One or two servants came through the hall, busy with their work. Elza had something to say, some order to give to all of them.
"Tell the chef," she said to Anton, "to come and speak to me here. And don't go into the gracious count's room until I call you."
Rosemary lingered in the hall a moment or two longer, until the chef, in immaculate white, tall linen cap in hand, came for his orders. Elza immediately entered into a long conversation with him on the subject of milk rolls for breakfast. And Rosemary at last went slowly up the stairs. Almost without knowing it, she found herself once more in her room, the pretty, old-fashioned room with the huge bedstead and the curtains embroidered in cross-stitch. How pretty it looked, and how peaceful! Through the open window came the sound of bird-song; a blackbird was whistling, a thrush was singing, a hundred sparrows were chirruping, and on the large lily leaves on the ornamental lake a frog was sitting croaking. So peaceful, so still! And, Heavens above, what a tragedy within these walls!
For a while Rosemary stood at the open window gazing out upon the beautiful panorama laid out before her, the prim, well-kept garden, the flower borders, the shady park, and out, far away, the wooded heights, the forests of oak and pine which the morning sun had just tinted with gold.
And with a sudden impulse Rosemary fell on her knees, just where she was, at the open window, and she stretched out her arms towards the Invisible, the Unattainable, the Almighty, and from her heart there came a cry, forced through her lips by the intensity of despair:
"Oh God! My God! Tell me what to do!"
[CHAPTER XXVI]
If Rosemary had been gifted with second sight! She would have seen at the moment when she, in despair, turned to the great Healer for comfort, General Naniescu and his friend, M. de Kervoisin, enjoying their petit déjeuner in one of the palatial rooms of the Imreys' house in Cluj. M. de Kervoisin had arrived the night before. He was the guest of the general, and after a night's rest was enjoying the company of his host, as well as the luxury of these beautiful apartments so thoughtfully placed at the disposal of the military Governor of Transylvania by the Roumanian Government.
M. de Kervoisin was also enjoying the anxieties to which his friend was a prey in his capacity of Governor of this unruly country. There is something in a friend's troubles that is not altogether displeasing to a philosopher. And M. de Kervoisin was a philosopher. He had come over to give advice to his friend, and the rôle of adviser in a difficult situation was one which he knew how to fulfil with infinite discretion and supreme tact. Just now, while sipping a cup of most excellent café-au-lait, he listened with every mark of sympathy to Naniescu's account of the terrible trouble he was having with a certain obstinate lady journalist who would not do what he wanted.
"I have only asked her," he lamented, "for a few articles to be published in the Times which would put us right with the British and American public; but you know what women are. They never see further than their noses. And this one, damn her, is like a mule. So far I have not been able to move her."