The Girl Philippa
"I'll come expressly to see you, Philippa," he replied.
To his surprise the girl blushed vividly and looked away from him; and
he hastily took a different tone, somewhat astonished that such a girl
should not have learned long ago how to take the irresponsible badinage
of men. Certainly she must have had plenty of opportunity for such
schooling.
"When I'm in Ausone again," he said seriously, "I'll bring with me a
canvas and brushes. And if Monsieur Wildresse doesn't mind I'll make a
little study of you. Shall I, Philippa?"
"Would you care to?"
"Very much. Do you think Monsieur Wildresse would permit it?"
"I do what I choose."
"Oh!"
She misunderstood his amused exclamation, and she flushed up.
"My conduct has been good--so far," she explained. "Everybody knows it.
The _prix de la rosiere_ is not yet beyond me. If a girl determines to
behave otherwise, who can stop her, and what? Not her parents--if she
has any; not bolts and keys. No; it is understood between Monsieur
Wildresse and me that I do what I choose. And, Monsieur, so far I have
not chosen--indiscreetly----" She looked up calmly. "----In spite of
my painted cheeks which annoyed you----"
"I didn't mean----"
"I understand. You think that it is more _comme il faut_ to exhibit
one's freckles to the world than to paint them out."
"It's a thousand times better! If you only knew how pretty you
are--just as you are now--with your soft, girlish skin and your chestnut
hair and your enchanting grey eyes----"
"Monsieur----"
The girl's rising color and her low-voiced exclamation warned him again
that detached and quite impersonal praises from him were not understood.
"Philippa," he explained with bored but smiling reassurance, "I'm merely
telling you what a really pretty girl you are; I'm not paying court to
you. Didn't you understand?"
The grey eyes were lifted frankly to his; questioned him in silence.
"In America a man may say as much to a girl and mean nothing
more--important," he explained. "I'm not trying to make love to you,
Philippa. Were you afraid I was?"
She said slowly:
"I was not exactly--_afraid_."
"I don't do that sort of thing," he continued pleasantly. "I don't make
love to anybody. I'm too busy a man. Also, I would not offend you by
talking to you about love."
She looked down at her folded hands. Since she had been with him
nothing had seemed very real to her, nothing very clear, except that for
the first time in her brief life she was interested in a man on whom she
was supposed to be spying.
The Gallic and partly morbid traditions she had picked up in such a
girlhood as had been hers were now making for her an important personal
episode out of their encounter, and were lending a fictitious and
perhaps a touching value to every word he uttered.
But more important and most significant of anything to her was her own
natural inclination for him. For her he already possessed immortal
distinction; he was her first man.
She was remembering that she had gone to him after exchanging a glance
with Wildresse, when he had first asked her to dance. But she had
needed no further persuasion to sit with him at his table; she had even
forgotten her miserable role when she asked him to go out to the river
with her. The significance of all this, according to her Gallic
tradition, was now confronting her, emphasizing the fact that she was
still with him.
As she sat there, her hands clasped in her lap, the sunlit reality of it
all seemed brightly confused as in a dream--a vivid dream which casts a
deeper enchantment over slumber, holding the sleeper fascinated under
the tense concentration of the happy spell. Subconsciously she seemed to
be aware that, according to tradition, this conduct of hers must be
merely preliminary to something further; that, in sequence, other
episodes were preparing--were becoming inevitable. And she thought of
what he had said about making love.
Folding and unfolding her hands, and looking down at them rather
fixedly, she said:
"Apropos of love--I have never been angry because men told me they were
in love with me.... Men love; it is natural; they cannot help it. So,
if you had said so, I should not have been angry. No, not at all,
Monsieur."
"Philippa," he said smilingly, "when a girl and a man happen to be alone
together, love isn't the only entertaining subject for conversation, is
it?"
"It's the subject I've always had to listen to from men. Perhaps that
is why I thought--when you spoke so amiably of my--my----"
"Beauty," added Warner frankly, "--because it _is_ beauty, Philippa.
But I meant only to express the pleasure that it gave to a painter--yes,
and to a man who can admire without offense, and say so quite as
honestly."
The girl slowly raised her eyes.
"You speak very pleasantly to me," she said. "Are other American men
like you?"
"You ought to know. Aren't you American?"
"I don't know what I am."
"Why, I thought--your name was Philippa Wildresse."
"I am called that."
"Then Monsieur Wildresse isn't a relation?"
"No. I wear his name for lack of any other.... He found me somewhere,
he says.... In Paris, I believe.... That is all he will tell me."
"Evidently," said Warner in his pleasant, sympathetic voice, "you have
had an education somewhere."
"He sent me to school in England until I was sixteen.... After that I
became cashier for him."
"He gave you his name, and he supports you.... Is he kind to you?"
"He has never struck me."
"Does he protect you?"
"He uses me in business.... I am too valuable to misuse."
The girl looked down at her folded hands. And even Warner divined what
ultimate chances she stood in the Cabaret de Biribi.
"When I'm in Ausone again, I'll come to see you," he said pleasantly.
"--Not to make love to you, Philippa," he added with a smile, "but just
because we have become such good friends out here in the _Lys_."
