The Girl Philippa
republican, is a very, very keen one, and makes exceedingly few
mistakes."
"You intend, then, to keep her as a companion for the present?"
"If she will stay. I don't quite know whether she wants to. I don't
entirely understand her. She does not seem unhappy; she is sweet,
considerate, agreeable, and perfectly willing to do anything asked of
her. She is never exacting; she asks nothing even of the servants.
It's her attitude toward them which shows her quality. They feel
it--they all are aware of it. My maid adores her and is forever hanging
around to aid her in a hundred little offices, which Philippa accepts
because it gives pleasure to my maid, and for that reason alone.
"I tell you, Jim, if anybody thinks Philippa complex, it is a mistake.
Her heart and mind are virginal, whatever her experience may have been;
she is as simple and unspoiled as the children of that tall young King
yonder, Albert of Belgium--God bless him! And that is the truth
concerning Philippa--upon whom a suspicious world is going to place no
value whatever because no rivets, ecclesiastical or legal, have
irrevocably fastened to her the name she bears in ignorance of her own."
Peggy Brooks, a dark-haired, fresh-faced girl, came out on the terrace,
nodded a familiar greeting to Warner, and looked around in search of
Philippa.
Her sister said in a low voice:
"Peggy is quite mad about her. They get along wonderfully. I wonder
where the child is? She expected you."
"Ethra," said Peggy, "I've given her one of my new afternoon gowns. I
_made_ her take it, on a promise to let her pay me out of her salary.
Mathilde is fussing over her still, I suppose." And to Warner: "I'm
painting a head of her. She sits as still as a statue, but it's
hopeless, Jim; the girl's too exquisite to paint----"
"I mean to try it some day," said Warner. "The way to paint her, Peggy,
is to try to treat her as the great English masters of portraiture
treated their grand ladies---with that thoroughbred loveliness and
grace--just a dash of enchanting blue sky behind her, and the sun-gilded
foliage of stately trees against it, and her scarf blowing free----" He
laughed. "Oh, I know how it _ought_ to be done. We shall see what we
shall see, some day----"
He ceased and turned his head. Philippa stepped out upon the
terrace--the living incarnation of his own description.
Even Peggy caught her breath as the girl came forward.
"You beautiful thing!" she exclaimed. "You do belong in a golden frame
in some great English castle!"
Philippa, perplexed but smiling, acknowledged Madame de Moidrey's
presence and Peggy's, then turned to Warner with hand extended, as
though she had not taken a similar leave of him an hour or two before.
"Everybody is so generous! Do you admire my new gown? Peggy gave it to
me. Never have I possessed such a ravishing gown. That is why I am
late; I stood at my mirror and looked and looked----"
She turned swiftly to Peggy: "Dear, I am too happy to know how to say
so! And if Madame de Moidrey is contented with me----"
"You are too lovely for words, Philippa," said the Countess. "If Mr.
Warner paints you that way, I shall wish to have the picture for
myself."
"Aha!" exclaimed Warner. "A commission!"
"Certainly," said the Countess. "You may begin as soon as Philippa is
ready."
"Very well," said he. "If I paint the picture, you promise to hang it
in the Chateau as a memento of Philippa, do you?"
"I do."
"Then there'll be no charge for this important major operation.
Philippa, will you take ether tomorrow morning?"
The girl laughed and nodded, looking up at him from where she was seated
beside the Countess, examining the sewing.
"Could I not do this for you, Madame?" she said.
"But I like to sew, Philippa."
The girl smiled, then a slight sigh escaped her. The Countess looked up
at her, and Philippa smiled again, saying:
"There seems to be nothing within my power to do for you, Madame."
"There _is_ something," said Madame de Moidrey under her breath.
"What, if you please?"
"I want you to like me, Philippa.... And if some day you could learn to
love me, that would be the rarest gift that could be offered me."
The girl's grey eyes widened in utter surprise; suddenly they sparkled
with tears, and she bent her head swiftly and touched the elder woman's
hands with her own.
"Madame," she whispered, "you overwhelm me with your kindness.... If
only I could express my gratitude----"
She checked herself as Maurice, the head gardener, appeared, hat in
hand, deep anxiety stamped on his seamed and sunburnt features.
"Pardon, Madame la Comtesse--there is a great fire somewhere in the
north. I thought Madame should be told----"
"A fire? What is it? The forest, Maurice?"
"Oh, it is very far away, Madame. Perhaps it is a forest on fire....
But there is a sound, too. One may see and hear from the northern
terrace when the wind sets in."
"Is it as far away as Ausone?"
"Farther, Madame."
The Countess glanced at Warner, rose, retaining Philippa's hand.
"Thank you, Maurice," she said over her shoulder, and, passing her arm
through Philippa's, she entered the house, followed by Warner and Peggy.
"What do you suppose alarms old Maurice?" whispered Peggy.
But Warner, vastly troubled, made no answer.
*CHAPTER XXIV*
Below the carved stone balustrade of the north terrace acres and acres
of tree tops--oak, beech, birch, and fir--spread away on every side.
This was the Foret des Oiseaux.
Beyond the dense green surface of the tree tops, which was so compact
that it resembled a wide and gently rolling plateau, the country
stretched away toward Ausone. Here and there some distant farmhouse
window sparkled in the sun; set amid banks of velvet green the
Recollette glittered like severed fragments of a silver thread.
