know, of course, that it is not my place to criticize the measure which your Government chooses to impose on a subject race. As a suzerain state Roumania has a perfect right to defend what she believes to be her own interests, and in a manner that she thinks best. Will you forgive me the sharp words I allowed to slip just now?"
And with a return of that charm of manner which even more than beauty held most men in thrall, Rosemary put out her hand. The gallant Roumanian, without a trace of mockery now in his large, dark eyes, took it in both his own; then he stooped and kissed the dainty finger-tips.
"And now," Rosemary went on resolutely, "that I have made amende honorable, will you allow me to plead the Imrey's cause in all earnestness-in the name of humanity, Monsieur le General? The boy is only nineteen.
The general leaned back in his chair, his well-manicured fingers gently stroking his silky moustache, his eyes no longer attempting to conceal the satisfaction which he felt at seeing this exquisitely beautiful woman in the role of a suppliant before him. Now when she paused he gave an indifferent shrug.
"Dear lady," he said, "my experience of this part of the world is that boys and girls of nineteen who give up jazzing and have not started making love, but who choose to meddle in politics, are veritable pests."
"But Philip Imrey does not meddle in politics," Rosemary protested.
"Are you quite sure of that?" he retorted.
As he said this his eyes became quite small, and piercing like two little flaming darts; but though his sudden challenge had sent a stab of apprehension through Rosemary's heart, her glance never faltered, and she lied straight out, lied boldly without hesitation, without a blush.
"I am quite sure," she replied.
And the only compunction she felt over that lie was when she realized-as she did at once-that the Roumanian did not believe her.
"Little Anna Heves did not confide in you?" he asked, with perfect suavity.
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I said, dear lady. Anna Heves and Philip Imrey are two young hotheads who have given us an infinity of trouble. For a long time we could not find out how certain pernicious articles, injurious to the good reputation of Roumanian, found their way into the English and American press. Now we know."
"Your spy system seems more efficient than your censorship," Rosemary retorted bitterly.
"That is beside the point."
"Yes; the point is that those two are mere children."
"I dare say the judges will take that into account and deal leniently with them."
"With them?" Rosemary exclaimed, and suddenly a new terror gripped her heart. "With them? You don't mean—?"
"What, dear lady?" he queried suavely.
"That Anna—?"
"Anna Heves, yes; the late Baron Heves' daughter, now a saleswoman in the shop of Balog the grocer. I often wondered how she came to demean herself in that way. Now I understand."
"But surely, surely," Rosemary protested, striving in vain to steady her voice, which was quaking with this new, this terrible anxiety, "you have not arrested Anna Heves? The child has done nothing—"
Naniescu put up his hand with a gesture of protest.
"Dear lady," he said, with quiet irony and in a tone one would use to an obstinate child, "let me assure you once and for all that the accusations against Philip Imrey and his cousin do not rest upon assumptions, but upon facts. Anna Heves was arrested and she will be brought to trial because she was found-actually found, mind you-smuggling newspaper articles, defamatory to the Government of this country, for insertion in foreign journals. English sense of justice is reputed to be very keen; your own must tell you that it is hardly fair to bring the battery of your charms as a weapon to break down my sense of duty. I lay, as always, my homage at your feet, but I should be a traitor if, whilst gazing into your adorable eyes, I were to forget what I owe to my country."
Gradually he dropped the irony out of his tone, and his voice became once more mellifluous and tender while he leaned forward, almost touching Rosemary's knees with his, and striving to hold her glance with the challenge of his own. Rosemary shrank back. Suddenly something of the truth had dawned upon her. Not all of it just yet. It was only presently-in a few more days-that she was destined to realize the extent to which this man-half Oriental in his capacity for lying-had hoodwinked and cajoled her. It was his mien, the thinly veiled insult that lurked behind his suave speech and expressive eyes, that suddenly tore the veil from before her own. And yet reason fought for a moment against this wave of aversion. The man was right, unquestionably right. Philip and Anna had been very foolish. And, what is more, they were technically guilty of treason: there was no getting away from that; and Rosemary could not shut her eyes to the fact that the very lives of those she cared for were in the hands of this soft-toned liar. At one moment she longed passionately for Jasper, the next she would dread his coming, for she knew well enough that he, with his straight matter-of-fact mode of thinking, would inevitably give Naniescu his due, insist that the general was within his rights, and advise his wife to keep clear of these imbroglios, which were so contrary to the lenient, sportsmanlike English attitude toward a beaten enemy.
On the whole she felt glad that Jasper was not here. He would hate to see her plead. Yet plead she must. There was nothing else to do. She must plead with fervour, plead with all the strength that she possessed, all the eloquence that she could command.
"In the name of humanity!" That was her chief plea; and with anxious eyes she searched the man's face for the first trace of pity.
"Anna and Philip are so young," she urged. "Mere children."
But Naniescu smiled, that fat, complacent smile of his which she had quickly learned to loathe.
"You would not like me," she said at one moment, "to send an account of it to all the English and American papers. Two children, one under eighteen, the other not yet twenty, arrested in their beds at dead of night, brought to trial for having smuggled a few newspaper articles through the post. "If you do not deal leniently with them—"
"Who said we would not deal leniently with them?" Naniescu broke in blandly. "Surely not I. I am not their judge."
"General Naniescu," she retorted, "I have been in Transylvania long enough to know that your powers here as military governor are supreme. Leniency in this case," she urged insistently, "could only redound to your credit, and to the credit of the country which you serve."
"But frankly, dear lady, I don't see what I can do. The case has passed out of my hands-"
"Send these children home with a caution, Monsieur le General," Rosemary went on pleading. "That is what we would do in England in a like case."
"To hatch more treason," he retorted, with a shrug. "Give us more trouble-more buzzing of bees and pestilential backbiting—"
"No!" she protested hotly. "Not for that, but to be immensely grateful to you for your generosity, and show their gratitude by striving to work for the good of their country, hand in hand with yours."
"Ah, what noble sentiments, dear lady!" General Naniescu said with a sigh, and clapped his white, fat hands together. "I wish I could believe that some of them will sink into those young hotheads."
"They will, general, they will." Rosemary asserted eagerly. "If you will send those two children back to their parents, I will not leave Transylvania until you yourself are satisfied that I have brought them to a reasonable frame of mind."
"A hard task, dear lady," Naniescu said, with a smile.
"I would undertake a harder one than that," Rosemary rejoined, with an answering smile, "to show my appreciation of your generosity."