Front matter (continued 5)

She nodded.

"Not that I care," he said, "except on your account. A girl has only one real asset, as assets and liabilities are now figured out by what we call civilization. It won't do to have any suspicion attach to this solitary asset of yours. There must never be any question of your moral solvency through your friendship for me or mine for you. Do you follow me?"

"Yes."

"Very well. It remains for us to find out how to remain friends without hurting you and your prospects in a world, which, as I have explained, is first of all an incredulous world, and after that the most pitiless of planets. Do you still follow what I say?"

"Yes."

"Then have you any suggestions?"

"No, Warner."

"What would you prefer to do to support yourself?"

"Anything that permitted me to remain near you."

"I know, Philippa; but I mean, leaving me out of consideration, what do you prefer to do?"

"I like everything—respectable."

"But what in particular?"

"I don't know; I like to keep accounts; I like to oversee and manage a household.... I conducted all the departments of the Café and Cabaret de Biribi—I was manager, housekeeper, general director; I hired and discharged servants, looked after all marketing, all the linen and tableware, kept all accounts and paid all wages.

"I know how to do such things and I like to do them. It was only the other—the secret service—which sickened me. Of course it would have been a great happiness to me if I had been employed in quiet, respectable, and cultivated surroundings, and not in a public place where anybody may enter and misbehave."

"I understand," he said thoughtfully. "If it is necessary, then, you are competent to do your duty as housekeeper in a private house."

"I don't know; I should think so."

"And there is nothing else you prefer?"

Philippa shook her head. Then she picked up her knitting again, settling herself on the edge of the bed, feet crossed, fingers flying, delicate face bent gravely over her work. And all at once it seemed to Warner that her peasant dress was not convincing; that this gay costume of her province which she wore was only a charming masquerade—the pretty caprice of a young girl born to finer linen and a purple more costly—the ephemeral and wayward whim which once had been responsible for the Little Trianon, and irresponsible to everything else except the traditions of a caste.

"Who are you, Philippa?" he asked curiously.

"I?" Her lifted eyes were level with his, very sweet and clear, and the bright needles ceased clicking.

"Don't you know who you are?" he repeated, watching her.

"A foundling.... I told you once."

"Is that all you know?"

"Yes."

"Does he know more than that?"

"He says he does not."

"You have no clew to your parentage?"

"None."

Her gaze became preoccupied, wandered from his, grew vaguely wistful.

"Out of the gutter," she said, without any bitterness in her emotionless voice. "—Of which circumstance he has frequently reminded me." With an unconscious movement she extended one exquisitely fashioned hand and gazed at it absently; looked down at the slim foot, where on the delicately arched instep a peasant's silver buckle glimmered.

Then, resting her grey eyes on him:

"If it really was the gutter, it is odd," she said, half to herself, "because always that second self which lives within me goes freshly bathed and clean and clothed in silk."

"Your second self?"

"My real self—my only comrade. You know, don't you? When one grows up alone there grows up with one an inner comrade—the truer self.... Otherwise the solitude of life must become intolerable."

"Yes, I understand."

"All lonely children have such a comrade, I suppose. Absolute self-isolation seems unendurable—actually impossible for a human being."

She resumed her knitting, meditatively, as a youthful princess might pick up her embroidery.

"As for the gutter," she said, "—out of the common earth we came, and we return to it.... Christ wandered, too, in very humble places."

CHAPTER XX

About noon a British soldier in uniform and mounted on a motor cycle came whizzing up to the Golden Peach.

Warner was in his room writing to his bankers in Paris; Philippa, in her room, was mending underwear; Halkett, who had walked to the school only to learn that Sister Eila had gone to the quarries, came out of the garden, where he had been sitting in silence with Ariadne.

The cyclist, a fresh-faced young fellow, saluted his uniform; Halkett took the dispatches, read them, turned on his heel and went upstairs to make his adieux. First he knocked on Philippa's door, and when the girl appeared he took his leave of her with a new and oddly stiff deference which seemed akin to shyness.

"I am so sorry you are going," she said.

"Thanks, so much. I shan't ever forget my debt to you. I hope you'll be all right now."

"I shall be all right with Mr. Warner, always. I do hope we shall see you again."

"If I come out of this——" He checked himself, embarrassed, then he added hurriedly: "I'll look you up, if I may. I shan't forget you."

His vigorous handclasp almost wrung a cry from her, but she managed to smile, and he went on down the corridor and knocked at Warner's door.

"Well, old chap, good-by and good luck!"

"What! Have your orders arrived?" exclaimed Warner.

"Just now. I've a motor cyclist below. He takes me behind him to Ausone. From there I go by rail."

"I'm glad for your sake, Halkett; I'm sorry for my own. It's been a jolly friendship."

"Yes, considering all the trouble I've put you to——"

"I tell you I liked it! Didn't I make that plain? I was in a rut; I was turning into an old fluff before you came cannoning into me, bringing a lively breeze with you. I've never enjoyed anything half as much!"

"It's kind of you to take it so. You've been very good to me, Warner. I shan't forget you—or the little lady yonder. I'm sure this doesn't mean the end of our friendship."

"Not if it lies with us, Halkett. I hope you'll come through. Good luck, old fellow."

"Thanks! Good luck and good-by."

Their gripped hands parted; Halkett turned, walked toward the stairs, halted:

"I'll send for my luggage," he said.

"I'll look out for it."

"Thanks. And be civil to Ariadne. She's a friendly old thing!"

"I'll cherish her," said Warner, smiling.

So they parted. He took leave of Madame Arlon and reckoned with her in British gold; Magda and Linette were made happy with his generosity.

Out on the roadside they saw him swing up behind the soldier cyclist. A moment later there was only a trail of dust hanging along an empty road.

But Halkett had not yet done with Saïs. At the school he dismounted and ascended the steps.

The schoolroom was empty, the place very still. From a distance came the voices of children. It was the hour of their noonday recreation.

He entered the quiet schoolroom. On the desk stood a vase of white clove pinks. He took one, inhaled its fragrance, touched it to his lips, turned to the door, and suddenly flushed to the roots of his hair.

Sister Eila, on the doorstep, turned her head and looked steadily at the soldier cyclist for a moment. But a moment was enough.

Yet, still looking away from Halkett, she said in her serene young voice:

"Your uniform tells me your errand, Monsieur Halkett. You have come for your papers."

"If I may trouble you——" His voice and manner were stiff and constrained.

She let her eyes rest on him for a moment:

"A British uniform is pleasant to see in France," she said. "One moment——" She stepped past him and entered the schoolroom. "I shall bring you your papers."

He walked slowly out to the road, holding in his hands, which were clasped behind him, the clove pink. Standing so, he looked across the fields to the river willows, from whence the shot had come. Slowly, clear-cut and in full sunshine, the scenes of that day passed through his mind. And after they had passed he turned and walked back to the schoolroom.

Sister Eila was seated at her desk, the papers lying before her.

He took them, buttoned them inside his tunic. She sat looking across the dim room, her elbow on the desk, her chin resting on her palm.

"There is no use trying to thank you," he said with an effort—and stopped.

After a silence:

"You are going into battle," she said.

"I hope so."

"Yes—I hope so.... God protect you, Mr. Halkett."

He could not seem to find his voice.

Perhaps the silence became unendurable to her; she fumbled for her rosary, lifted it, and took the metal crucifix between both hands.

"Good-by," he said.

"Good-by." Her eyes did not leave the crucifix.

