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Title: The Girl Philippa

Creator: Robert W. Chambers

Illustrator: Frank Craig

Release date: June 24, 2016 [eBook #52404]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52404

Credits: Produced by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL
PHILIPPA ***

"'Anywhere alone with you in the world would
be a sufficient purpose in life for me'"

The
GIRL PHILIPPA

BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

ILLUSTRATED BY
FRANK CRAIG

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1919

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

1915, 1916, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

TO MY SON
BOBBY

BOB AT SIXTEEN

You can tell a better tale than I;
Trap and wing you shoot a better score;
You can cast a surer, lighter fly,
Catch as can, you'd put me on the floor;
Should I hoist a sail beneath the sky
Yours the race, away and back to shore.

You have mastered all my woodland lore,
In the saddle you can give me spades;
You have slain your first and mighty boar
In the classic Croyden Forest shades;
You have heard the Northern rivers roar,

You have seen the Southern Everglades.

You have creeled your Highland yellow trout
Where the Scottish moorlands call us back;
You have left me puzzled and in doubt
Over tropic specimens I lack—
Sphinxes that I know not, huge and stout;
Butterflies, un-named, in blue and black.

Well, we've had a jolly run, my son,
Through a sunny world has lain our trail
Trodden side by side with rod and gun
Under azure skies where white clouds sail;
—Send our journey is not nearly done!
Send the light has not begun to fail.

Envoi

Yet, that day you tread the trail alone,
With no slower comrade to escort
On the path of spring with blossoms sown,
You may deem me not so bad a sort,
Smile and think, as one who would condone,
"He was sure a perfectly good sport."

R. W. C.
Broadalbin; 1916.

DOG-DAYS (1914)

The mad dog of Europe
Yelped in the dog-days' heat;
To his sick legs he staggered up
Swaying on twitching feet;
Snarled when he saw the offered cup,
And started down the street.

All hell has set his brain aflame;
All Europe shrieks with dread;
All mothers call on Mary's name,
Praying by shrine and bed,
"For Jesus' sake!"—Yet all the same
Each sees her son lie dead.

"On Guard!" the Western bugles blow;
"Boom!" from the Western main;
The Brabant flail has struck its blow;
The mad dog howls with pain
But lurches on, uncertain, slow,
Growling amid his slain.

They beat and kick his dusty hide,
He bleeds from every vein;
On his red trail the Cossacks ride
Across the reeking plain
While gun-shots rip his bloody sides
From Courland to Champagne.

Under the weary moons and suns
With phantom eyes aglow,
Dog-trotting still the spectre runs
Yelping at every blow
'Til through its ribs the flashing guns
And stars begin to show.

The moon shines through its riven wrack;
On the bleached skull the suns
Have baked the crusted blood all black,
But still the spectre runs,
Jogging along its hell-ward track
Lined with the tombs of Huns.

Back to the grave from whence it came
To foul the world with red;
Back to its bed of ancient shame
In the Hunnish tomb it fled
Where God's own name is but a name
And souls that lived lie dead.

THE GIRL PHILIPPA

FOREWORD

On the twenty-eighth of June, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir
to the Austrian throne, was murdered by a Serb in Serajevo, the capital of
Bosnia. The murder was the most momentous crime ever committed in the
world, for it altered the geography and the political and social history of
that planet, and changed the entire face of the civilized and uncivilized
globe. Generations unborn were to feel the consequences of that murder.
Incidentally, it vitally affected the life and career of the girl Philippa.
Before the press of the United States received the news, Sir Cecil
Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador, had been notified of the tragedy, and a
few minutes later he was in secret conference with the President.
The British Ambassador knew what he wanted, which was more than
the administration knew, and at this hasty and secret conference he bluntly
informed the President that, in his opinion, war before midsummer had now
become inevitable; that there was every probability of England being drawn
into a world-wide conflict; and that, therefore, an immediate decision was
necessary concerning certain pending negotiations.
The truth of this became apparent to the President. The State
Department's ominous information concerning a certain Asiatic Empire, the
amazing knowledge in regard to the secret military and political activities of
Germany in the United States, the crass stupidity of a Congress which was
no better than an uneducated nation deserved, the intellectual
tatterdemalions in whose care certain vitally important departments had

