"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 roses.
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