But Elza's round blue eyes were still staring at her.
"I don't understand you, dear," she murmured vaguely.
"Of course you don't, darling," Rosemary rejoined gently; "but you will when you have read what I have written. The gipsy was quite right; it is in my power to save Philip and Anna, but only to a certain extent, because it is you alone who can decide if I am to exercise that power or not. God bless you, darling!"
She put her arms round Elza and kissed her tenderly. Thank Heaven all self-pity, all selfish introspection had gone from her. Her thoughts, her love, her pity were all for Elza. But it had to be. Elza must decide. Her people! Her son! She must decide!
When Rosemary hastened across the lawn she turned once more toward the summer house. Elza was still sitting there, staring with big, blue eyes into vacancy. Every line of her attitude indicated bewilderment. She had the packet of paper in her hand and was tapping it against her knee. Poor Elza! A heavy sob rose from Rosemary's aching heart.
[CHAPTER XXXI]
Rosemary did not sec Elza again that day. Just before dinner Rosa came with a short scribbled note from her. "Maurus is very restless," it said, "I don't like to leave him. Will you and dear Lord Tarkington forgive me if I don't join you at dinner?"
The evening was dreary. Jasper said very little, and Rosemary felt thoroughly out of tune with him; he had a meek air about him that irritated her. Hers was not a nature to sympathize with remorse, and Jasper's manner gave the idea that he regretted having forced her into a decision. So she gave curt answers when he spoke to her, and after dinner he retired into the smoking-room with the excuse that he had some business letters to write. She sat reading most of the evening, her nerves on edge, hearing all sorts of mysterious sounds through the apparent stillness of the house.
When Jasper came to say "good night" she felt sorry for him. He looked forlorn and miserable, and reason told Rosemary that he of all people ought not to be allowed to suffer through a situation that was none of his making. Poor Jasper! She, his wife, had dragged him, unwillingly enough, into this impasse wherein his quiet habits of a wealthy English gentleman were hopelessly perturbed and his outlook outraged at every point. So, after she had returned his last kiss and saw him going upstairs, slowly, dragging one step after another, almost like an old man, she ran after him and linked her arm in his, and gave him a tender and sympathetic smile. The look of gratitude which he gave her in return warmed her heart. Here at least was no divided duty. In a moment of pique—it was nothing less than that—she had linked her fate with Jasper Tarkington, accepted from him all the lavish gifts that wealth could buy, and which he so generously bestowed upon her. In exchange for that he only asked for her love; and if the love which he gave and demanded did not reach that sublime ideal of which Rosemary had once dreamed, at any rate it was loyal and ungrudging, and she had no right to let her caprice stand in the way of his happiness.
It was perhaps strange that these thoughts should come to her at a moment when her whole soul was torn with a terrible sorrow and a racking anxiety; perhaps they came because on this very day she had made the greatest abdication of her will that she had ever done in all her life. She had always acted for herself, judged for herself, set herself a high standard of straight living and straight thinking, and lived up to it. To-day she had left a decision which should have been hers in the hands of another. She knew that she had done right, but her pride was humiliated, and to soothe that pride she set herself a fresh standard of duty to Jasper and determined to live up to that.