He stood motionless, crushing his forage cap in his hands. The white flower broke from its stem and fell to the floor. He bent and picked it up, looked at it, looked at her, turned and went his way.

The crucifix in her tightening hand grew indistinct, blurring under her steady gaze. In her ears still sounded the retreating racket of the motor cycle; the echoes lingered, grew fainter, died out in the golden gloom of the room.

Sister Eila extended her arms in front of her and laid her colorless face between them. The room grew very still.

CHAPTER XXI

A line regiment came swinging along from the south, its band silent, but the fanfare of its field music tremendously noisy—bass drums, snare drums, hunting horns and bugles—route step, springy and slouchy, officers at ease in their saddles: but, through the clinging aura of the dust, faces transfigured, and in every eye a depth of light like that which shines from the fixed gaze of prophets.

Rifles slung, equipments flapping, the interminable files trudged by under the hanging dust, an endless, undulating blur of red and blue, an immense shuffling sound, almost melodious, and here and there a handsome, dusty horse pacing amid the steady torrent.

They occupied only half of the wide, military road; now and then a military automobile came screaming past them with a flash of crimson and gold in the tonneau, leaving on the retina a brilliant, glimmering impression that faded gradually.

On the road across the Récollette, wagons, motor trucks, and field artillery had been passing for hours; the barrier of dust had grown much loftier, hanging suspended and unchanging against the hills, completely obscuring them except for a blue summit here and there.

Fewer troops passed on this side of the river. A regiment of dragoon lancers rode by about one o'clock—slender, nervous, high-strung officers, with the horse-hair blowing around their shoulders from their silver helmets; the sturdy, bronzed young troopers riding with their lances swung slanting from the arm loops—and all with that still, fixed, enraptured expression of the eyes, as though under the spell of inward meditation, making their youthful features dreamy.

In some village through which they had passed, people had hung wreaths of leaves and flowers around their horses' necks. They still hung there, wilting in the sun; some, unraveled and trailing, shed dying blossoms at every step.

From the garden wall where she sat knitting beside Ariadne, Philippa plucked and tossed rose after rose down into the ranks of the passing horsemen.

There was no pleasantry, no jesting, scarcely a smile on the girl's lips or on theirs, but as each trooper caught the flung rose he turned his helmeted head and saluted, and rode on with the fresh flower touching his dusty lips.

And so they passed, squadron crowding on squadron, the solid trampling thunder shaking the earth. Not a trumpet note, not a whistle signal, not a voice, not a gilded sleeve upflung, not a slim saber lifted—only the steady, slanting torrent of lances and the running glitter of slung carbines, and a great flowing blaze of light from acres of helmets moving through the haze, as in a vision of pomp and pageantry of ancient days and brave.

Warner came across the fields swinging his walking stick reflectively as the last peloton rode by.

Philippa looked down at him from her perch on the wall, and, unsmiling, dropped him a rose.

"Thank you, pretty maiden," he said, looking up while he drew the blossom through his lapel. "I have something to talk over with you. Shall I go around and climb up to you, or will you come down and walk to the river with me?"

"Either will be a pleasure for me. I desire only to be with you," she said. So frank were her grey eyes that again the dull, inward warning of his increasing responsibility to her and for her left him silent and disconcerted.

In his knowledge of her undisguised affection, and of the glamour with which he realized she had already innocently invested him, he began to comprehend the power over her which circumstances had thrust upon him.

It was too serious a burden for such a man as he, involved too deep a responsibility; and he meant to shift it.

"Come and walk with me, then," he said, "—or we'll take the punt, if you like."

She nodded brightly, rolled up her knitting, looked around at the ladder in the garden behind her, glanced down at him, which was the shorter way.

"If I jump could you catch me?"

"I suppose I could, but——"

"Look out, then! Garde à vous!"

He managed to catch her and ease her to the ground, and, as always, she took possession of his arm with both of hers clasped closely around it, as though he meditated flight.

"While you are absent," she said, "my thoughts are occupied only with you. When I have you by me"—her clasp tightened a little—"such wonderful ideas come to inspire me—you can't imagine! I aspire to be worthy of such a friendship; I feel that it is in me to be good and wise and lofty of mind, and to think and believe generously.... Do you understand me? ... Petty sorrows vanish—the smaller and selfish desires and aspirations disappear. Into my spirit comes a delicious exultation, as though being with you cleansed my heart and filled my mind with ardent and noble thoughts.... I don't know whether you understand. Do you?"

"I understand that you are a very generous friend, who believes that her new friend is everything with which her youthful heart invests him."

"And you are!"

"I've got to try to be, now," he said, laughingly. "There is no unhappiness like that of a broken idol."

"Do I regard you as an idol?"

"Not me, but what your charming fancy pretends is me. I dread the day you find me out."

"You are laughing at me," she said happily, walking beside him with her light, springy step. "You may make fun of me; you may say what you will. I know."

"I think I do, too. And this is what I know, Philippa; you have within you some very rare and delicate and splendid qualities. Also, you are very young, and you need a guide——"

"You!"

"No."

"What! Of course it's you I need to guide me——"

"Listen. You need a woman—older than yourself——"

"Please!—Warner, my friend——"

"I want you to listen, Philippa."

"Yes."

They walked over the clover in silence for a few moments, then, glancing at her, he unconsciously tried his power:

"You like and trust me, don't you?"

The girl lifted her grey eyes, and he looked straight ahead of him while the flush lasted in his face.

He said:

"Because I like and respect you, and because you are my friend, I am ambitious for you. I want you to have your chance. I can't give it to you, rightly. No man could do that very successfully or very prudently.

"While you remain in my employment, of course, we shall see each other constantly; when, eventually, you secure other employment, we can, at intervals, meet. But, Philippa, I don't want that sort of chance for you."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't. Let me tell you what I have done without consulting you. If it meets with your approval, the problem of your immediate future is in a fair way of being solved."

They had reached the bank of the little river: the punt was drawn up among the rushes; they seated themselves without pushing off.

"Over beyond the woods, yonder," he continued, nodding his head, "is the Château des Oiseaux—a big, old-fashioned country house. A friend of many years lives there with her younger sister—Madame de Moidrey, the widow of a French officer. When she was Ethra Brooks, a little American girl, we were playmates. Her sister, Peggy, attends my painting class. After Mr. Halkett left, I walked across to the Château des Oiseaux, and I lunched there with Madame de Moidrey."

He hesitated: the girl looked up out of clear eyes that read him.

"Yes; I want you to walk over to the Château with me," he said. "Madame de Moidrey has asked me to bring you.... And if she likes you, and you like her, she might desire to have you remain as her companion."

The girl remained silent, expressionless. He went on, slowly:

"It would not be like securing employment among strangers. Madame de Moidrey knows that we are friends.... And, Philippa, you are very young to go into employment among strangers. Not that you cannot take care of yourself. But it is not a happy experience. Besides, a personal and sympathetic interest will be wanting—in the beginning at least. And that will mean loneliness for you——"

"It will mean it anyway if I am to leave you."

"But I shall see you at the Château——"

"For a little while yet. Then you will be going back to Paris. And then—what shall I do?"

The candid tragedy in her eyes appalled him.

"Dear child," he said, "your duties with Madame de Moidrey will keep you too busy to think about anybody in particular. You will find in her a friend; you will find happiness there, I am very certain——"

"If you wish it, I will go. But when you leave, happiness departs."

