The Girl Philippa
all I ought to know scares me almost to death. It's not modesty; I can
paint as well as many, better than many. But, oh, the long, long way
there is to travel! The stars are very far away, Halkett."
He pitched his easel, secured a canvas, took a freshly-set palette and
brushes from his color-box, and, still standing, went rapidly about his
business, which was to sketch in an impression of what lay before him.
Halkett, watching him over his shoulder, saw the little river begin to
glimmer on the canvas, saw a tender golden light grow and spread,
bathing distant hills; saw the pale azure of an arching sky faintly
tinting with reflections the delicate green of herbage still powdered
with the morning dew.
"This is merely a note," remarked Warner, painting away leisurely but
steadily. "Some day I may pose my models somewhere outdoors under
similar weather conditions; and you may see dragoons in their saddles,
carbines poised, the sunlight enveloping horses and men--or perhaps a
line of infantry advancing in open order with shrapnel exploding in
their faces.... Death in the summer sunshine is the most terrifying of
tragedies.... I remember once after Lule Burgas---- Never mind, I
shan't spoil the peaceful beauty of such a morning.
"War? War _here_!--In this still meadow, bathed in the heavenly
fragrance of midsummer! ... Well, Halkett, the government of any nation
which _attacks_ another nation is criminal, and all the arguments of
church and state and diplomacy cannot change that hellish fact.
"There is only one right in any combat, only one side in any war. And
no reasoning under the sun can invest an aggressor with that right.
"He who first draws and strikes forestalls God's verdict."
Halkett said:
"How about your own wars?"
"Halkett, the United States is the only nation which ever entered a war
from purely sentimental reasons. It was so in the Revolution; it was so
in 1812, in the War of Secession, in Mexico, in the Cuban War.
"All our wars have been undertaken in response to armed aggression; all
were begun and carried on in defense of purely sentimental principles.
I do not say it because I am a Yankee, but our record is pretty clean,
so far, in a world which, since our birth, has accused us of ruthless
materialism."
He continued to paint for a while in silence; and when his color notes
were sufficiently complete for his purpose, and when the Harem had filed
before the canvas and had adoringly inspected it, Warner packed up his
kit, and, taking the wet canvas, walked with Halkett back to the Golden
Peach.
There Halkett was made acquainted with Madame Arlon, the stout, smiling
proprietress of the inn, who sturdily refused to believe that war was
possible, and who explained why to Halkett with animation while Warner
went indoors to deposit his sketches in his studio.
He returned presently, saying that he would take Halkett to Sister
Eila's school across the fields; so the two young men lighted their
pipes and strolled away together through the sunshine.
Eastward, far afield, the gay aprons and sunbonnets of the Harem still
dotted the distance with flecks of color; beyond, the Recollette
glimmered, and beyond that hazy hills rolled away southward toward the
Vosges country.
Halkett looked soberly into the misty east.
"It won't come from that direction," he said, half to himself.
Warner glanced up, understood, and sauntered on in silence.
"By the way," remarked the Englishman, "I shall stay here tonight."
"I'm very glad," returned Warner cordially.
"So am I, Warner. Ours is an agreeable--acquaintance."
"It amounts to a little more than that, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It's a friendship, I hope."
"I hope so."
After a moment he added laughingly:
"I've fixed up your bally envelope for you."
"How?"
"Covered it with a thick, glossy layer of Chinese white. I put in a
dryer. In a day or two I shall make a pretty little picture on it. And
nobody on earth could suspect that embedded under the paint and varnish
of my canvas your celebrated document reposes."
They took a highway to the left, narrow and tree-shaded.
"When do you get the newspapers here?" inquired Halkett.
"After lunch, usually. The _Petit Journal d'Ausone_ arrives then.
Nobody bothers with any Paris papers. But I think I shall subscribe,
now.... There's the school, just ahead."
It was a modern and very plain two-storied building of stone and white
stucco, covered with new red tiles. A few youthful vines were beginning
to climb gratefully toward the lower window sills; young linden trees
shaded it. A hum, like the low, incessant murmur of a hive, warned them
as they approached that the children were reciting in unison; and they
halted at the open door.
Inside the big, clean room, the furniture of which was a stove and a
score or more of desks, two dozen little girls, neatly but very poorly
dressed, stood beside their desks reciting. On a larger desk stood a
glass full of flowers which Halkett recognized; and beside this desk,
slenderly erect, he saw Sister Eila, facing the children, her white
hands linked behind her back.
Seated behind the same desk was another Sister--a buxom one with the
bright, clear coloring of a healthy peasant--more brilliant, even, for
the white wimple, collarette, and wide-winged headdress which seemed to
accent the almost riotous tint of physical health.
The childish singsong presently ceased; Sister Eila turned pensively,
took a step or two, lifted her eyes, and beheld Halkett and Warner at
the doorway.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Please come in, Messieurs. I have been wondering
whether Mr. Warner would bring you before luncheon.... Sister Felicite,
this is Monsieur Halkett, who so amiably aided me to gather my bouquet
this morning."
