"If you dare to touch me, you miserable——"
But suddenly stronger arms than those of the soldiers were thrown around him and forced him back into the chair. They were his wife's arms. Elza Imrey throughout all this had thought of nothing but the danger to Philip. The humiliation of this descent upon her house, the insolent attitude of the soldiers, this bringing home the fact of alien occupation and alien government, hardly affected her. Her one thought was Philip. The danger to Philip doubled and trebled by his father's ungoverned temper. And, my God, if he should strike one of the soldiers! So she held Maurus down, held her hand across his mouth; and Rosemary could hear her whispering in a thick, choked voice:
"Maurus, in God's name! Maurus, keep quiet! Maurus, for Philip's sake, hold your tongue!"
He struggled desperately, but she held him as only a mother can hold that which threatens her child. The soldier looked on with a sardonic smile. When Maurus at last was forced into silence, he shrugged his shoulders and said drily:
"You are very wise, madame, to keep M. le Comte's temper in check for him. My orders are that if any resistance is offered to take all three of you along. I need not tell you that after that you two will be sent packing out of the country, and your son——"
A cry from Elza broke into his complacent speech. At once she became humble, cringing, all the pride of the aristocrat was submerged in the devastating anxiety of the mother. She still held Maurus down, for she dared not loosen her hold on him, but she turned a tear-stained face, pathetic-looking in its expression of appeal, toward the Roumanian.
"You must not take any notice of his lordship, captain," she said, trying in vain to speak lightly and to steady her voice. "You—you have known him for years, haven't you? You remember—he was always a little excitable—you used to amuse yourselves—you and your brother officers—by making him angry with one of the peasants, and seeing the men's terror of him? You remember," she reiterated, with the same pathetic effort at conciliation, "when we were at Tusnàd and you were in garrison at Sinaia, you used to motor over for luncheons and balls and——"
"It is not a part of a soldier's duty, madame," the young soldier broke in curtly, "to remember such incidents. If M. le Comte will cease to insult my men, we will leave him in peace. Otherwise you both come with me."
He turned sharply on his heel and spoke with one of his men. Apparently he was willing to give Maurus Imrey time to make up his mind what he would do. Rosemary still could hear Elza's voice thick and hoarse with anxiety.
"Maurus, in the name of Heaven——" The same refrain, the same reiterated prayer for submission, the one thing that would help to make Philip's lot easier. They could not do anything to Philip, of course. What had the poor lad done? Nothing. The mother racked her brain, thinking, thinking what he had done. Nothing. He had taken the oath of allegiance to the new King. Next year he would do his military service, a perfect hell; but Philip had never grumbled. And he had never joined in with those senseless political groups who met at night in out-of-the-way places about Cluj and dreamed dreams of freeing Hungary one day. Philip had never done anything so foolish. This cloud, therefore, would blow over. It was all a mistake, a misunderstanding. With silence and submission it would all blow over.