"Philippa, that is nonsense——"

"No... And I had supposed, if I earned my living, that you would permit me to live with you—or near you somewhere.... Just to know you were living near me—even if I did not see you every evening—would rest me.... I had hoped for that, mon ami."

"Philippa, dear, it would not do. That is too Bohemian to be anything safer than merely agreeable. But the surroundings and duties you are going to have with Madame de Moidrey are exactly what you need and what I could have desired for any friend of mine in your circumstances."

The girl's head began to droop, where she was seated on the stern seat of the boat.

He said:

"The influences of such a house, of such a home, of such people, are far better for you than to saunter out and face the world, depending for companionship upon a man not yet too old to arouse that fussy world's suspicion and perhaps resentment. You must have a better purpose in life."

She remained silent for a few moments, then, not lifting her head, and her slim hands nervously plaiting her scarlet skirt:

"Anywhere alone with you in the world would be a sufficient purpose in life for me.... No matter how I earned my bread—if, when toil ended with evening, you were the reward—and—consolation——" A single tear fell, glittering; she turned her head sharply and kept it turned.

Deeply touched, even stirred, yet perfectly incredulous of himself, he sat watching her, not knowing how best to meet such childish loyalty, such blindly obstinate devotion.

Out of what had such a depth of feeling been born? Out of gratitude for a pleasant and kindly word or two—an exaggerated sense of obligation for a few services rendered—services that for sheer and loyal courage could not match what she had done for Halkett?

And she seemed to be so sane, so clear-thinking, so competent in most things! This girlish and passionate attachment to him did not conform to other traits which made up her character and made of her an individual, specific and distinct.

He said:

"If you were my daughter, and I were in straitened circumstances and unable to be with you, I should advise you as I have."

Without turning, she answered:

"I am too old and you are too young for us to think of each other in that way.... I am not a child.... I am unhappy without you. But I care enough for you to obey you."

"And I care enough for you, Philippa, to remain in Saïs as long as you think you want me," he said.

"What!"

She turned, her glimmering eyes radiant, stretching out both hands to him.

"You are so good—so good!" she stammered. "The Château will frighten me; I shall be lonely. The world is a very large place to be alone in.... You are so good!—Stay in Saïs a little while yet—just a little while.... I won't keep you very long from Paris—only let me know you a little longer.... I couldn't bear it—so soon—the only happiness I have ever known—to end—so soon——"

"You dear child, if I thought you really needed me——"

"No, I won't let you be more generous than that! Just a few days, please. And a promise to let me see you again—something to remember—to wait for——"

"Surely, surely, little comrade. You don't suppose I am going to let you slip away out of my life, do you? And I don't understand why you are in such a sudden panic about my going away——"

"But you are going soon!—You were."

"How did you know?"

"Madame Arlon told me that you had already given congé. I didn't care; I thought I was to go with you. But now that you wish me to go to the Château—it—it frightens me."

He rose, stood looking at her for a moment, turned and paced the river bank once or twice, then came back to where she was seated.

"Come up to the Château now," he said. "I give you this promise, anyway; as long as you think you want me and need me in the world, you have only to say so, Philippa. And if I cannot come to you, then you shall come to me."

He hadn't quite analyzed what he was saying before he said it; he felt a little confused and uncertain, even now, as to how deeply his promise involved him. But even while he was speaking, a subtle undercurrent of approval seemed to reassure him that he was not all wrong, not too rash in what he promised. Or perhaps it was the very rashness of the impulse that something obscure within him was approving.

As for the girl, she stood up, tremulous, deep-eyed, trying to smile, trying to speak but failing, and only taking his arm into her possession again and clasping it closely with a childishly unconscious and instinctive sense of possession.

When she found her voice at last, she laughed and pressed her cheek impulsively against his shoulder.

"Tiens!" she said. "Your Château and its chatelaine have no terrors now for me, Monsieur.... Did you tell her who I am, and what I have been, and all that you know about me?"

"Yes, I did."

She dropped his arm, but kept step close beside him.

"You know," she said, "it is odd—perhaps it is effrontery—I don't know—but I, Philippa Wildresse—for want of another name—perhaps lacking the right to any name at all—am tranquil and serene at heart in the crisis so swiftly approaching."

"What crisis, Philippa?"

"My interview with a lady of the world, Monsieur—Madame la Comtesse de Moidrey. The caissière de cabaret should feel very humble and afraid. Is it effrontery? What is it that does not disturb me in the slightest?"

"Perhaps it is that other comrade of many years, Philippa—your other and inner self."

"It must be. For she could not hesitate to look anybody in the face—that wonderful and other self—wonderful as a bright dream, Monsieur.... Which is all she is, I know."

"You are wrong, Philippa: she is even more real than you. And some day you shall be part of her. You are growing so every hour. And when that finally happens, then this—all this—will become unreal."

"Not you."

"We shall see.... Here are the gates of the Château des Oiseaux. It is you who enter, Philippa; but it shall be your inner and real self who shall go out through the gates one day—God willing."

The girl smiled at him:

"They have but one soul between them," she said. "And that is yours and God's, I hope."

CHAPTER XXII

Madame de Moidrey, strolling with Warner on the south terrace of the Château des Oiseaux, glanced sideways at intervals through the open French windows, where, at the piano inside, Philippa sat playing, and singing in a subdued voice ancient folk songs of the lost provinces.

Peggy Brooks, enchanted, urged her to more active research through the neglected files of a memory still vivid; Philippa's voice was uncultivated, unplaced, but as fresh and carelessly sweet as a blackbird's in May. Some of these old ballads she had picked up from schoolmates, many from the Cabaret de Biribi, where clients were provincial and usually sentimental, and where some of the ancient songs were sung almost every day.

Madame de Moidrey had not immediately referred to Philippa when, with Warner, she had strolled out to the terrace, leaving the two younger girls together at the piano.

They had spoken of the sudden and unexpected menace of war, of the initial movements of troops along the Saïs Valley that morning; the serious chances of a German invasion, the practical certainty that in any event military operations were destined to embrace the country around them. Warner seemed very confident concerning the Barrier Forts, but he spoke of Montmedy and of Mézières with more reserve, and of Ausone not at all.

They promenaded for a few minutes longer in silence, each preoccupied with anxious speculations regarding a future which began already to loom heavy as a thundercloud charged with unloosed lightnings.

From moment to moment the handsome woman beside him glanced through the open windows of the music room, where her younger sister and the girl Philippa were still busily interested in working out accompaniments to the old-time songs.

Philippa sang "J'ai perdu ma beauté":

"I have lost my beauty—

Fate has bereft me,

Fortune has left me,

None owes me duty.

I have lost my lover;

I shall not recover.

Our Lady of Lorraine,

Pity my pain!"

They paused to listen to this naïve melody of other days, then strolled on.

Madame de Moidrey said:

"She is very interesting, your little friend from Ausone."

"I am glad you think so."

"Oh, yes, there is no doubt about her being clever and intelligent.... I wonder where she acquired her aplomb."

"Would you call it that?"

Madame de Moidrey smiled:

"No, it is a gentler quality—not devoid of sweetness. I think we may label it a becoming self-possession.... Anyway, it is a quality and not a trait—if that pleases you."

"She has quality."

"She has a candor which is almost disturbingly transparent. When I was a girl I saw Gilbert's comedy, 'The Palace of Truth.' And actually, I believe that your little friend, Philippa, could have entered that terrible house of unconscious self-revelation without any need of worrying."