been confided—a momentary vision of what all this might signify flickered
fitfully in the presidential brain.
And, before Sir Cecil left, it was understood that certain secret
negotiations should be immediately resumed and concluded as soon as
possible—among other matters the question of the Harkness shell.
About the middle of July the two governments had arrived at an
understanding concerning the Harkness shell. The basis of this transaction
involved the following principles, proposed and mutually accepted:
1st. The Government of the United States agreed to disclose to the
British Government, and to no other government, the secret of the Harkness
shell, known to ordnance experts as "the candle shell."
2nd. The British Government agreed to disclose to the United States
Government, and to no other government, the secrets of its new submarine
seaplane, known as "the flying fish," the inventor of which was one
Pillsbury, a Yankee, who had offered it in vain to his own country before
selling it to England.
3rd. Both Governments solemnly engaged not to employ either of
these devices against each other in the event of war.
4th. The British Government further pledged itself to restrain from
violence a certain warlike and Asiatic nation until the Government of the
United States could discover some method of placating that nation.
But other and even more important negotiations, based upon the
principle that the United States should insure its people and its wealth by
maintaining an army and a navy commensurate with its population, its
importance, and its international obligations, fell through owing to
presidential indifference, congressional ignorance, the historic imbecility of
a political party, and the smug vanity of a vast and half-educated nation,

among whose employees were numbered several of the most perfect
demagogues that the purlieus of politics had ever germinated.
This, then, was the condition of affairs in the United States when, on
the nineteenth of July, the British Ambassador was informed that through
the treachery of certain employees the plans and formula for the Harkness
shell had been abstracted.
But the British Embassy had learned of this catastrophe through
certain occult channels even before it was reported to the United States
Government; and five hours after the information had reached Sir Cecil
Spring-Rice, two young men stepped aboard the Antwerp liner Zeeduyne a
few seconds before the gangway was pulled up.
With the first turn of the steamer's screws the wheel of fate also began
to revolve, spinning out the web of destiny so swiftly that already its
meshes had fallen over an obscure little town thousands of miles distant,
and its net already held a victim so obscure that few except the French
Government had ever heard of the girl Philippa.
The two young men who had come aboard at the last moment were
nice-looking young men. They carried tennis bats, among other frivolous
hand luggage, and it was rumored very quickly on board that they were two
celebrated New Zealand tennis champions on their way to the international
tournament at Ostend.
It was the Captain who first seemed interested in the rumor and who
appeared to know all about the famous New Zealand players, Halkett and
Gray.
And this was odd, because when Halkett and Gray came aboard their
names did not figure on the passenger list, no stateroom had been engaged
for them, and the Captain of the Zeeduyne had never before laid eyes on
either of them.

But he may have heard of them, for that morning the British Embassy
had called him on the telephone, had talked for twenty minutes to him, and
had arranged for him to hold his steamer if necessary. But it had been
necessary for the Captain to hold the Zeeduyne for ten minutes only.
The voyage of the Zeeduyne was calm, agreeable, and superficially
uneventful. There was much dancing aboard. Halkett and Gray danced well.
They had come aboard knowing nobody; in a day or two they seemed to
have met everybody. Which urbanity is not at all characteristic of
Englishmen. New Zealanders, it seemed, were quite different.
The ocean being on its best behavior nearly everybody appeared
triumphantly on deck. There were, however, several passengers who
maintained exclusiveness in their staterooms; and among these were two
German gentlemen who preferred the stateroom they shared in common.
However, they took the air sometimes, and always rather late at night.
Evidently they were commercial gentlemen, for they sent several
wireless messages to Cologne during the voyage, using a code of their own
which seemed to concern perfumes and cosmetics and, in particular, a toilet
soap known as Calypso soap.
In return they received several wireless messages, also apparently in
some commercial code, and all mentioning perfumes and Calypso soap.
And a copy of every code message which they dispatched or received
was sent to the Captain of the Zeeduyne, and that affable and weather-
reddened Belgian always handed these copies to the tennis champions of
New Zealand, who spent considerable time poring over them in the only
spot on the steamer which was absolutely safe from intrusion—the
Captain's private quarters.
Then, in their turn, as the steamer drew nearer to the Belgian coast,
they sent a number of wireless messages in private code. Some of these

