"Not for days--weeks----" she insisted, "and I waited for a sign--a letter----"
"I only understood," she retorted with cold irony, "that you blamed yourself for having engaged my young affections--that you had your way to make in the world before you could think of asking a girl to share your poverty--and so on--and so on--every time we met--and in every letter you wrote--whilst I----
"Whilst you did not understand, Peter," she went on more calmly. "Whilst you spoke of the future, of winning fame and fortune----"
"For you, Rosemary!" he cried involuntarily, and buried his head in his hands. "I was only thinking of you----"
"You were not thinking of me, Peter, or you would have known that there was no poverty or toil I would not gladly have shared with the man I loved."
"Yes, poverty--toil--on an equal footing, Rosemary; but you were rich, famous: already you had the world at your feet----"
"And you did not care for me enough, Peter," she said with a note of fatality in her voice, "to accept wealth, comfort, help in your career from me----"
"Peter Blakeney the cricketer," he declaimed with biting sarcasm; "don't you know, he is the husband of Rosemary Fowkes now. What a glorious career for a man, eh, to be the husband of a world-famous wife?"
"It would only have been for a time," she protested.
"A time during which youth would have flown away on the wings of life, taking with it honour, manhood, dignity----"
There was silence between them after that. The last word had been spoken, the immutable word of Fate. Peter still sat with his head buried in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees--a hunched-up figure weighed down by the heavy hand of an inexorable past.
Rosemary looked down at the bent head, and there, in the shadow where no one could see save the immortal recorder of sorrows and of tears, a look of great tenderness and of pity crept into her haunting eyes. It was only for a moment. With a great effort of will she shook herself free from the spell that for a while had held possession of her soul. With a deliberate gesture she drew back the curtain, so that her face and figure became all at once flooded with light, she looked down upon the kaleidoscopic picture below: the dusky orchestra had once more begun to belch forth hideous sounds, and hellish screams; the puppets on the dancing floor began one by one to resume their gyrations. Several among the crowd, looking up, saw and recognised Rosemary: she smiled and nodded to them, waved her fan in recognition. She was Rosemary Fowkes once more, the most talked-of woman in England, the fiancée of Jasper Tarkington, queen of her set, admired, adulated, the comet of the past two seasons.