Rosa Mundi | Page 8

made her see."
Rosemary suddenly closed her hand upon the shining stone, and turned fully and resolutely to the man beside her.
"That night changed Rosa Mundi," she said; "changed her completely. Before it was over she wrote to the young man who loved her and told him that she could not marry him. The letter did not go till the following evening. She kept it back for a few hours--in case she repented. But--though she suffered--she did not repent. In the evening she had an engagement to dance. The young man was there--in the front row. And he brought his friend. She danced. Her dancing was superb that night. She had a passionate desire to bewitch the man who had waked her soul--as she had bewitched so many others. She had never met a man she could not conquer. She was determined to conquer him. Was it wrong? Anyway, it was human. She danced till her very heart was on fire, danced till she trod the clouds. Her audience went mad with the delight of it. They raved as if they were intoxicated. All but one man! All but one man! And he--at the end--he looked her just once in the eyes, stonily, piercingly, and went away." She uttered a sharp, choking breath. "I have nearly done," she said. "Can you guess what happened then? Perhaps you know. The man who loved her received her letter when he got back that night. And--and--she had bewitched him, remember; he--shot himself. The friend--the writer--she never saw again. But--but--Rosa Mundi has never forgotten him. She carries him in her heart--the man who taught her the meaning of life."
She ceased to speak, and suddenly, like a boy, sprang to her feet, tossing away the stone that she had treasured in her hand.
But the man was almost as quick as she. He caught her by the shoulder as he rose. "Wait!" he said. "Wait!" His voice rang hard, but there was no hardness in his eyes. "Tell me--who you are!"
She lifted her eyes to his fearlessly, without shame. "What does it matter who I am?" she said. "What does it matter? I have told you I am Rosemary. That is her name for me, and it was your book called Remembrance that made her give it me."
He held her still, looking at her with a growing compassion in his eyes. "You are her child," he said.
She smiled. "Perhaps--spiritually. Yes, I think I am her child, such a child as she might have been if--Fate--had been kind to her--- or if she had read your book before--and not after."
He let her go slowly, almost with reluctance. "I think I should like to meet your--Rosa Mundi," he said.
Her eyes suddenly shone. "Not really? You are in earnest? But--but--- you would hurt her. You despise her."
"I am sorry for her," he said, and there was a hint of doggedness in his voice, as though he spoke against his better judgment.
The child's face had an eager look, but she seemed to be restraining herself. "I ought to tell you one thing about her first," she said. "Perhaps you will disapprove. I don't know. But it is because of you--and your revelation--that she is doing it. Rosa Mundi is going to be married. No, she is not giving up her career or anything--except her freedom. Her old lover has come back to her. She is going to marry him now. He wants her for his wife."
"Ah!" It was the man who was eager now. He spoke impulsively. "She will be happy then? She loves him?"
Rosemary looked at him with her clear, unfaltering eyes. "Oh, no," she said. "He isn't that sort of man at all. Besides, there is only one man in the world that she could care for in that way. No, she doesn't love him. But she is doing the right thing, and she is going to be good. You will not despise her any more?"
There was such anxious appeal in her eyes that he could not meet it. He turned his own away.
There fell a silence between them, and through it the long, long roar of the sea rose up--a mighty symphony of broken chords.
The man moved at last, looked down at the slight boyish figure beside him, hesitated, finally spoke. "I still think that I should like to meet Rosa Mundi," he said.
Her eyes smiled again. "And you will not despise her now," she said, her tone no longer a question.
"I think," said Randal Courteney slowly, "that I shall never despise any one again."
"Life is so difficult," said Rosemary, with the air of one who knew.
* * * * *
They were strewing the Pier with roses for Rosa Mundi's night. There were garlands of roses, festoons of roses, bouquets of roses; roses overhead, roses under foot, everywhere