The Girl Philippa
swiftly toward him across the lawn, the creature uttered a sort of
stifled squeak.
"Asticot," said Warner, in pleasant, even tones, "I told the servants to
feed you and turn you loose. Also, I left word that I'd kill you the
next time I caught you hanging around here. Did they give you that
message?"
"M-m'sieu'----"
"Did they?"
"Alas!"
"Then why are you still prowling in this vicinity? Do you _want_ to be
killed?"
A suppressed howl escaped the bandaged ruffian.
"I do not desire to go away from M'sieu'! No! I desire to remain under
his powerful protection----"
"What!"
"I desire to serve M'sieu'--to dedicate my life to the service of
M'sieu', my patron, powerful and terrible. I have need to render him
homage--I, Asticot, grateful and affectionate----" He blubbered
sentimentally, squirming like a kicked and abject dog.
Warner, astonished, stared at the writhing ruffian for a few moments,
then he burst into a laugh.
"Why, you Parisian sewer rat," he said, "do you imagine that I could
have any use for _you_?"
"M'sieu'! I ask as wages only a crust, a pallet of straw in some
corner, and a few pennies which will enable me to 'fry a cigarette' when
I am lonely----"
"I don't want you!" repeated Warner, disgusted, but much amused. "Why
do you imagine that I have any employment to offer a cutthroat?"
"There is le Pere Wildresse," replied Asticot, naively.
"Do you imagine I expect to hire somebody to murder him?"
"M'sieu'--it is but natural."
Warner's laughter died out and his expression altered.
"Come, Asticot, cut away," he said quietly, "or I shall become angry!"
"M'sieu'! Don't drive me away!" he whined. "I know how to wash brushes
in black soap----"
"What!"
"Also, I have learned how to stretch _toiles_ and make _chassis_. I
have served in Biribi. My lieutenant amused himself by painting
pictures of camels and palms and the setting sun, very red and as full
of rays as a porcupine----"
"I don't _want_ you, Asticot! It is noon, now. I shall tell them at
the stables to give you a crust and a bowl of soup. After you have
sufficiently stuffed yourself, go quietly away wherever you belong, and
don't come back----"
"M'sieu'! I entertain a deep affection for M'sieu'----"
"Go to the devil!" said Warner wearily, and walked back to the house.
Here he gave the footman culinary instructions to transmit to the
kitchen-maid, who, in turn, should see that something to eat was sent to
the stables for Asticot.
Then he walked through the house to the northern terrace, where Philippa
and Peggy sat sewing and looking out across the valley toward the smoky
panorama in the north. His field glasses lay on the parapet, and he
picked them up and adjusted them to his vision.
"Isly is burning, and Rosales, and the great farm of Le Pigeonnier,"
remarked Peggy.
"Who says so?"
"Mathilde. The postman told her. He heard it in Ausone from the
soldiers. That is where the fighting is, at Isly. The trains leaving
Ausone are loaded with soldiers going north. It appears that matters
are progressing very well for us."
Warner said nothing. With two French towns burning on the horizon, the
great farm of Le Pigeonnier on fire, and the cannonade steadily becoming
more distinct, he was not at all certain that everything promised well
for Ausone and Sais and the valley of the Recollette.
Through his glasses he could see the beautiful spire of Sainte Cassilda
in Ausone. Beyond, where the wooded, conical hill rose from the rolling
plain as though it were an enormous artificial mound, nothing of the
fort was visible.
But farther away, beyond the river, he could see trains crawling across
the landscape--see smoke trailing from locomotives; farther still only
the green and gold of woods and grain fields stretched away, growing
vaguer and dimmer until the wall of smoke obscured them and blotted the
earth from view.
Madame de Moidrey appeared at the doorway behind them.
"They have just telephoned from Ausone to ask whether we can take in
wounded, if necessary," she said calmly. "They are to send material for
fifty beds this evening. Sister Eila and Dr. Senlis have offered to
remain for the present. I think everybody will have to help."
Philippa, who had risen, came toward her.
"I don't mind where I sleep," she said, "if I can only be of any
use----"
"You are not going to be disturbed, dear--not at present, anyway." And
to Peggy: "I have told them to open the east wing and air the gallery
and the rooms on both the upper floors. There is room for two hundred
beds in the east wing. Vignier has gone to turn on the water, and I
shall have the parquet and windows thoroughly cleaned and the stair
carpets taken out of storage and laid down."
"Is there anything I can do?" asked Warner.
"Nothing for any of us to do so far. When the beds arrive, I shall have
them set up and ready, that's all. Peggy, if the servants require any
further instructions, tell them what to do. Sister Eila is inspecting
the east wing and I must return to Mr. Gray."
"How is Gray?" asked Warner.
"Very much afraid that he is making us extra trouble. He is so patient,
so considerate--really a most charming man.
"I have an idea that the cannonade is making him very restless. He
tries not to show it. He lies there very quietly, asking for nothing,
most grateful for the slightest attention. I have been giving him the
medicine Dr. Senlis prescribed and reading the paper to him between
doses."
