The Girl Philippa
"Do you not trust a French Sister of Charity sufficiently to tell her?"
"What man would not trust a daughter of St. Vincent de Paul?" he said
pleasantly.
"Then tell me. Perhaps I already guess. Has it to do with your
knowledge of German advertisements?"
He was silent.
"You are evidently a British agent." Her deep, grey eyes grew more
earnest. "You are _more_!" she said, clasping her hands with sudden
conviction. "I suspected it the first time I saw you----"
"Please do not say to anybody what it is that you suspect----"
"You are a British officer!" she exclaimed.
"Sister Eila; you could do me much harm by mentioning to others this
belief of yours, or anything concerning this affair. And--do you
remember that you once said you trusted me?"
"I said it--yes."
"Do you still have confidence in me?"
Their eyes met steadily.
"Yes," she said. "I believe you to be a friend to France, and to me."
A slight flush edged the snowy wimple which framed the lovely oval of
her face.
"I _am_ your friend; and I am a friend to France--I say as much as that
to you. I say it because of what you are, and because--you are _you_.
But ask me no more, Sister. For men of my profession there are
confessionals as secret and as absolute in authority as those which
shrive the soul."
He hesitated, his eyes shifted from her to the fresh flowers on the
desk, which they had both gathered; he reached over and drew a white
blossom from the glass.
"May I take it with me?"
She bent her head in silence.
Then he turned to go through the deadly doorway, carrying his flower in
his hand; but, as he walked out into the sunshine, Sister Eila stepped
swiftly in front of him, turned on the doorstep, screening him with
extended arms.
"This is the best way," she said. "They ought to see quite clearly that
I am a Sister of Charity, and they won't fire at me----"
But he tried to push her aside and spring past her:
"Stand clear of me, for God's sake!" he said.
"Wait----"
"Sister! Are you insane?"
"_You_ must be, Mr. Halkett----"
"Keep away, I tell you----"
"Please don't be rough with me----"
He tried to avoid her, but her strong, young hands had caught both his
wrists.
"They won't shoot at a Sister of Charity!" she repeated. "--And I shall
not permit them to murder you! Be reasonable! I am not afraid."
She held on to his wrists, keeping always between him and the distant
glimmer of the river:
"I shall walk to the road with you this way; don't try to shake me off;
I am strong, I warn you!" She was even laughing now. "Please do not
wriggle! Only schoolboys wriggle. Do you suppose I am _afraid_? Since
when, Monsieur, have Sisters of Charity taken cover from the enemies of
France?"
"This is shameful for me----"
"You behave, as I have said, like a very bad schoolboy, Mr. Halkett----"
He tried vainly to place himself between her and the river, but could
not disengage her grasp without hurting her. Then, over his shoulder,
he saw three men come out of the river willows.
"You shall not take this risk----" he insisted.
"Please listen----"
"I take no risk worth mentioning. It was you who would have walked out
to face their fire--with that smile on your lips and a flower in your
hand! Did you think that a Grey Sister would permit that? Soyez
convenable, Monsieur. They will not fire while I am walking beside
you." She looked over her shoulder. One of the men by the willows was
raising a rifle.
They reached the highway at the same moment, and the roadside bank
sheltered them. Here she released his arm.
"I beg you to be a little reasonable," she said. "You must leave Sais at
once. Promise me, Mr. Halkett----"
"I cannot."
"Why?"
"Sister, if I am really a soldier, as you suppose me to be, perhaps I
have--_orders_--to remain at Sais."
"Have you?" she asked frankly.
He turned and looked at her:
"Yes, little comrade."
"That is really serious."
"It must not cause you any anxiety. I shall 'wriggle'--as you say--out
of this mess when the time comes. I may start tonight."
"For London? Do you wriggle as far as that?"
He said gravely:
"You know more about me now from my own lips than I would admit, even
prompted by a firing squad. I trusted you even before you faced death
for me on that doorstep a moment ago. _Did you see that man come out of
the willows and level his rifle at us?_"
She said tranquilly:
"We daughters of St. Vincent de Paul never heed such things."
"I know you don't; I know what are your traditions. Many a Sister of
your Order has fallen under rifle and shell fire on the battlefields of
the world; many have died of the pest in hospitals; many have succumbed
to exposure. The history of modern war is the history of the Grey
Sisters. What you have just done, as a matter of course, is already
part of that history. And so--" he looked down at her crucifix and
rosary--"and so, Sister, and comrade, I shall tell you what it would not
be possible for me to admit to any other living soul in France. Yes; I
_am_ a British officer on special and secret duty. I left the United
States two weeks ago. Trouble began in Holland. I am now on my way to
London. Orders came today halting me at Sais. Enemies of France are
annoying me--people who are becoming more desperate and more determined
as the hours pass and the moment approaches swiftly when they can no
longer hope to interfere with me. That moment will come when war is
declared. It will be declared. I shall be very glad to arrive in
England. Now I have told you almost everything, Sister Eila. My honor
is in your keeping; my devotion is for my own country, for France--and
for you."
"I have made one vow of silence," she said simply. "I shall make
another--never to breathe one word of this."
"You need not. Just say to me that you will not speak."
Her lovely face became as solemn as a child's:
"I shall not speak, Mr. Halkett."