"You couldn't praise her more sincerely if you think that," he said. "She offers virgin soil for anybody who will take any trouble with her."

"Oh," said Madame de Moidrey, laughing, "I thought I was to engage her to aid me and amuse me; but it seems that I have been engaged to educate her in the subtler refinements of civilized existence!"

"Don't you want to?" asked Warner, bluntly.

"Dear friend of many more years than I choose to own to, have I not enough to occupy me without adopting a wandering caissière de cabaret?"

"Is that the way you feel?" he said, reddening.

"Don't be cross! No; it isn't the way I feel. I do need a companion. Perhaps your friend Philippa is not exactly the companion I might have dreamed about or aspired to——"

"If you look at it in that way——"

"Jim! Don't be rude, either! I desire two things; I want a companion and I wish to oblige you. You know perfectly well I do.... Besides, the girl is interesting. You didn't expect me to sentimentalize over her, did you? You may do that if you like. As for me, I shall consider engaging her if she cares to come to me."

"She will be very glad to," he said, coolly.

Madame de Moidrey cast a swift side glance at him, full of curiosity and repressed amusement.

"Men," she said, "are the real sentimentalists in this matter-of-fact world, not women. Merely show a man a pretty specimen of the opposite sex in the conventional attitude of distress, and it unbalances his intellect immediately."

"Do you imagine that my youthful friend Philippa has unbalanced my intellect?" he asked impatiently.

"Not entirely. Not completely——"

"Nonsense!"

"What a bad-mannered creature you are, Jim! But fortunately you're something else, too. For example, you have been nice about this very unusual and somewhat perilously attractive young girl. Few men would have been so. Don't argue! I have known a few men in my time. And I pay you a compliment."

She stopped and leaned back against a weatherworn vase of stone which crowned the terrace parapet.

"Listen, Jim; for a woman to take into her house a young girl with this girl's unknown antecedents and perfectly well-known past performances ought not to be a matter of romantic impulse, or of sympathy alone. What you tell me about her, what I myself have already seen of her, are sufficient to inspire the interest which all romance arouses, and the sympathy which all lonely youth inspires. But these are not enough.

"Choice of companionship is a matter for serious consideration. You can't make a companion of the intellectually inferior, of one who possesses merely the lesser instincts, of any lesser nature, whether cultivated to its full extent or otherwise. You know that. We shun what is not congenial."

He looked at her very intently, the dull red still flushing his face; and she surveyed him critically, amiably, amused at his attitude, which was the epitome of everything masculine.

"What are you going to do about her?" he inquired at last.

"Offer to engage her."

"As what?"

"A companion."

"Oh. Then you do appreciate her?"

Madame de Moidrey threw back her pretty head and laughed with delicious abandon.

"Perhaps I don't appreciate her as deeply as you do, Jim, but I shall humbly endeavor to do so. Now, suppose, when you go back to the Golden Peach, you send Philippa's effects up here, and in the meanwhile I'll begin my duty of finishing Philippa's education—for which duty, I understand, I'm engaged by you——"

"Ethra, you are a trump! And I don't really mind your guying me——"

"Indeed, I'm not guying you, dear friend! I'm revealing to you the actual inwardness of this entire and remarkable performance of yours. And if you don't know that you are engaging me to finish this young girl's education while you're making up your mind about your sentiments concerning her, then it's time you did."

"That is utterly——"

"Please! And it's all the truer because you don't believe it! ... Jim, the girl really is a pathetic figure—simple, sweet, intelligent, and touchingly honest.... And I'll say another thing.... God knows what mother bore her, what parents are responsible for this young thing—with her delicate features and slender body. But it was not from a pair of unhappy nobodies she inherited her mind, which seems to seek instinctively what is fine and right amid the sordid complexities of the only world she has ever known.

"As for her heart, Jim, it is the heart of a child—with one heavenly and exaggerated idol completely filling it. You! ... And I tell you very plainly that, if I were a man, the knowledge of this would frighten me a little, and make me rather more serious than many men are inclined to be."

He bit his lip and looked out across the southern valley, where already the August haze was growing bluer, blurring the low-hanging sun.

She laid a friendly, intimate, half humorous hand on his arm:

"In all right-thinking men the boy can never die. No experience born of pain, no cynicism, no incredulity acquired through disappointment, can kill the boy in any man until it has first slain his soul. Otherwise, chivalry in the world had long since become extinct.

"You have done what you could do for Philippa. I am really glad to help you, Jim. But from now on, be very careful and very sure of yourself. Because now your real responsibility begins."

He had not thought of it in that way. And now he did not care to.

To sympathize, to protect, to admire—these were born of impulse and reason, which, in turn, had their origin in unconscious condescension.

To applaud the admirable, to express a warm concern for virtue in difficulties, meant merely sincere recognition, not the intimacy of that equality of mind and circumstance which existed per se between himself and such a woman as Madame de Moidrey.

The very word "protection" implies condescension, conscious or unconscious. We may love what we protect; we never, honestly, place it on a pedestal, or even on a mathematical level with ourselves. It can't be done.

And so, in a vague sort of way, Warner remained incredulous of the impossible with which Madame de Moidrey had smilingly menaced him.

Only, of course, she was quite right; he must not thoughtlessly arouse the woman in the girl Philippa.

But there is nothing in the world that ought more thoroughly to arouse the best qualities of manhood in a man than the innocent adoration of a young girl. For if he could really believe himself to be even a shadow of what she believes he is, the world might really become the most agreeable of residential planets.

As Warner and Madame de Moidrey entered the music room through the open French windows, Philippa turned from the piano and her soft voice died out in the quaint refrain she had been accompanying.

She rose instinctively, which was more than Peggy did, having no reverence for age in her own sister—and Madame de Moidrey came forward and took the girl's slender hands in hers.

"Have you concluded to remain with me?" she asked, smilingly.

"I did not understand that you had asked me," said the girl gravely.

"I do ask you."

Philippa looked at Warner, then lifted her grey eyes to the elder woman.

"You are very kind, Madame. I—it will be a great happiness to me if you accept my services."

The Countess de Moidrey regarded her, still retaining her hands, still smiling.

"You have a very sweet way of making the acceptance mine and not yours," she said. "Let us accept each other, Philippa. Will you?"

"You are most kind, Madame——"

"Can kindness win you?"

"Madame, it has already."

The American widow of the recent Count de Moidrey felt a curious sensation of uncertainty in the quiet self-possession of this young girl—in her serenity, in her modulated voice and undisturbed manner.

An odd idea persisted that the graciousness was not entirely on her own part; that there was something even more subtle than graciousness on the part of this girl, whose delicate hands lay, cool and smooth, within her own.

It was not manner, for there was none on Philippa's part; not reticence, for that argues a conscious effort or a still more conscious lack of effort. Perhaps, through the transparent simplicity of the girl, the older woman's intuition caught a glimpse of finer traditions than she 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, Liége—

Le dur siége

Noblesse oblige

sang Philippa—

"Namurois, Liégeois,

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 Château 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 Récollette; 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 Château 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 Liége—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 you, Philippa," he added, smiling at her. "I never saw you looking as well; and that's a tremendously fetching frock you're wearing."

It was a white outing gown of serge, and the girl wore white stockings and tennis shoes, and a soft white hat—a boyish headgear which became her enchantingly.

"Peggy gave it to me," she said. "It is very American, isn't it?"

"It's adorable on you. Do you like Peggy Brooks?"