"Couldn't I do that?" began Peggy, but Madame de Moidrey shook her
pretty head hastily and went away to inspect her Englishman, for whom
luncheon was being prepared on a tray.
Luncheon was served on the terrace for the others. It was a rather
silent affair: they ate with the distant rumble of cannon in their ears
and their eyes turning ever toward the north where that impenetrable
wall of smoke masked the horizon from east to west.
"I think I shall go over to Ausone," remarked Warner.
Philippa looked up in silence.
"Why?" inquired Peggy.
"Because," he replied, "I have a couple of dozen pictures and sketches
in storage at the Boule d'Argent, and I think I might as well get them
and ship them to my Paris studio."
"Do you really suppose there is any danger that----"
"No," he interrupted, smilingly, "but you know how finicky and panicky a
painter is. I think I'll take a stroll after luncheon and bring back my
canvases--" he turned to Philippa--"if I may take your punt for the
purpose?"
"Certainly. I'll pole you up to Ausone----"
"You will do nothing of the sort, thank you!" he retorted, laughing.
"Is there any danger?" asked Peggy.
"Not the slightest. But I had rather that Philippa remained here."
Peggy passed her arm around Philippa's shoulders.
"He doesn't want you, darling, but I do! Remain where you're
appreciated and I'll take you up presently to see that exceedingly
nice-looking Englishman."
Philippa's smile was a little forced; she looked up at Warner every now
and then, curiously, questioningly, even reproachfully.
When he had pretended long enough not to be aware of it, he turned and
looked at her and laughed. And after Peggy had risen and entered the
house, he said:
"Philippa, I don't care to have you any nearer that wall of smoke out
yonder than you are at present. That's the only reason I don't want you
to go to Ausone in the punt with me."
"You know," she said, "that I might just as well be where you are all
the time."
"Why?"
"Is it necessary for me to tell you that if anything happens to you it
might as well happen to me at the same time?"
"Nonsense, Philippa----"
"You know it is so," she said quietly.
He looked at the smoke, glanced at her, rose and walked to the door,
and, turning abruptly, came back to where she was seated.
"That won't do," he said bluntly. "Nobody should be as vital to you as
that. Life and happiness are beginning for you. Both must be
independent of circumstances and individuals. Everything already lies
before you, Philippa--youth, attainment, the serenity and the happiness
of opportunity heretofore denied you. Fulfillment does not depend on
others; the interest in living and the reason for living depends on
personal faith, resolution, and endeavor, not on what accidents affect
other lives around you. Life should be lived thoroughly and completely
to the end, industriously, vigorously, and with a courage for enjoyment
never faltering. Your life is _yours_. Live it! Find in it the sheer
happiness of living. No matter what befalls others, no matter who these
others may be, it is your business in life to go on living, to go on
discovering reasons for living, to go on desiring to live, and to find
in living the highest happiness in the world--the satisfaction of a duty
thoroughly accomplished!"
He was smiling and rather flushed when he ended his emphatic sermon.
The girl beside him had listened with drooping head, but her grey eyes
were raised to his from time to time.
And now that he had finished expounding his strenuous and masculine
logic, she turned away and leaned on the parapet looking down at the
tops of the forest trees below.
He came over and rested on the stone balustrade beside her.
"Am I not right?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then you understand that, whatever may happen to anybody else, life
always presents the same noble challenge to you?"
"Yes.... A bird, shot through the breast, must go on fighting for
breath as long as its heart beats.... I should do the same--if anything
happened to you."
The hot color suddenly burnt his face. He made no comment--found none
to make. Her transparent candor had silenced him utterly; and he found
himself troubled, mute, and profoundly moved by her innocent avowal of
devotion.
She looked around at him after a while.
"That is what you meant, isn't it?"
He shook his head slightly. He could scarcely presume to criticize her
or instruct her concerning the mysteries of her own heart. Those
intimate, shadowy, and virginal depths were exempt from the rule of
reason. Neither logic nor motive was in control there; instinct alone
reigned.
No, he had nothing more to say to her; nothing definite to say to
himself. A haunting and troubled perplexity possessed his mind; and a
deeper, duller, and obscure wonder that the young heart in her, and the
youthful faith that filled it, had been so quietly, so fearlessly
surrendered to his keeping.
He had always supposed that his experience, his years, his clear
thinking and humorously incredulous mind rendered him safe from any
emotional sentiment not directly connected with his profession.
The fact that women were inclined to like him had made him unconsciously
wary, even amiably skeptical. Outside of a few friendships he had never
known more than a passing fancy for any woman--a sentiment always partly
humorous, an emotion always more or less amused. His preferences were
as light as the jests he made of them, his interest as ephemeral as it
was superficial--aside from his several friendships with women, or where
women were intimately concerned with his work.
The swiftness with which acquaintance had become friendship between
Philippa and himself had disturbed and puzzled him. That, like a
witch-flower, it had opened over night into full blossom, he seemed to
realize, even admitted to himself. But already it seemed to have become
as important, as established, as older friendships. And more than that,
day by day its responsibilities seemed to multiply and grow heavier and
more serious.
He thought of these things as he leaned on the stone balustrade there
beside Philippa. What she might be thinking of remained to him a