The Ogre remained in Prague a week, and took Anne-Marie on the Moldau and to the White Mountain, to the Stromovka and the Petrin Hill. Bemolle was frantic. For six days Anne-Marie had not touched the violin. He had looked forward to long hours of music with Anne-Marie, and had prepared her entire repertoire carefully in contrasting programmes for the English visitor's pleasure. But the English visitor would have none of it, or very little, and that little not of the best. Not much Beethoven, scarcely any Bach, no Brahms! Only Schubert and Grieg. Short pieces! Then the large man would get up and shake hands, first with Anne-Marie, then with Bemolle, and say "Thank you, thank you," and the music was over.

On the last day of his stay he came before luncheon, and went to the valley of the Sarka alone with "Miss Brown"—he never called Nancy anything else, and she loved the name. It was a clear midsummer day. The country was alight with poppies, like a vulgar summer hat. The heart of Miss Brown was sad.

"I leave this evening," he said, "at 8.40."

"You have told me that twenty times," said Miss Brown.

"I like you to think of it," he said; and she did not answer. "I am going back to the mines, back to Peru—"

"You have said that two hundred times," said Miss Brown pettishly.

He paid no attention. "To Peru," he continued, "and I may have to stay there a year, or two years ... to look after the mine. Then I return." He coughed. "Or—I do not return."

No answer.

"You have not changed your mind about going to Italy and writing your book?"

"No," said Nancy, with little streaks of white on each side of her nostrils.

"I thought not."

Then they walked along for a quarter of an hour in silence. The wind ran over the grasses, and the birds sang.

"Nancy!" he said. It was the first time he had called her by her name. She covered her face and began to cry. He did not attempt to comfort her. After a while he said, "Sit down," and she sat on the grass and went on crying.

"Do you love me very much?" he asked.

"Dreadfully," said Nancy, looking up at him helplessly through her tears.

He sat down beside her.

"And do you know that I love you very much?"

"Yes, I know," sobbed Nancy.

There was a short silence. Then he said:

"In one of your letters long ago you wrote: 'This love across the distance, without the aid of any one of our senses, this is the Blue Rose of love, the mystic marvel blown in our souls for the delight of Heaven.' Shall we pluck it, Nancy, and wear it for our own delight?"

The grasses curtseyed and the river ran. He took her hand from her face. Nancy looked at him, and the tears brimmed over.

"Then," she said brokenly, "it would not be the Blue Rose any more."

"True," he said.

"Then it would be a common, everyday, pink-faced flower like every other."

"True," he said again.

She withdrew her hand from his. Then his hand remained on his knee in the sunshine, a large brown hand, strong, but lonely.

"Oh, dear Unknown!" said Nancy; and she bent forward and kissed the lonely hand. "Do not let us throw our blue dream-rose away!"

"Very well," he said—"very well, dear little Miss Brown." And he kissed her forehead for the second time.

That evening he went back to his mines.