Bathed in a mauve haze the Ausone Fort stood out on its conical,
tree-clad hill; beyond it other hillocks rose, lilac-tinted silhouettes
against the horizon.
Turquoise, palest violet, tender green and gold, the country lay
revealed under the August sky, peaceful, glimmering, silent.
And across this dainty harmony of color was smeared a somber, discordant
smudge, staining the delicate haze of amethyst, defiling the pure sky--a
wide, high area of dirty smoke, leaning from the perpendicular toward
the east, spilling its dun-colored vapor downward over the pale
aquarelle of hill and river and valley.
"The Alcyon Forest is afire!" exclaimed the Countess in a low voice.
"It is much farther away," said Warner.
A sudden breeze sprang up, blowing in their faces over the swaying tree
tops.
"Listen!" said Philippa, touching her lips with one finger.
From an infinite distance the wind carried with it a deadened thumping
sound, now regular as the dulled rolling of drums, now softly irregular,
with intervals of stillness, then again spasmodic, muffled, almost
inaudible.
"Are they threshing anywhere near us?" asked the Countess of her sister.
"What is that pumping sound?" She turned to Warner, who made no reply.
"Do you know what it is, Jim?" demanded Peggy Brooks uneasily.
"I'm not absolutely sure.... I'll be back in a moment----" He turned
and went swiftly into the house.
Philippa, leaning on the balustrade beside the Countess, said very
quietly:
"I know what that sound is. I have heard it before from the outer
boulevard in Ausone, when the grand maneuvers were going on."
The Countess said:
"I was afraid it was that."
"Drums?" asked Peggy Brooks.
"Cannon," said Philippa.
Warner came back with his field glasses.
Studying the horizon, he spoke at intervals in his pleasant, undisturbed
voice:
"They have cleared the Ausone Fort; the flag, the semaphore, the signal
tower--all are gone; there is nothing to be seen there except trees....
It looks like any hill now; nothing is stirring on it.... This glass
brings the smoke much nearer, but it is impossible to guess what is on
fire.... I don't think it's a forest.... I'm afraid it is a village."
He offered the glass to the others; each took a turn and made out
nothing new until Philippa, gazing above the discoloring stain of smoke,
spoke to Warner in a low voice and handed him the glasses.
For a few moments he stood rigid, his field glasses poised at an angle;
then, still watching at the same angle, he said:
"You are perfectly right, Philippa; two aeroplanes are soaring between
the smoke and the Ausone Fort."
One by one the others searched for the distant sky craft and discovered
them.
They were still at it when tea was served, and, by that time, the
deadened drumming sound had become unmistakable, increasing in volume
with every lightest puff of wind, and, when the breeze died out, still
filling the ears with its steady thudding.
Also, the dirty smoke-smear had spread, polluting the tender northern
sky, and new centers of infection had appeared here and there amid the
green landscape--dark spots of smoke which, at first, appeared
insignificant and motionless, which were bigger in ten minutes, which in
half an hour had become volumes. Yet their actual growing process was
not perceptible, so gradually the looming spots assumed the threatening
proportions of gloom.
Warner, his teacup on his knees, bracketed the field glasses on the
aeroplanes once more, and was startled at their nearness.
Almost at the same instant a dry crack, like the breaking of a stick,
sounded, coming from the direction of the distant fort--another,
another, others following in quicker succession. And, watching, he saw
below the aeroplanes a dotted line of tiny white spots, growing in
length for a while, then maintaining its length as the rearward dots
vanished and new dots of cottony white were added to the other end.
Higher and higher rose the aeroplanes above the white wake of exploding
shells, bearing eastward now, sheering widely, as a pair of soaring
hawks sweep swiftly into vaster circles as they mount into the dazzling
blue.
"The fort is using its sky-guns," remarked Warner.
They all took turns watching the fleecy clots of smoke appear, linger,
dissolve in mid-air. Long after the aeroplanes had disappeared in the
sky, the high-angle guns continued their distant, rattling fusillade.
"What do you think is happening out there?" asked the Countess. "You
have seen war, Jim. Have you an idea what the smoke and cannonade mean?
Is a German army coming?"
Warner said:
"They are shelling villages to the north of us--perhaps trenches, too.
I don't know what troops we have there.
"Probably their cavalry screen has come into contact with ours, and I
should say that we are retiring. But you can't tell yet."
"It's the _invasion_, then," said the Countess calmly.
"It's a raid, anyway."
"A raid on Ausone?"
"Probably. The railroad there is always important--much more so than
the Ausone Fort. I'm afraid that fort doesn't amount to very much as
fortifications are classed now."
The spectacle from the north terrace had become very disquieting. All
the horizon was now obscured by smoke, and its dirty shadow dulled the
distance and invaded the middle distance, hanging from west to east like
a sooty veil suspended across land and sky. There was, however, nothing
else to see, not a glimmer of flame, nothing stirring on the hill where,
unseen, the Ausone Fort crouched above the green valley of the
Recollette. But the deadened mutter of the cannonade continued unbroken
along the horizon, never ceasing now, not even when the light wind
changed.
Peggy's curiosity was satisfied; she had taken jealous possession of
Philippa, with a side glance at Warner out of brown eyes not entirely