"Yes."

"And Madame de Moidrey?"

"Yes, I do—rather."

"Not entirely?"

"Jim——"

"What?"

"Yes, I—yes, I do like her.... But I don't do much to earn my wages. And that troubles me."

"Your salary?"

Philippa laughed:

"Wages, salary—what does it matter what you call them, when both merely mean pay for work performed.... I should like to do something for Madame de Moidrey in return. But she has many servants and a maid and a housekeeper. I thought I was to read to her, write letters for her, amuse her. But she sometimes reads to me and she and Peggy are teaching me to play tennis——" Philippa held out one narrow foot for his inspection. "And yesterday she ordered a horse for me, as well as for herself and her sister, and I wore one of Peggy's riding habits—knee breeches and boots, Jim; and they set me on a horse! That is the way I am earning my wages at the Château des Oiseaux!"

"Why complain?" he asked, much amused.

"Because I am unable to return such favors——"

"Don't worry; whatever they do for you brings its own recompense."

"How?"

"Has it never occurred to you that your society is agreeable, interesting, amusing, and desirable?"

"No," she said, honestly surprised.

"Well, it is! People like you. You yourself amply recompense anybody for anything done for you, by accepting the attentions offered."

"Do you think of me in that way?"

He hadn't quite understood until then that he did feel that way about her, but he felt it now so strongly that it seemed as though he had always been of that mind.

"I've always thought so," he said. "There is never a dull moment with you, Philippa. No wonder people seek you and like you and pet you!"

Philippa blushed and tried to smile, then for a moment she buried her flushed face in Ariadne's fluffy fur until her cheeks cooled.

"If," she said, "I had a home and an income, however tiny, I should not feel at all embarrassed by courtesies from others, because I should, in my turn, offer the best I possessed. But, Jim—a homeless girl—with all that I have been—endured!—I don't know—but I should feel more comfortable if I could be of some service in return for all that these very kind Americans offer me."

She placed Ariadne on the grass, turned and looked down at the river.

"There is my punt," she said. "Isn't it curious to remember that you and I first became friends in that boat? It seems to have happened very long ago, when I was a child.... You made me wash my face; do you remember?"

"I do," he replied gayly. "You looked like a schoolgirl made up for the part of Jezebel."

She blushed and hung her head. Presently her lowered eyes were raised to him in a distressed, questioning way, and he came over to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

"I never thought ill of you, Philippa—never doubted you were anything except what you really are."

She looked up into his eyes:

"I don't know what I really am. But I am beginning to understand that I can be whatever you desire. Also, I am beginning to understand how generous you have been to me in your thoughts. Both you and Mr. Halkett had every reason to think lightly of the caissière of the Cabaret de Biribi, with her painted lips and cheeks and her easy manners——" She shrugged. "And perhaps, but for the grace of God and you, I should have become what I appeared to be.... Let us sit in the punt. Shall we?"

They went down to the river together, Ariadne marching at their heels with tail erect, and the girl stepped aboard and seated herself in the stern which, afloat, swung in the limpid eddy among the tall, green rushes.

When Warner also was seated, at her feet, she drew from the pocket of her white serge jacket a letter, and, leaning over him, opened and displayed it.

The letter was written in French on common writing paper, in a perfectly legible but uneducated hand.

MADEMOISELLE [it began],

You are watched and your present whereabouts is known. You are warned to keep your mouth shut. Any treachery, even any slight indiscretion on your part, will be fully revenged by those you betray.

The wages of a traitor are death. Be advised in time. Return to your duty while there is yet time and your present ingratitude will be forgiven.

Make up your mind at once. There is no time to waste. What is to happen shall happen! It is coming very fast. It is almost upon us.

The safety which you suppose that the present condition of affairs guarantees you is but momentary. Peril threatens you; certain punishment awaits you. Documents in possession of those whom you threaten to betray are sufficient to condemn you now.

And more than that: we hold over you the power of life and death; and shall hold it, no matter what happens in Ausone!

Either way we can destroy you.

Return to us, therefore; accept forgiveness while there is yet time. You know who has caused this to be written. Therefore, enough!

Return and find security; remain to betray us and you shall be shot!

When Warner finished reading this outrageous missive, he looked up into Philippa's undisturbed face, and she smiled.

"When did you receive this?" he demanded.

"It came in the noon mail yesterday."

"Of course it's from Wildresse."

"Of course," she said simply. "What do you think of it?"

"I think very little of it," he replied. "Threatened people are good insurance risks. If he could have harmed you, he'd not have troubled to write you about his amiable designs on you.... It's a pity—a great pity, Philippa—that we dare not call in the police."

"If I have written, innocently, the things he says I have written and signed, it might go hard with me if he were arrested," she said.

"I know it. It can't be done—at any rate, it can't be done yet. If there were anywhere you could go—any frontier that might be a barrier of safety for you! But all Europe seems to be involved—all neutral frontiers violated—even the Grand Duchy has become a German thoroughfare.... Let me think it over, Philippa. I don't know how dangerous to you that miserable rascal can become.... But Halkett was right: as long as you are in France, it won't do to denounce Wildresse."

"You understand, Jim, that I am not alarmed," she said gently, watching his anxious and clouded features. "I know that. I think I have reason to bear testimony concerning your courage——"

"I did not mean it in that way——"

"I understand, dear. Those who amount to anything never have to say so. I know you are not afraid.... Shall I keep that letter for you?"

She handed it to him. He pocketed it and sat for a while in silence, his brooding eyes on the blue distance.

Finally, with an effort, his face cleared, and he said cheerfully:

"It is the strangeness and unreality of these last few days which depresses everybody. As a matter of fact, the war has lent a certain almost dignified terror to the attitude and the petty operations of a very vile and squalid band of malefactors in a small, provincial town.

"These fellows are nothing but cheap dealers in blackmail; and the last thing they'd do would be to invoke the law, of which they stand in logical and perpetual fear.

"No, no! All this hint of political and military vengeance—all this innuendo concerning a squad of execution, is utter rot.

"If they've dabbled in the bartering of military information, they'll keep clear of anything resembling military authority. No; I'm not worried on that point.... But I think, if Madame de Moidrey cares to ask me, that I should like to be a guest at the Château des Oiseaux for the next few days."

"Jim!" she exclaimed, radiant.

"Do you want me?" he asked, pretending astonishment.

And so it happened that after luncheon Warner locked up his room and studio in the pretty hostelry of the Golden Peach, gave orders for his trunk to be sent to the Château, and started across the fields toward the wooded heights, from whence had come over the telephone an amused voice inviting him to be the guest of the Countess de Moidrey.

When he arrived, Madame de Moidrey was sewing alone on the southern terrace, and she looked up laughingly and extended her hand.

"So you're in the web at last," she said. "I predicted it, didn't I?"

"Nonsense, Ethra. I came because Philippa has received a threatening letter from that scoundrel, Wildresse."

"I know. The child has told me. Is it worth worrying over?"

"Not at all," said Warmer contemptuously. "That sort of thing is the last resort of a badly frightened coward. Only I thought, considering the general uncertainty, that perhaps you and Peggy might not be displeased to have a rather muscular man in the house."

"As a matter of fact, Jim, I had thought of asking you. Really, I had. Only—" she laughed—"I was afraid you might think I was encouraging you in something else——"

"See here, Ethra! You don't honestly suppose that there is anything sentimental in my relations with Philippa, do you?"

"Isn't there?"