"That settles it," he said. "If it lay with me, I'd trust you with
every secret in our War Office!" He checked himself, hesitated, then:
"Sister Eila, if anything happens to me, go to Mr. Warner and ask him
for _that envelope_. There are sure to be British soldiers in France
before very long. Give that envelope to some British officer."
After a moment she laughed:
"Englishmen are odd--odd! They are just boys. They are delightful. I
shall do what you ask.... And there is your inn.... Am I tired? _I_?
Vous plaisantez, Monsieur! But, Mr. Halkett, what would be the object
in your walking back with me? I should only have to walk back here
again with you! It would continue _ad infinitum_."
They both laughed.
"When trouble finally comes, and if I am hit, I pray I may lie in your
ward," he said gayly.
Her smile faded:
"I shall pray so, too," she said.
"I'd feel like a little boy safe in his own nursery," he added, still
smiling.
"I am--happy--to have you think of me in that way." Her smile glimmered
anew in her eyes. "I should be a devoted nurse." She made him a
friendly little signal of adieu and turned away.
Hat in hand, he stood looking after the grey-blue figure under the snowy
headdress.
At the turn of the road she looked back, saw him, still standing there;
and again, from the distance, she made him a pretty gesture of caution
and of farewell. Then the grassy bank hid her from view.
At the Inn of the Golden Peach, Warner's Harem was already lunching.
Through the open windows of the dining-room came a discreet clatter of
tableware and crockery, and a breezy, cheery tumult like the chatter in
an aviary.
Halkett, not fancying it, went around the house to the quiet garden.
Here he wandered to and fro among the trees or stood about aimlessly,
looking down at the flower beds where, kneeling beside Sister Eila, he
had aided her to fill her ozier basket.
Later Warner found him seated under the arbor with Ariadne on his knee;
and a few moments afterward the maid, Linette, served their luncheon.
Neither of the young men was very communicative, but after the dishes
and cloth had been removed, and when Halkett, musing over his cigarette
and coffee, still exhibited no initiative toward conversation, Warner
broke the silence:
"What about that shot?" he asked bluntly.
"What shot?"
"Don't you want to talk about it?"
Halkett glanced up, amused:
"Well, I suppose there was no hiding that bullet hole and the plaster
dust from Sister Felicite."
"Of course not. The bullet ripped out the lathing. Who was it fired at
the school? Or was it at you they let go?"
"Didn't you ask Sister Eila?"
"I did. She absolutely refused to discuss it, and referred us both to
you. It was no accident, was it?"
"No."
"Somebody tried to get _you_?"
"It rather looked that way."
"Our friends in the grey car, of course!" concluded Warner.
"Not necessarily. _They_ have other friends who might be equally
attentive to me. I don't know who shot at me. There were three of them
over by the river."
"Well, Halkett, don't you think you had better remain indoors for a
while?"
"I'd better, I suppose." He laughed. "Honestly, I'm sick of being shot
at. One of these days they'll hit me, if they're not very careful."
But Warner did not smile.
"Do you promise to stay indoors?" he insisted.
"I'll see. Perhaps."
"Don't you think it advisable for you to carry some sort of a
firearm--one of my automatics, for example?"
"Thanks, old fellow. I think I'll do that, if you can spare a section
of your artillery for a day or two."
Warner promptly fished an automatic out of his hip pocket, and Halkett
took it and examined it.
"So I'm to do the Wild West business after all," he said gayly. "Right
you are, old chap. I know how it's done; I've read about it in your
novels. You wait till your enemy takes a drop, then you get the drop!"
He laughed at his British joke. And, having no hip pocket, he stowed
away the lumpy bluish weapon in a side pocket of his coat.
"Now, don't let me interfere with your daily routine," he continued. "I
shall do very well here in the arbor while you lead your Harem toward
the Olympian heights."
"Sometimes I feel like pushing 'em off those cliffs," muttered Warner.
"All right; I fancy you'll be snug enough in the garden, here with
Ariadne, till I return. We shall have the whole house to ourselves after
dinner. The Harem migrates to Ausone for overnight to do street
sketches tomorrow, and returns the next morning for a general criticism.
So if you'll amuse yourself----"
"I shall be quite comfortable, thanks. If anybody climbs the wall to
pot me, we'll turn loose on 'em, this time--won't we, old
girl?"--caressing Ariadne, who had returned to his knee.
Half an hour afterward Warner went away in the wake of the Harem; and at
the end of the second hour he gave them a final criticism before they
started for Ausone.
Much good it did them; but they adored it; they even adored his
sarcasms. For the Harem truly worshiped this young man--a fact of which
he remained uncomfortably conscious, timidly aware that warier men than
he had been landed by maidens less adept than they.
So it was with his usual sense of deep relief that he saluted the Harem,
picked up his own kit and canvases, and wandered at hazard through a
little poplar grove and out of it on the other edge.
A wild meadow, deep with tasseled grasses and field flowers, stretched
away before him, where swallows sailed and soared and skimmed--where
blue lupin, _bouton d'or_, meadowsweet, and slender, silvery stems
crowned with queen's lace grew tall, and the heliotrope perfume of
hidden hawkweed scented every fitful little wind.
But what immediately fixed his attention was a distant figure wading