e 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, ev