Sister Felicite became all animation and vigor; she was cordial to
Halkett, greeted Warner with the smiling confidence of long
acquaintance.
It lacked only a few minutes to noon, and so lessons were suspended, and
the children put through one or two drills for Halkett's benefit.
Out in the kitchen a good, nourishing broth was simmering for them, and
Sister Eila slipped away during the brief exhibition to prepare
twenty-four bowls and spoons and tartines for these ever-hungry little
children of the poor, orphaned for the most part, or deserted, or having
parents too poor to feed them.
At noon Sister Felicite dismissed the school; and the little girls
formed in line very demurely and filed off to the kitchen.
"What a delicious odor!" exclaimed Halkett, nose in the air.
Sister Felicite sniffed the soup.
"We do our best," she said. "The poor little things fatten here, God be
praised." And, to Warner, in her vigorous, alert manner: "What is all
this talk concerning war? The children prattle about it. They must
have heard such gossip among the quarry people."
Warner said:
"It begins to look rather serious, Sister."
"Is it Germany again?"
"I fear so."
Sister Felicite's pink cheeks flushed:
"Is it the noisy boaster who rules those Germans who would bring the
sword upon us again? Is there not enough of barbaric glory in his
Empire for him and his that he should invade the civilized world to seek
for more? It is a vile thing for any man, be he ruler or subject, to
add one featherweight to the crushing burden of the world's misery!"
"To declare war is the heaviest of all responsibilities," admitted
Warner.
"Is it already declared?"
"No. That is to say, Austria has declared war against Servia, Russia is
mobilizing, and Germany has warned her."
"Is that an excuse for anybody to attack France?"
"Russia is mobilizing, Sister," he repeated meaningly.
"What then?"
"France must follow."
"And then?"
Warner shrugged his shoulders.
Sister Eila came out, nodding to Sister Felicite, who usually presided
at the lunch hour: and the latter went away with Warner toward the
kitchen, still plying the American with questions. Sister Eila bent her
head, inhaled the perfume of the flowers on her desk, and then looked up
at Halkett.
"Don't you ever lunch?" he asked.
"Yes; I tasted the soup. You lunch at one at the inn."
"I suppose so. What a charming country this is--this little hamlet of
Sais! Such exquisite peace and stillness I have seldom known."
Sister Eila's eyes grew vague; she looked out through the sunny doorway
across the fields towards a range of low hills. The quarries were
there.
"It is a tranquil country," she said pensively, "but there is misery,
too. Life in the quarries is hard, and wages are not high."
"Mr. Warner tells me they are a hard lot, these quarrymen."
"There is intemperance among the quarrymen, and among the cement
workers, too: and there is roughness and violence--and crime, sometimes.
But it is a very hard _metier_, Mr. Halkett, and the lime dust blinds
and sears and incites a raging thirst. God knows there is some excuse
for the drunkenness there. We who are untempted must remain gentle in
our judgments."
"I could not imagine Sister Eila judging anybody harshly."
Sister Eila looked up and laughed:
"Oh, Mr. Halkett, I have confessed to impatience too many times to
believe that I could ever acquire patience. Only today I scolded our
children because they tore down a poster which had been pasted on the
public wall at the crossroad. I said to them very severely, 'It is a
sin to destroy what others have paid for to advertise their
merchandise.'"
"That was a terrible scolding," admitted Halkett, laughing.
"I'll show you the poster," volunteered Sister Eila, going over to her
desk. Raising the lid, she picked up and displayed an advertisement.
*CHAPTER VIII*
Halkett looked curiously at this specimen of a poster which was already
very familiar to him. The dead walls of northern and eastern France and
Belgium had been plastered with such advertisements for the last year or
two, extolling the Savon de Calypso. But what had recently interested
Halkett in these soap advertisements was that posters, apparently
exactly similar, appeared to differ considerably in detail when examined
minutely.
The picture in this advertisement represented, as always, the nymph,
Calypso, seated upon the grass, looking out over the sea where the sun
shone in a cloudless sky upon a fleet of Grecian ships which were
sailing away across the blue waves of the AEgean.
Where details varied was in the number of ships in the fleet, the number
and grouping of sails, sea birds flying, of waves, and of clouds--when
there were any of the latter--the number of little white or blue or pink
blossoms in the grass, the height of the sun above the horizon line and
the number and size of its rays.
There was always at least one ship--never more than a dozen; he had
counted twenty white blossoms on some posters; varying numbers on
others, of white, of blue, or of pink, but never less than three of any
one color. Sometimes there were no sea birds.
As for the sun, sometimes it hung well above the ocean, often its yellow
circle dipped into it, and then again only the rays spread fanlike above
the horizon line.
And concerning the nymph, her pose and costume did not seem to vary at
all in the various poster specimens which he had seen; the wind was
always blowing her red hair and white, transparent scarf; she always sat
gazing laughingly seaward, one hand resting on the grass, the other
clutching a cake of soap to her bosom.
Still examining the sheet of paper, he counted the white flowers
scattered over the grass around the seated nymph. There were _ten_ of
them.
"Sister Eila," he said carelessly, "how many kilometers is it to the