He settled himself down on the sofa and tried to draw her down to him. But Rosemary was not in the mood for sentiment. Reason whispered to her that Jasper was right--he was always right, worse luck!--she knew that Philip Imrey had acted foolishly--very, very foolishly--and that, as a matter of fact, in this case the commandant (or whoever was responsible for Philip's arrest) was entirely within his rights. She, certainly as an impartial spectator of events, brought here for the express purpose of seeing the truth and nothing but the truth, could not in conscience make capital of this incident. She had come out here determined not to act on impulse, but to judge coolly and without bias, and thus to consolidate her reputation as one of the foremost women journalists of the day. With Sir Philip Gibbs as her master, and model, she could not go back on the ideal of justice and impartiality which she had set herself. But she did want to save Philip Imrey from the consequences of his own folly. And, above all, she wanted to know what had become of Anna.
"I cannot leave them alone, Jasper," she said slowly. "I cannot. All this petty tyranny makes my blood boil."
Jasper sighed somewhat impatiently. "I know, my dear, I know," he reiterated vaguely.
Rosemary did not continue the discussion for the moment; Jasper was so right in everything he said, and Philip Imrey had been desperately foolish. Now she blamed herself for not having worked on Anna's mind and dissuaded her from lending herself to her cousin's mad schemes. She mentioned Anna's name to her husband, but Jasper knowing nothing of the girl's dangerous activities in Balog's grocery stores, could not, of course, see that Anna was in any kind of danger.
"But," Rosemary argued, "Anna and Philip are first cousins, they see a great deal of one another----"
"Do they?" Jasper ejaculated. "But even so, my dear, you surely are not going to suppose that the Roumanian government is going to lay hands on all Philip Imrey's relations, just because he has run his silly head into a noose."
But she could not say anything more on the subject of Anna. Anna had told her everything in confidence: "I know I can trust you, Rosemary," the child had said, and Rosemary could not betray that confidence--not even by speaking of it all to Jasper--not even by hinting at it. If the peril became more imminent--if Anna herself was in danger--then perhaps. But not now.