"No," he said impatiently.

Madame de Moidrey resumed her sewing, the smile still edging her pleasant lips:

"She is very young yet, in many things; all the enchanting candor and sweetness of a child are hers still, together with a poise and quiet dignity almost bewildering at moments.... Jim, your little, nameless protégée is simply fascinating!"

He spoke quietly:

"I'm only too thankful you find her so."

"I do. Philippa is adorable. And nobody can make me believe that there is not good blood there. Why, speaking merely of externals, every feature, every contour, every delicate line of her body is labeled 'race.' There is never any accident in such a result of breeding. In mind and body the child has bred true to her race and stock—that is absurdly plain and perfectly evident to anybody who looks at her, sees her move, hears her voice, and follows the natural workings of her mind."

"Yes," said Warner, "Halkett and I decided that she had been born to fine linen and fine thoughts. Who in the world can the child be, Ethra?"

Madame de Moidrey shook her head over her sewing:

"I've found myself wondering again and again what the tragedy could have been. The man, Wildresse, may have lied to her. If some day he could be forced to tell what he knows——"

"I have thought of that.... I don't know, Ethra.... Sometimes it is better to leave a child in untroubled ignorance. What do you think?"

"Perhaps.... But, Jim, there is no peasant ancestry in that child, I am sure, whatever else there may be."

"Just rascally aristocracy?"

The Countess de Moidrey laughed. She had married for love; she could afford to.

"I am Yankee enough," she said, "to be sensitive to that subtle and indescribable something which always characterizes the old French aristocracy. One is always aware of it; it is never absent; it clings always as the perfume clings to an ancient cabinet of sandalwood and ivory.

"And, Jim, it seems to me that it clings, faintly, to the child Philippa.... It's an odd thing to say. Perhaps if I had been born to the title, I might not have detected it. What is familiar from birth is rarely noticed. But my unspoiled, nervous, and Yankee nose seems to detect it in this young girl.... And my Yankee nose, being born 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 Château 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 Forêt 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 Récollette 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 aëroplanes 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 aëroplanes 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 aëroplanes 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 aëroplanes 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 aëroplanes 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 Récollette. 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 devoid of malice, and the two were in the billiard room, which opened from the northern terrace, for the purpose of Philippa's education in the game of French billiards.

The Countess set her teacup aside and picked up her sewing.

"I don't intend to be driven out of my home," she remarked.

He lighted a cigarette and looked curiously into the north.

"Whether it's to be the wretched story of 1870 again or not," she went on, "I shall not be frightened away from this house.

"This is my home. I came here a bride; my dear husband died under this roof; all I care for in the world, all I hold most dear, most intimate, is here, Jim. I shall not go."

He said gravely:

"I hope the necessity may never arise, Ethra."

"It will not. Are the Germans really barbarians? What object could they have in injuring this old house? What good would it do them or their country to disturb us here? If they come, we can't defend ourselves. What is there for us to do except to submit? But I shall not go away and leave this place to the mercies of their filthy soldiery."

Warner said nothing. There were many contingencies overlooked by this determined lady—circumstances which might mean ruin to the house—if, for instance, a retreating army chose to defend the Château. But he remained silent, not caring to trouble her with the possibilities of eventualities.

"I had rather you stayed, if you don't mind, Jim," she said, sewing away serenely.

"Certainly."

The steady thud of the cannonade had now assumed a more substantial rumbling sound.

Now and then separate shocks were audible, as though great pieces, occasionally, were discharged singly, dominating the duller monotone of lesser caliber.

He kept his eyes pretty constantly on the horizon line of smoke, evidently expectant of some new development, now and then fancying that it had become visible, as the calm sky became suffused with the delicate pastel hues of early evening, and the first bat zigzagged among the potted orange trees on the terrace.

And presently, in the early dusk, it became visible—first merely as a dull tint reddening the distant smoke, then as a faint, ruddy line of light, shifting, twinkling, sinking, flaring palely, then more redly as the summer dusk deepened and possessed the silent world around them.

From northwest to southeast ran the flicker of the guns, with now and then a wider flare and a deeper accent dominating the measured monotone.

Five fires were burning, also: two from hamlets or nearer groups of buildings belonging to some big farm; the other three conflagrations were farther distant, and much greater, as though three considerable villages and their environs were in flames.

Philippa and Peggy came to the long, open windows from moment to moment, standing there, cue in hand, to look out at the reddening sky.

It was still not too dusky to see fairly well, and the lamps had not yet been lighted in the house, excepting the luster over the billiard table, when a footman appeared on the terrace, dignified, correct, unruffled:

"The driveway and circle, Madame la Comtesse, are full of cavalry. Their officers are dismounting; the troopers have gone into our stables and garage."

The Countess rose quietly, and Warner stood up in silence.

"What cavalry is it?"

"Ours, Madame. They have taken out the three automobiles and all the horses."

"Thank you." And, to Warner: "Would you mind coming with me, Jim?"

They entered the billiard room and traversed the house to the southern terrace.

Drive and circle were swarming with the pale blue dolmans of hussars moving in and out of the fan-shaped glare of electric torches, some mounted, their lances held perpendicularly in the stirrup boots, others afoot, leading up horses from the Château stables, pushing the three automobiles along the garage drive, dragging vehicles of every description by hand—hay wagons, farm wagons, long unused and old-fashioned family carriages with the De Moidrey crest on their panels.

Several officers in turquoise and silver, standing on the terrace, surveyed the proceedings below, one of them turning the brilliant light of his breast torch upon one spot after another and scarcely raising his voice as he directed operations.

There was very little noise, no confusion; everybody seemed to know what was to be done.

As the Countess de Moidrey and Warner came out upon the terrace, the officers heard them, turned, saluted, and one of them, a slim, handsome youth most beautifully molded into his uniform, came forward, crimson cap in hand, bowing with a grace indescribable.

"Madame de Moidrey," he said, "we very deeply regret the military necessity which temporarily deprives you of your cars and horses, but the Government requires us to ask them of you and to offer you a receipt——"

"The Government is welcome, Monsieur," she said earnestly. "If the Government will accept what I have to offer as a gift, it will honor me sufficiently without offering any receipt or promise of indemnification."

"Countess," said the youthful soldier, bowing, "it is the answer any soldier of France might expect from one who bears the name of De Moidrey. Nevertheless, Madame, I am required to leave in your possession a receipt for what you so graciously permit me to requisition.... Permit me, Madame——" He drew from his dispatch pouch the papers, already filled in, signed and stamped, and presented them with a bow.

And, smilingly, Madame de Moidrey tore them across, again and again, and dropped the fragments upon the terrace.

"Monsieur," she said, "may I not offer you the hospitality of the house—some little refreshment for you and for your men?"

"Madame, we are overwhelmed, but our orders permit us no time."

Warner said quietly:

"If you could spare a moment, Captain, there is something I should like you to see from the north terrace." And to the Countess: "May I take him? I think he ought to see what we have seen."

Madame de Moidrey said:

"By all means, Jim."

And the two young men went swiftly through the house and out on the north terrace.

"Ha!" exclaimed the officer, as the rumble of the cannonade struck his ears, and he looked out on the dark circle of the horizon, all sparkling and lighted up with the ruddy flicker and flare of the guns.

"A raid?" asked Warner quietly.

"I don't know. Villages are afire yonder. Have you seen anything that might be of importance to us, Monsieur?"

"Two aëroplanes. The Ausone fort fired at them with sky-guns. They went east."

