"No," she retorted, "for I can always walk to the frontier."
"Over mountain passes?" he queried, with a smile.
But she only gave a scornful shrug. "Accept the inevitable?" How little he knew her. The more she saw difficulties ahead, the more she felt ready for a fight. Time was still in her favour. Hódmezö was not far with its telegraph service, and Naniescu's power did not extend beyond the frontier.
Always supposing that Elza did wish her to wire.
Rosemary thought things over for a moment or two; then she said to Jasper: "Very well! I'll possess myself in patience for twenty-four hours. Will you see about rooms at the hotel? And I suppose this man will see about our luggage being taken across?"
"Of course I'll see to everything, dear," Jasper said meekly. "But you would like some breakfast, wouldn't you?"
"No," Rosemary replied; "I am going for a walk. I should be such poor company at breakfast."
[CHAPTER XLI]
Meekly and obediently Jasper went off to see after the luggage, and Rosemary wandered away as far as the village. Her first thought was to ascertain definitely whether indeed there was no chance of hiring some sort of conveyance to take her as far as Hódmezö. The first man she spoke to was the keeper of the inevitable grocery store. He had heard a rumour that there was a block on the railway line somewhere near the frontier, and this annoyed him very much because he was expecting a consignment of maize from Hungary, and he supposed that he would not now get it for two or three days. He had no horse. Hadn't had one since the beginning of the war, when his nag was commandeered. Now even an old crock was so dear it did not pay to buy.
Rosemary asked him if he knew of anyone in the village from whom she could hire a horse and cart to take her as far as the frontier, but the man shook his head. The Jew at the hotel had two horses, and the priest had one, but the military were down from the barracks yesterday and took those away. There were manœuvres in progress somewhere, it seems. The soldiers said they would bring the horses back in two or three days, but it was very hard and inconvenient for everybody when that sort of thing was done.