"Why, of course."
"You are not too tired after all this running about?"
"I?" he exclaimed with a laugh. "Tired? When it is a question of being near you!"
He tried to capture her wrist, but she evaded him and ran quickly through the hall and up the stairs. Before going into her room she called down to him:
"If we use your motor we need not start before eleven o'clock, and there is still a chance of Elza being home before then."
It was just before dinner that the culminating tragedy occurred. Rosemary was in her room, when she heard loud commotion coming from the hall—harsh, peremptory voices, a word or two from Anton, and then Jasper's voice raised as if in protest. She opened her door, and to her horror saw a squad of soldiers in the hall, and between them an officer, and a man in civilian clothes who had an official-looking paper in his hand and was apparently explaining something to Jasper.
"I regret, my lord, but these are my orders," the man was saying, "and I cannot enter into any discussion with you."
Jasper tried to protest again. "But surely——" he began. The man, however, cut him short.
"If you like," he said, "I can allow you to see Count Imrey first, but this order I must deliver into his own hands."
Rosemary in the meanwhile had run downstairs.