"Biplanes?"

"Monoplanes, I think. I am not sure."

"Square-tipped ailerons? Could you see?"

"They were shaped exactly like kestrels."

"Ah! Taubes! Many thanks, Monsieur." He stared out across the darkness. "Yes, it's warming up out there. Well, sir, I must go. And thank you again for your kindness——" He fumbled in his dolman, produced his cardcase. "May I be permitted to present my cards to Madame de Moidrey? Thank you—if you would be so amiable——"

They retraced their steps through the house, encountering Peggy Brooks in the hallway, who received a most ceremonious bow from the youthful hussar, and who acknowledged it with an enchanting inclination of her pretty head.

Within a few feet of the front terrace, the young officer suddenly halted.

"Monsieur," he said, very red, "it would seem, perhaps, more courteous for me to leave my cards for all the ladies of the household. Would it not—under such unusual and unfortunate circumstances as those of this evening?"

Warner looked at him gravely; he was very young, very ceremonious, very much flushed. Was it possible that Peggy Brooks had bowled over this young gentleman with her first smile?

"I think," said Warner, very seriously, "that it might be considered obligatory for an officer who takes away all the horses and motor cars to leave his card for every lady in the family. There are," he added, "three."

Afterward, when the officer had taken his leave, and his escort of hussars had trotted away with the horses, wagons, and automobiles, Warner, much amused, related to the Countess the incident of the cards; and he distributed them at dinner, reading the name engraved on his own with some curiosity.

"Well, Peggy," he said, "you did murderous work with your smile this evening."

She answered calmly:

"I hope so. He was exceedingly nice looking."

"Le Vicomte d'Aurès," nodded Warner, "Captain of Cavalry! Very polite, that youngster; very prolific of visiting cards. You should have seen him blush, Peggy."

"I did. I repeat that he is a nice boy, and I hope he comes back and steals something else."

Philippa laughed; the Countess smiled indulgently upon her younger sister, and gave the signal to rise.

"The family comes from the West, I think," she remarked to Warner, as she took his arm. "Goodness, Jim, what a nuisance!—Not a horse in the stable, not a car to move about in. It looks to me as though we were marooned here.... But I am very happy to think that I could do even a little for our Government. I wish I could do more."

"You may have plenty of chances, Ethra," he said.

They walked through to the north terrace and stood for a while watching the conflagrations on the horizon.

The vast, slightly curved line of flickering points of fire no longer twinkled and played through the darkness, and the muttering of the cannonade had ceased. Only the three incendiary foci reddened the sky, their illuminated vapors billowing up and spreading away for leagues to the eastward.

There was a mist this night, delicately veiling the tops of the forest trees, and the perfume of lilies from the gardens saturated the night air.

Usually, when foggy conditions prevailed over the valley of the Récollette, the lights of Ausone were visible as a pinkish tinge in the sky. But this night no such tint was apparent; no signal lamps sparkled from the fort, not a light glimmered in the vast black void beyond, where miles and miles of darkness stretched away unlighted even by the wastes of star-set firmament above.

Ethra de Moidrey shrugged her pretty shoulders and turned back toward the billiard room, whither Peggy Brooks had already repaired for practice.

Philippa, remaining beside Warner, stood watching them through the lighted windows.

She was wearing her first evening gown—one of Peggy's gifts—a dainty affair of palest blue; and her full, smooth cheeks and throat accented the slim immaturity of her arms and shoulders.

She looked up, smiled faintly, and moved nearer with that unconscious instinct of youth for seeking contact where confidence and trust is placed. Her slim fingers, touching his, nestled into his hand with an eloquence unmistakable of innocent possession satisfied.

"You are only a very little girl yet, aren't you, Philippa?" he said, smiling, but touched by the youth of her and her frail shoulder resting lightly against his own.

"I know I am, Jim. I seem to be growing younger under the warm shelter of your kindness—under the security of this roof and the quiet sense of protection everywhere.

"It is as though I had been arrested in development since I left school—as though youth and growth had stopped and only my mind had continued growing older and older and more tired during these last six years—dull, bewildering, ignoble years—lonely, endless years that dragged their days after them like a chain, heavier, heavier——"

She pressed a little closer to his shoulder:

"I had nobody. Do you understand? I seem to know right from wrong, but I don't know how I know it. Yet, I am old in some things—old and wearied with a knowledge which still, however, remains personally incomprehensible to me. It's just a vast accumulation of unhappy facts concerning life as it is lived by many.... I always knew there were such people as you—as these dear and gentle friends of yours; I never saw them—never saw even any young girls after I left school—only the women, young and old, who came to the cabaret, or who came and went through the Ausone streets, or who sat knitting and gossiping under the trees on the quay."

She laid her cheek against his shoulder with a little sigh.

"You are very wonderful to me," she murmured, partly to herself.

The night air had become a little fresher: he thought that she should have some sort of wrap, so they entered the billiard room together, where Peggy, awaiting her shot, slipped one arm around Philippa's waist, detaining her to caress her and whisper nonsense.

"You beautiful child, I want you to stay with me and not go star-gazing with that large and sunburnt man. You'll stay, won't you, darling? And we'll go to the library presently and find a pretty red and gold book full of armorial designs and snobbish information; and we'll search very patiently through those expensively illuminated pages until we find a worthy family called D'Aurès——"

"Oh, Peggy!" said Philippa. "Would you really take so much trouble?"

"Rather!" said Peggy coolly. "I mean to write him some day and find out how he is treating my pet Minerva runabout which he had the audacity to appropriate without thanking me."

Philippa laughed rather shyly, not entirely comprehending the balance between badinage and sincerity in Peggy's threat, but realizing that any freedom she permitted herself was her prerogative.

Warner, lingering at the other door, caught Peggy's eye.

"You can't have her, Jim!" she said with emphasis, and drew her closer.

So Warner went on to find a wrap for her, and entered the music room.

The next moment he halted, rigid, astounded.

Peering through the windows into the room were the dirty countenances of Asticot and Squelette, their battered noses flattened white on the glass, their ratty eyes fixed on him.

CHAPTER XXV

That the precious pair believed Warner to be paralyzed with terror was evident.

As long as he remained motionless they glared at him, their faces and spread fingers flattened against the windowpane. Then, the next instant, he was after them at one bound, jerking open the glass door, out across the terrace where the two young ruffians, evidently surprised and confused by his headlong behavior, parted company, Squelette digging up gravel in his headlong flight down the drive, Asticot darting across the lawn where, beyond the stables, a hospitable tangle of shrubbery seemed to promise easy escape.

But Asticot was awfully wrong; in the darkness he rushed full speed into an elastic barrier of mesh wire which supported the hedge of sweet peas separating garage and stables; and as he rebounded, Warner caught him and coolly began to beat him up.

The beating was deliberate, methodical, and merciless; the blows fell with smart cracks upon the features of Asticot, right, left, sometimes hoisting him off his large, flat feet, sometimes driving him dizzily earthward; but another blow and a savage jerk always brought him up to be swung on again, battered, knocked flying, and finally smashed into merciful insensibility.

Asticot was in a dreadful mess as he lay there on the grass. Vignier, the chauffeur, and a stable lad, Henri, had appeared with a lantern at the débâcle of Monsieur Asticot.

Warner, breathing rapidly, waited a few moments to recover his breath.

"Take him into the harness room and lay him on a blanket," he managed to say. "Keep your eyes on him, Vignier, until I return. There's another of them, but I'm afraid he's cleared out."

