"Philip is coming home with Anna!" she cried as soon as she caught sight of Rosemary.
"Who told you?" Rosemary asked.
"General Naniescu sent his captain to tell me. I only knew it five minutes ago. But oh, my dear, they have been such five minutes!"
Rosemary kissed her with tender affection. She did not feel somehow as if she could say much.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Elza went on while she put a few finishing touches to her toilet. "And has not Naniescu been kind? Of course I knew that they could not do anything to Philip because he has done nothing, and I don't believe that Anna did anything either. But you know, my dear, these days some awful mistakes do occur. But," she added lightly, "I have so often experienced it in life that men are not nearly so cruel as they are credited to be. One is so apt to pass judgment on insufficient evidence. Give a man the chance of doing a kind act, that is my motto, and he will nearly always do it."
Fortunately that Elza was rather fussy for the moment, fidgeting about the room and obviously trying to calm her nerves, so she did not notice Rosemary's silent, unresponsive way.
"When do you expect Philip and Anna?" Rosemary said at last.
"This afternoon," Elza exclaimed, and her words rang out like a little cry of joy. "And you know Maurus is so happy that he has actually gone down in order to say something civil to Naniescu, who, of course, is staying for lunch. Well," she added after a moment or two, when she had gathered up her keys, her rings, her handkerchief, and given a final tap to her hair, "shall we go down too?"
Without a word Rosemary followed her. She felt as if she must choke. Elza's happiness was going to be the most severe trial of all during this terrible month that lay ahead of her.
"Oh, and I was almost forgetting," Elza resumed, while she tripped lightly along the gallery towards the stairs, "the smaller joy beside the greater—the greatest one! I have heard from Peter Blakeney."