The Girl Philippa
"Could you find the place?"
Asticot shrugged and rubbed his pock-marked nose. The forest of Ausone
was too near the cannon to suit him, and he said so without hesitation.
"Very well," said Warner. "When we meet any of our soldiers or
gendarmes you can explain where Wildresse has been hiding. He won't
come out, I suppose, until the occupation of Ausone by the Germans
reassures him. He ought to be caught and executed."
"If the cannon would only stop their ugly noises I'd go myself,"
muttered Asticot. "_Tenez, M'sieu'_, it would be a pleasure for me to
bleed that treacherous hog----"
"I don't doubt it," said Warner pleasantly, "but, odd as it may appear
to you, Asticot, I have a personal prejudice against murder. It's
weak-minded of me, I know. But if you have no objection, we'll let
military law catch Wildresse and deal with him if it can."
Asticot looked at him curiously:
"Is it then distasteful to M'sieu' that I bleed this _espece de_ pig for
him?"
"I'm afraid it is."
"You do not desire me to settle the business of this _limace_?"
"No."
"For what purpose is an enemy?" inquired the _voyou_. "For revenge.
And of what use is revenge if you do not use it on your enemy?"
"You can't understand me, can you, Asticot?"
"No," said Asticot naively, "I can't."
*CHAPTER XXX*
It was still very early as Warner walked up to the Golden Peach, but
Magda and Linette were astir and a delicious aroma of coffee floated
through the hallway.
Warner surveyed his most recent acquisition with a humorous and slightly
disgusted air. As it appeared impossible to get rid of Asticot, there
seemed nothing to do but to feed him.
So he called out Linette and asked her to give some breakfast to the
young _voyou_; and Linette showed Asticot into the bar and served
breakfast with a scorn and aloofness which fascinated Asticot and also
awed him.
None of the leering impudence, none of the easy effrontery of the outer
boulevards, aided Asticot to assert himself or helped him toward any
attempt at playfulness toward this wholesome, capable, business-like
young woman.
She served him with a detached and supercilious air, placed cover and
food with all the nonchalance of serving a house cat with its morning
milk. And Asticot dared not even look at her until her back was turned;
then only did he venture to lift his mousy eyes to study the
contemptuous girl who had provided him with what he spoke of as the
"_quoi d'boulotter_."
As for Warner, he had sauntered into the kitchen, where Madame Arlon
greeted him heartily, and was prettily confused and flattered when he
seated himself and insisted on having breakfast with her.
Over their cafe-au-lait they discussed the menace of invasion very
quietly, and the stout, cheery landlady told him that she had concluded
to keep the inn open in any event.
"What else is there for me to do?" she asked. "To leave my house is to
invite robbery; perhaps even destruction, if the Prussians arrive. I
had rather remain and protect my property if I can. At any rate, it
will not be for long, God willing!"
"I do not believe it will last very long, this headlong rush of the
Germans into France," he said thoughtfully. "It seems to me as though
they had the start of us, but nothing more serious. I'm very much
afraid we are going to see them here in the Recollette Valley before
they are driven back across the frontier."
Linette's cheeks grew very red.
"I had even rather serve that frightful _voyou_ in there than be forced
to set food before a Prussian," she said in a low voice.
"Wait a bit longer," said Warner. "--A little patience, perhaps a
little more humiliation, but, sooner or later, surely, surely the
liberation of the Vosges--the return of her lost children to France, the
driving out of German oppression, arrogance, and half-cooked
civilization forever.... It's worth waiting for, worth endurance and
patience and sacrifice."
"It is worth dying for," said Magda simply.
"If," added Linette, "one only knew how best to serve France by offering
one's life."
"It is best to live if that can be accomplished honorably," said Madame
Arlon. "France is in great need of all her children."
The three women spoke thoughtfully, naturally, with no idea of heroics,
expressing themselves without any self-consciousness whatever.
After a silence Warner said to Linette with a smile:
"So you don't admire my new assistant, Monsieur Asticot?"
"Monsieur Warner! That dreadful _voyou_ in _your_ service!"
Warner laughed:
"It seems so. I didn't invite him. But I can't get rid of him. He
sticks like a lost dog."
"Send him about his business--which doubtless is to pick pockets!" cried
Linette. "Monsieur has merely to whisper 'Gendarmes!' to him, and he
does not stop running until he sights the Eiffel Tower!"
Madame Arlon smiled:
"He really is a dreadful _type_," she said. "The perfume of Paris
gutters clings to him. Monsieur Warner had better get rid of him before
articles begin to be missed."
"Oh, well," remarked Warner, "he'll probably scuttle away like a scared
rabbit when the Germans come through Sais. I'm not worrying.
Meanwhile, he carries my field kit and washes brushes--if I ever can
make up my mind to begin painting again.... That heavy, steady thunder
from the north seems to take all ambition out of me."
"It affects me like real thunder," nodded Madame Arlon. "The air is
lifeless and dead; one's feet drag and one's head grows heavy. It is
like the languor which comes over one before a storm.
"Do the guns seem any louder to you since last night?"
