“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.”