The Girl Philippa
herself had been born to--sensed the far, faint ring of finer and more
ancient metal.
And after a moment she felt that courtesy, deference, and propinquity
alone held Philippa's grave grey eyes; that the soul which looked
fearlessly and calmly out of them at her could not be lightly flattered
or lightly won; and that, released from their conventional duty, those
clear eyes of grey would seek their earthly idol as logically as the
magnetic needle swings to its magnet.
Very subtly, as she stood there, the sympathy of the older woman widened
to include respect. And, unconsciously, she turned and looked at Warner
with the amused and slightly malicious smile of a woman who detects in a
man the characteristic obtuseness from which her own and feminine
instinct has rescued her just in time to prevent mistakes.
Then, turning to Philippa, she said:
"Our family of _three_ is a very small one, dear, but I think it is
going to be a happy one.... What was that song that you and Peggy were
trying when we came in?"
"It is called 'Noblesse Oblige,' Madame. It is a very ancient song."
"It is as old as the world," said the Countess. "Peggy, will you try the
accompaniment? And will you sing it, Philippa?"
"If you wish it, Madame."
The Countess de Moidrey stepped aside and seated herself; the grey eyes
left her to seek and find their magnet; and, having found it, smiled.
As for the magnet himself, he stood there deep in perplexity and
trouble, beginning slowly to realize how profoundly his mind and
affections had already become involved in the fate of a very young girl,
and in the problems of life which must now begin to threaten and
confront her.
"Namur, Liege--
Le dur siege
Noblesse oblige
sang Philippa--
"Namurois, Liegeois,
La lois des Bois
Exige
Noblesse--noblesse oblige--"'
The Countess de Moidrey rested her face on her hand, looking curiously
at the young girl from whose lips the old phrase fell so naturally, so
confidently, with such effortless and inborn
understanding--_noblesse--noblesse oblige_.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
Philippa's trunk had gone to the Chateau des Oiseaux, and the Inn of the
Golden Peach knew her no longer.
Warner, who usually adored the prospect of a month all alone after his
class had left for the season, found to his surprise that he was
experiencing a slight sense of loneliness.
The inn, the garden, seemed to him uncommonly still; and at first he
thought he missed the gallinaceous chatter of the Harem, then he was
very sure that he regretted Halkett acutely.
Ariadne, sitting in the sun by the deserted summer-house in the garden,
always greeted him with a plaintive little mew which, somehow or other,
sounded to him pointedly reproachful.
The cat evidently missed Halkett, perhaps Philippa. Warner remembered
that he had been requested to be polite and agreeable to Ariadne, and,
whenever he recollected these obligations, he dutifully hoisted the
animal to his shoulder and promenaded her. For which, no doubt, the cat
was grateful, but as she was also beginning to shed her coat in
preparation for a brand-new set of winter furs, Warner found the
intimacy with Ariadne slightly trying.
There were no other guests at the inn. Now and then during the next
three or four days officers stopped their automobiles for a few moments'
refreshment, or to replenish their gasoline tanks. But early one
morning a big motor truck, driven by a little, red-legged, boyish
_pioupiou_, and guarded by three others, equally youthful, took away the
entire supply of gasoline and ordered Madame Arlon to remove the sign
advertising it.
They drove away through the early autumn sunshine, singing the "Adoro,"
not the one best known, but that version attributed to the Scottish
Queen, and they looked and sang like three little choir boys
masquerading in the uniforms of their fathers.
Warner had been sketching in the meadow across the road that day,
feeling restless and unaccountably depressed. It was one of those
still, hazy mornings in early August, when the world seems too quiet and
the sky too perfect for inaction or repose.
He had pitched his easel near the river, perhaps because it remained
busy; and where, if any troops or military trains passed along the
quarry road, he could see them. Also, from there he could look down
over the road hedge and see the motor cycles whiz by and military
automobiles with a streak of crimson, turquoise and silver uniforms in
the tonneau.
But none came. Two or three gendarmes, with white and yellow trappings,
passed toward Ausone at a gallop while he sat there, but across the
river nothing stirred save a kestrel soaring.
According to the _Petit Journal d'Ausone_ of the day before, war had
already burst over eastern Belgium full blast and the famous forts so
long celebrated as impregnable were beginning to crumble away under an
avalanche of gigantic shells.
As he sat there under the calm sky, painting leisurely, relighting his
pipe at intervals, he tried to realize that such things as bombardments
and sieges and battles were going on to the north of where he was--not
so very far north, either. But he could not seem to grasp it as an
actual fact. For the monstrous and imbecile actuality of such a war
seemed still to remain outside his comprehension; his intelligence had
not yet accepted it--not encompassed and digested the fact--and he could
not get rid of the hopefully haunting feeling that presently somebody or
something somewhere or other would stop all this amazing insanity, and
that the diplomats would begin again where they had left off only a few
days ago.
It was the illimitable proportions of the calamity--the magnitude of the
catastrophe--the cataclysmic menace of it that still left his mind
slightly stunned, as it had paralyzed the minds of every civilized human
being, and suspended for a space the power of thought in the world.