As a matter of fact, Squelette had cleared out. He must have scaled the wall somewhere, for the gates were locked, and the old lodge keeper was evidently asleep.

The lad, Henri, came up, armed with a stable fork, and followed by the head gardener, Maurice, shouldering a fowling piece and marshaling in his wake half a dozen others—grooms, under-gardeners, and a lad or two employed about the place.

They beat the shrubbery for an hour; then Warner left them to explore the wooded strip along the base of the wall with their flashlights and lanterns, and went back to the stable where lay Asticot, badly in need of bandages and protracted repose.

Vignier met Warner at the stable door.

"Has he come to?" inquired the latter, who had begun to feel a little worried.

"Monsieur Warner, that voyou is a most frightful wreck. Out of neither eye is he able to perceive me; what he wears upon his shoulders does not, to me, resemble a head at all."

"He is conscious, then?"

"Entirely. He lies upon his blanket and inquires for you at intervals."

"What?"

"It is true. 'Oh, my mother!' he whimpers. 'What a horrible beating I have had from that American! Oh, my sister, I am battered into a boudin! Ou est-il, donc, ce Monsieur sans remords? I have need of conversing with him. I wish to behold him who has brought me to this pitiable ditch of misery! I do not desire another beating! It is I, Asticot, who informs you!' And that, Monsieur Warner, is what this voyou affreux continues to repeat in the harness room where I have locked him in. Would Monsieur care to inspect the swine?"

Warner nodded and entered the stable; Vignier fitted a key to the harness room and opened the door.

A lantern burned there brightly. Under it squatted Asticot on his blanket. Neither eye was entirely closed, for there was a ratty glitter under the puffed lids, and he lost no time in whining out that he did not desire to be beaten any more by "that gentleman there"—pointing a shaking finger straight at Warner.

"Vignier," said Warner, "bring me a chair, close the door, and then go and find something to bandage this rascal. Bring a tub and hot water, also!"

And when the chair was fetched and the door closed, Warner seated himself and surveyed the battered ruffian with grim satisfaction.

"You murderous young sewer rat," he said calmly, "out with the whole business, now! Do you hear? I meant to catch one of you and find out for myself what you're up to. Now, tell me, and tell me quick, and don't lie, or I'll start in on you again——"

He half rose from his chair, and Asticot shrieked.

"What were you doing here?" snapped out Warner.

"M-m'sieu'—it was but a peaceful reconnoissance in search of—of information——" stuttered Asticot in terror.

"What information?—You rat!"

"M-m-m'sieu'—I swear to you on the cross of my mother——"

"Stop that! Go on! Go on faster! What information?"

"T-t-to f-find out if l-la fille, Philippa, had taken refuge with M-madame la Comtesse——"

"Who wants that information?"

"I s-swear to you——"

"Quick! Who wants it!"

"Monsieur Wildresse——"

"Why?"

"Je n'en sais rien——"

"You lying Apache! Why?"

"M'sieu', he pays us, the Squelette and me, to do his jobs for him, but he has never made confidants of us. I swear it. I don't know why he desires to seize the girl, Philippa!"

"He does mean to seize her, then?"

"Alas——"

"Does he?"

Asticot's entire body jerked from sheer fright.

"Yes—yes, he does! God knows it is not in me to lie to M'sieu'. God knows I do not ever desire another beating such as M'sieu' has been pleased to bestow upon me. I affirm it—I, Asticot—that I am the devoted servant of M'sieu' and will most thankfully betray anybody to him——"

"Be quiet!"

"M'sieu' does not believe me! Yet, I speak only truth. I will diligently serve M'sieu' if he permits——"

"Serve me? Why?"

"Mon Dieu, M'sieu', have I not been most horribly beaten by M'sieu'? I, Asticot, who am not unacquainted with the Boxe and the Savate—I have been rendered insensible! With weapons? No! Without weapons! Yes, with the empty hands of M'sieu'. Why should I not admire? Why should I not experience gratitude that I am alive? Am I an imbecile to court further destruction? Non, alors; I am not crazy. God forbid I should ever again experience the hand of M'sieu' upon my coat collar! And if——"

"You listen to me!" interrupted Warner. "Vermin of your sort that Wildresse hires for a few francs stand no chance when military law is proclaimed. Either side would push you against a wall on sight. Do you understand?"

"Mon Dieu, M'sieu'——"

"There are just two safe places for you: Biribi or prison. Which do you prefer?"

"I? Oh, my God! I have served in the Battalion de Biribi! Not that, M'sieu'——"

"All right; La Nouvelle——"

Asticot emitted a muffled shriek, huddled his ragged knees within his arms, and sat rocking and whimpering and blubbering with fright under the lantern until an impatient gesture from Warner startled him dumb.

"Like all your kind, you don't like to be hurt, do you?" inquired Warner, disgusted. "Yet, for twenty francs—for ten—yes, for five—you could be hired to do murder; couldn't you?"

"I—I would b-be happy to do it for nothing to oblige M'sieu'——"

"I haven't a doubt of it. The only thing you understand is fear.... Where is Wildresse?"

"M'sieu' doubtless knows."

"Never mind what I know. Answer!"

"Le vieux——"

"Who?"

"Le Père Wildresse—he has taken to the woods——"

"Where?"

"Le forêt d'Ausone."

"Why?"

"It is because of the girl Philippa. It is evident to Squelette and to me that he fears her. Why? I tell you frankly I do not know. If I knew——"

"Go on!"

Asticot turned his battered visage toward Warner. A leer stretched his swollen mouth.

"If we knew what he is afraid of, Squelette and I, we would make him sing!" he said coolly.

"Blackmail him?"

"Naturally."

"I understand. And if you ever had a chance to get behind my back with a thoroughly trustworthy knife—eh, Asticot?"

"No," said the ruffian naïvely, "I should be afraid to do that." He squinted silently at Warner out of his puffy eyes for a few moments, then, shaking his head: "No," he repeated; "never again. I should make of the job only a bungle; I should be too horribly afraid."

Warner got up from his chair.

"Tomorrow," he said, "I shall go with you to the Forest of Ausone and you shall find the Père Wildresse for me and I shall have a little chat with him."

"Do you mean to slay him, M'sieu'? It would be safer, I think. I could do it for you, if you wish, when his back is turned. When one is annoyed by anybody, it saves much trouble to knock him on the head at once. If I could once get him down," he added cheerfully, "I would take him by both ears and beat his head on the ground until his coco cracked."

"Really?"

"Certainly. Supposition that an individual bores M'sieu'. What to do? M'sieu' reflects; M'sieu' rubs his head in perplexity—crac! There is his devoted friend, Asticot! Why had you not before thought of your humble friend and grateful? Asticot! To be sure! A word to him and the job is done, discreetly, without any tapage. And M'sieu', contented, I trust, with his honest and devoted Asticot, may remember in his bounty that times are hard and that one must eat and drink—yes, even poor Asticot among the rest."

"Yes, Asticot. But after you're dead such necessities won't trouble you."

"M-m'sieu'!"

"I've got my eye on you. Do you know what that means?"

Stammering and stuttering, the ruffian admitted that he did know.

"Very well. They'll bring you a tin tub full of hot water, some clothing which I bestow upon you, some salves and bandages. Afterward, they'll give you some straw to sleep on, and then they'll lock the door. What I'll do with you or to you I don't know yet. But I'll know by morning."