"Naniescu was anxious to see that our passports were quite in order, and as this is important——"
"You did quite right, dear," Rosemary rejoined gently, "as you always do. I don't suppose the general will keep us long—though he is a terrible talker," she added with a sigh.
A moment or two later the handsome Roumanian came up to Rosemary's table.
"Ah, dear lady," he said, and with habitual elaborate gesture he took her hand and raised it to his lips. "What a joy it is to see that you have fulfilled your promise and that you are here at last."
He sat down at the table but declined Jasper's offer of a liqueur or cup of coffee.
"I am only here for a moment," he said, "overwhelmed with work and with engagements. But I thought it would save you trouble if I just looked at your passports and saw that they were entirely in order."
"That is more than kind," Rosemary rejoined, whilst Jasper went immediately to fetch the passports. For a moment or two Rosemary remained silent and absorbed. An indefinable something had caused her to shrink when she felt General Naniescu's full lips upon her hand—something hostile and portentous. The next moment this feeling had gone, and she was ready to chide herself for it. Naniescu was earnest, persuasive, elaborately polite in manner and florid of speech just as he had been in London, when first he put his proposal before her, and certainly there was not a hint of anything sinister about him.
"I am looking forward to my visit to Transylvania," Rosemary said quite gaily.
"You will find every official there ready to welcome you, dear lady," Naniescu assured her. "You need only express a wish, to find it met in every possible way. And if you should do me the honour of requiring my personal services, needless to say that I should fly immediately to obey your commands."
Rosemary shrugged her pretty shoulders.