As yet, all these enormous, impossible threats of governments and
emperors seemed to be some gigantic, fantastic, and grotesque hoax which
the sovereigns and chancelleries of Europe were playing in concert to
frighten a humdrum world out of its five dull wits.
And yet, under the incredulity, and the mental obscurity and inertia,
deep within the dazed hearts of men a measured and terrible pulse had
already begun to throb steadily, with an unchanging and dreadful rhythm.
It was the clairvoyant prophecy of the world's subconscious self
stirring, thrilling to that red future already breaking, and warning all
mankind that the day of wrath had dawned at last.
But to Warner the most unreal part of it all was not the dusty
_fantassins_ in column, slouching forward toward the north--not the
clinking, jingling cuirassiers on their big battle horses, not the
dragoons riding with rapt, exalted faces under forests of tall lances,
not the clanking artillery, the heavy military wagons and motor trucks,
nor the galloping gendarmes which passed the inn every hour or two.
What had become suddenly unreal to him was the green and sunlit serenity
of the world itself--the breeze ruffling the clover, poppies glowing
deep in fields of golden wheat and barley, the melody of the flowing
river, the quiet blue overhead, the tenderness of leaf and blossom, and
the blessed stillness of the world.
Relighting his pipe, he looked at the swallows soaring and sailing high
above the Recollette; noticed butterflies hovering and flitting
everywhere; heard the golden splashing of the river, the sigh of leaves
and rushes. The word "war" still remained a word to him, but in the
sunshine and the silence he began to divine the immobility of
menace--something unseen and evil which was quietly waiting.
Ariadne had come across from the garden, ostensibly to hunt meadow mice,
really for company.
Sniffing and snooping around his color box, she got one dainty whisker
in the ultramarine, and had enough of art. So she went off, much
annoyed, to sit by herself in the grass and do some scrubbing. After a
while the fixed persistency with which she stared across the meadow
attracted his attention and he, also, turned and looked that way.
As he saw nothing in particular to stare at, he presently resumed his
sketching and his troubled thoughts. The latter concerned the girl
Philippa. Not since he had taken her to the Chateau had he seen her.
And that was four days ago.
He didn't know exactly why he had not strolled over. Possibly a vague
idea that he had better not interfere to distract the girl's attention
from her first lessons in the refinements of existence had kept him away
from her vicinity.
He didn't even know that he had missed her; he knew only that for some
occult reason or other he had felt rather lonely lately.
He painted away steadily, pausing to relight his pipe now and then, and
all the while Ariadne, never stirring, stared persistently across the
landscape, neglecting her uncleansed whisker.
Suddenly, with a little mew of recognition and greeting, she trotted
forward through the grass; and the next moment two soft hands fell
lightly upon Warner's shoulders from behind.
"Philippa!" he exclaimed, enchanted.
"Oh, Jim!" she cried joyously, abandoning both hands to him as he sprang
to his feet and faced her.
She was so eager, so pretty in her unfeigned delight, as though it had
been four years instead of four days since they had seen each other; and
he seemed to feel something of this, also, for he held her hands closely
and laughed without any apparent reason for mirth--unless the sheer
contentment of contact and possession be a reason.
"Are you well and happy, Philippa?"
"Yes, I am happy enough up there. But, oh, how dreadfully I have missed
you, Jim--may I call you Jim?--I do to myself----"
"Of course!"
"I _think_ of you that way--so it came very naturally to my lips--if you
really don't mind? And besides, I am so happy to be with you.... Peggy
Brooks and I were looking over maps in the library--you know, the _Petit
Journal_ says that the Prussians are firing enormous shells into
Liege--and so Peggy and I were down on our knees over the maps of
Belgium. Oh, dear! You know, it isn't so very far from us here if you
take a ruler and measure by scale.... And it seemed to sober us
both--we had been laughing, I don't remember exactly what about--but
studying the map made us both serious, and Peggy went upstairs to talk
it over with the Countess, and I felt that I couldn't stand being away
from you for a single minute longer!"
"You dear child!"
"So I asked Peggy to ask Madame de Moidrey if I might pay you a little
visit, and she said, 'Of course.' So I came as fast as I could----"
She laughed and made a sweeping gesture with both arms outflung: "And
here I am! Are you contented?"
She stooped and stroked Ariadne, looking up to smile at him.
"Careful of her whisker; there is blue paint on it," he warned Philippa;
but the girl wiped off the ultramarine with a green leaf and took the
cat to her heart, covering her with caresses and murmuring endearments.
"Jim, dear, what do _you_ think?" she asked presently.
"About what?"
"About the war?"
He said gravely:
"I don't quite understand how those magnificent Belgian forts are being
knocked to pieces--if what the paper says is true. I supposed them to
be among the strongest fortifications in the world."
"Madame de Moidrey says they are. Her husband, the late Count Victor,
was an artillery officer. And she told Peggy and me that the Count de
Moidrey had always said they were the very strongest forts in the
world."
"_Something's_ gone wrong; that is evident," said Warner. "But not with