"I was wondering.... Well, God's will be done.... But I do not believe
it is in His heart to turn the glory of His face from France.... Magda,
if we are to make the preserves today, it will be necessary for you to
gather plums this morning. Linette, is that type still eating?"
"He stuffs himself without pause," replied the girl scornfully. "Only a
guinea pig can eat like that!"
She went into the bar cafe and bent a pair of pretty but hostile eyes
upon Asticot, who stared at her with his mouth full, then, still
staring, buttered another slice of bread.
"Voyons," she said impatiently, "do you imagine yourself to be at
dinner, young man? Permit me to remind you that this is
breakfast--cafe-au-lait--not a banquet at the Hotel de Ville!"
"I am hungry," said Asticot simply.
"Really?" she retorted, exasperated. "One might almost guess as much,
what with the _tartines_ and _tranches_ you swallow as though you had
nothing else to do. Come, stand up on what I suppose you call your
feet. Your master is out in the road already, and I don't suppose that
even you have the effrontery to keep him waiting."
Asticot arose; a gorged sigh escaped him. He stretched himself with the
satisfaction of repletion, shuffled his feet, peeped cunningly and
sideways out of his mousy eyes at Linette.
"_Allons_," she said coldly, "it's paid for. Fichez-moi le camp!"
There was a vase of flowers on the bar. Asticot shuffled over, sniffed
at them, extracted the largest and gaudiest blossom--a yellow
dahlia--and, with a half bold, half scared smirk, laid it on the table
as an offering to Linette.
The girl was too much astonished and incensed to utter a word, and
Asticot left so hurriedly that when she had recovered her power of
speech he was already slouching along down the road a few paces behind
Warner.
The latter had hastened his steps because ahead of him walked Sister
Eila; and he meant to overtake and escort her as far as the school, and
then back to the Chateau, if she were returning.
As he joined her and they exchanged grave but friendly greetings, he
suddenly remembered her as he had last seen her, kneeling asleep by the
chapel pillar.
And then he recollected what she had murmured, still drowsy with dreams;
and the memory of it perplexed him and left his face flushed and
troubled.
"How is your patient, Sister?" he inquired, dropping into step beside
her.
"Much better, Mr. Warner. A little care is all he needs. But I wish
his mind were at rest." She glanced behind her at Asticot, plainly
wondering who he might be.
"What worries Gray?" inquired Warner.
"The prospect of being taken prisoner, I suppose."
"Of course. If the Germans break through from the north they'll take
him along. That would be pretty hard luck, wouldn't it?--To be taken
before one has even a taste of battle!"
Sister Eila nodded:
"He says nothing, but I know that is what troubles him. When I came in
this morning, I found him up and trying to walk. I sent him back to
bed. But he tells me he does not need to use his legs in his branch of
the British service, and that if he could only get to Chalons he would
be fit for duty. I think, from things he has said, that both he and Mr.
Halkett belong to the Flying Corps."
Warner was immensely interested. Sister Eila told him briefly why she
suspected this to be true, then, casting another perplexed glance behind
her, she asked in a low voice who might be the extremely unprepossessing
individual shuffling along the road behind them. And Warner told her,
humorously; but she did not smile.
Watching her downcast eyes and grave lips in the transparent shadow of
her white coiffe, he thought he had never seen a human face so pure, so
tender--with such infinite capacity for charity.
She said very gently:
"My duties have led me more than once into the Faubourgs. There is
nothing sadder to me than Paris.... Always I have believed that sin and
degradation among the poor should be treated as diseases of the mind....
Poor things--they have no doctor, no medicines, no hospital to aid them
in their illness--the most terrible illness in the world, which they
inherit at birth--poverty! Poverty sickens the body, and at last the
mind; and from a diseased mind all evil in the world is born.... They
are not to blame who daily crucify Christ; for they know not what they
do."
He walked silently beside her. She spoke again of crippled minds, and
of the responsibility of civilization, then looked up at his gloomy
visage with a faint smile, excusing herself for any lack of cheerfulness
and courage.
"Indeed," she said almost gayly, "God is best served with a light heart,
I think. There is no palladin like good humor to subdue terror and slay
despair; no ally of Christ so powerful as he who laughs when evil
threatens. Sin is most easily slain with a smile, I think; its germs
die under it as bacilli die in the sunlight. _Tenez_, Monsieur Warner,
what do you think of my theories of medicine, moral, spiritual, and
mundane? Is it likely that the Academy will award me palms?"
He laughed and assured her that her views were sound in theory and in
practice. A moment later they came in sight of the school.
"It is necessary that I make some little arrangements with Sister
Felicite for my absence," she explained. "I scarcely know what she is
going to do all alone here, if the children are to remain."
They went into the schoolroom, where exercises had already begun, and
the droning, minor singsong of children filled the heavy air.
Sister Felicite greeted Warner, then, dismissing the children to their
desks, withdrew to a corner of the schoolroom with Sister Eila.
Their low-voiced consultation lasted for a few minutes only; the little
girls, hands solemnly folded, watched out of wide, serious eyes.
On the doorstep outside, Asticot sat and occasionally scratched his
large ears with a sort of bored embarrassment.
Warner went out to the doorstep presently and looked up at the sky,
which threatened rain. As he stood there, silent, preoccupied, Sister