"Yes," she said, "friends. I shall be glad to see you. I shall always
try to understand you--whatever you say to me."
"That's as it should be!" he exclaimed heartily. "Give me your hand on
it, Philippa."
She laid her hand in his gravely. They exchanged a slight pressure.
Then he glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up the pole.
"I've got to drive to Sais in time for dinner," he remarked. "I'm
sorry, because I'd like to stay out here with you."
"I'm sorry, too," she said.
The next moment the punt shot out into the sunny stream.
*CHAPTER IV*
Warner and the girl Philippa reentered the Cabaret de Biribi together
the uproar had become almost deafening. Confetti was thrown at them
immediately, and they advanced all a-flutter with brilliant tatters.
The orchestra was playing, almost everybody was dancing, groups at
tables along the edge of the floor sang, clinked glasses, and threw
confetti without discrimination. The whole place--tables, floor,
chandeliers, and people--streamed with multi-colored paper ribbons.
Waiters swept it in heaps from the dancing floor.
Philippa entered the cashier's enclosure and dismissed the woman in
charge. Seated once more on her high chair she opened her reticule and
produced a small mirror. Then she leaned far over her counter toward
Warner.
"Is it permitted me to powder my nose?" she whispered with childlike
seriousness; but she laughed when he did, and, still laughing, made him
a gay little gesture of adieu with her powder puff.
He stood looking at her for a moment, where she sat on her high chair
behind the cage, intently occupied with her mirror, oblivious to the
tumult around her. Then, the smile still lingering on his features, he
turned to look for his new acquaintance, Halkett.
Old man Wildresse sidled up to the cashier's desk, opened the wicket,
and went inside. Philippa, still using her tiny mirror, was examining a
freckle very seriously.
"Eh, bien?" he growled. "Rien?"
"Nothing!"
"Drop that glass and talk!" he said harshly.
She turned and looked at him.
"I tell you it was silly to suspect such a man!" she said impatiently.
"In my heart I feel humiliated that you should have set me to spy on
him----"
"What's that!"
"No, I've had enough! I don't like the role; I never liked it! Are
there no police in France----"
"Little idiot!" he said. "Will you hold your tongue?"
"It is a disgusting _metier_----"
"Damnation! Hold your tongue!" he repeated. "We've got to do what the
Government tells us to do, haven't we?"
"Not I! Never again----"
"Yes, you will! Do you hear? Yes, you will, or I'll twist your neck!
Now, I'm going to keep my eye on that other gentleman. Granted that the
man you pumped is all right, I'm not so sure about the other, who seems
to be an Englishman. I'm going over to stand near him. By and by I'll
address him. And if I wink at you, leave your _caisse_ with Melanie,
come over, and sit at their table again----"
"No!"
"Yes, you will!"
"No!"
"Yes, you will. And you'll also contrive it so the Englishman asks you
to dance. Do you hear what I say? And you'll find out where he comes
from, and when he arrived in Ausone, and where he is going, and whatever
else you can worm out of him!" He glared at her. "Disobey if you
dare," he added.
She was silent.
After a moment he continued in a softer voice:
"Do you want to see me in prison and my son in New Caledonia? Very
well, then; do what the Government tells you to do."
"I--I've done enough--filthy work----" she stammered. "Why must I? I
have never done anything wrong----"
"Did you hear what I said? Do you want to see Jacques in Noumea?"
"No," she said sullenly.
"Then do what I tell you, or, by God, they'll ship him there and me
too!"
And he clasped his hands behind his back, peered sideways at her,
shrugged, and went shuffling out of the enclosure.
Groups at various tables were singing and shouting; the floor seethed
with sweating dancers. On the edge of this vortex the girl Philippa,
from her high chair, looked darkly across the tumult toward the table
where Halkett sat.
Something seemed to be happening there; she could see Wildresse
gesticulating vigorously; she saw Warner making his way toward his
friend, who was seated alone at a table, a lighted cigarette balanced
between his fingers and one arm thrown carelessly around the back of the
chair on which he sat.
He was looking coolly but steadily at three men who occupied the table
next to him; Wildresse now stood between the two tables, and his
emphatic gesticulations were apparently directed toward these three men;
but in the uproar, and although he also appeared to be shouting, what he
was saying remained inaudible.
Warner went over and seated himself beside Halkett; and now he could
distinguish the harsh voice of the Patron raised in irritation:
"No politics! I'll not suffer political disputes in my cabaret!" he
bawled. "Quarrels arise from such controversies. I'll have no quarrels
in my place. Now, Messieurs, _un peu de complaisance_!"
One of the men he was exhorting leaned wide in his seat and looked
insolently across at Halkett.
"It was the Englishman's fault," he retorted threateningly. "I and my
friends here had been speaking of the assassination of the Archduke
Francis Ferdinand in Serajevo. We were conversing peaceably and
privately among ourselves, when that Englishman laughed at us----"
"You are mistaken," said Halkett quietly.
"Did you not laugh?" cried the second of the men at the next table.
"Yes, but not at what you were saying. I'm sorry if you thought so----"
The man half rose in his chair, exclaiming:
"Why shouldn't I think it natural for an Englishman to laugh at the
murder of an Austrian arch-duke----"