messages were directed to the British Consul at Maastricht, some to the
British Ambassador at Brussels, some to private individuals in Antwerp.
But these details did not interfere with the young men's social activities
on board, or with their popularity. Wherever Halkett and Gray walked, they
walked surrounded by maidens and pursued by approving glances of
relatives and parents.
But the two German gentlemen who kept their cabin by day and
prowled sometimes by night were like Mr. Kipling's cat; when they walked
they walked by their wild lone. Only the chaste moon was supposed to
notice them. But always either Halkett or Gray was watching them,
sometimes dressed in the jaunty uniform of a deck steward, or in the
clothing of a common sailor, or in the gorgeous raiment of a ship's officer.
The two Germans never noticed them as they walked in the dark by their
wild lone.
And always while one of the young men watched on deck, the other
ransacked the stateroom and luggage of the gentlemen from Germany—but
ransacked in vain.
As the Zeeduyne steamed into the Scheldt, several thousand miles
away, in the city of Washington, the French Ambassador telegraphed in
cipher to his Government that the secret plans and formula for the Harkness
shell, which had been acquired by England from the United States
Government, had been stolen on the eve of delivery to the British
Ambassador; that French secret agents were to inspect the arrival of all
Dutch, Belgian, and German steamers; that all agents in the French service
resident or stationed near the north or northeastern frontier of France were
to watch the arrival of all strangers from Holland or Belgium, and, if
possible, follow and observe any individual who might be likely to have
been involved in such a robbery.

Immediately, from the Military Intelligence Department in Paris orders
were telegraphed and letters sent to thousands of individuals of every
description and station in life, to be on the alert.
Among others who received such letters was a denationalized
individual named Wildresse, who kept a cabaret in the little town of
Ausone.
The cabaret was called the Café de Biribi. Wildresse insisted that the
name had been his own choice. But it was at the request of the Government
that his cabaret bore the ominous title as an ever-present reminder to
Wildresse that his personal liberty and the liberty of his worthless son and
heir depended on his good behavior and his alacrity in furnishing the
French Government with whatever information it demanded.
The letter sent to Monsieur Wildresse read as follows:
MONSIEUR:
Undescribed individuals carrying important document stolen from the
United States Government may appear in your vicinity.
Observe diligently, but with discretion, the arrival of any strangers at
your café. If suspicions warrant, lay a complaint before local police
authorities. Use every caution. The fugitives probably are German, but may
be American. Inform the girl Philippa of what is required. And remember
that Biribi is preferable to Noumea.
When Wildresse received this letter he went into the bedroom of the
girl Philippa, who was standing before her looking glass busily rouging her
cheeks and painting her lips. She wore no corset, her immature figure
requiring none.
"If they come our way, Philippa," growled Wildresse, "play the baby—
do you hear? Eyes wide and artless, virginal candor alternating with
indifference. In other words, be yourself."

"That is not difficult," said the girl Philippa, powdering her nose.
"When I lose my innocence then it will mean real acting."
Wildresse glared at her out of his little black eyes.
"When you lose it, eh?" he repeated. "Well, when you do, I'll break
your neck. Do you understand that?"
The girl continued to powder her nose.
"Who would marry me?" she remarked indifferently. "Also, now it is
too late for me to become a religieuse like—"
"You'll carry on the business!" he growled. "That's what you'll do—
with Jacques, when the Sbirs de Biribi let him loose. As for marrying, you
can think it over when you are thirty. You'll have a dot by that time, if the
damned Government lets me alone. And a woman with a dot need not
worry about marriage."
The girl was now busy with her beautiful chestnut hair; Wildresse's
pock-marked features softened.
"Allons," he said in his harsh voice, "lilies grow prettiest on dunghills.
Also, you are like me—serious, not silly. I have no fears. Besides, you are
where I have my eye on you."
"If I am what I am it is because I prefer it, not on account of your eye,"
she said listlessly.
"Is that so!" he roared. "All the same, continue to prefer virtue and
good conduct, and I'll continue to use my two eyes, nom de Dieu! And if
any strangers who look like Germans come into the café—any strangers at
all, no matter what they look like—keep your eyes on them, do you hear?"
"I hear," said the girl Philippa.
The web of fate had settled over her at last.

About that time the steamer Zeeduyne was docking at Antwerp.

Two hours later two German gentlemen in a hurry registered at the
Hôtel St. Antoine in the Place Verte, and were informed that they were
expected immediately in room 23.
A page conducted them to the corridor and indicated the room; they
thanked him and sent him back for their luggage which he had, it seemed,
neglected to bring from the lobby.
Then both German gentlemen went to the door of room 23, knocked,
and were admitted; and the door was rather violently closed and locked.
The next instant there came a crash, a heavy fall, dull sounds of feet
scuffling behind the locked door, a series of jarring, creaking noises, then
silence.
A chambermaid came into the corridor to listen, but the silence was
profound, and presently she went away.
When the boy came back with the hand luggage and knocked at 23,
Halkett opened the door a little way and, tipping the lad with a five-franc
piece, bade him leave the luggage outside the door for the present.
Later, Gray cautiously opened the door and drew in the luggage.
Ten minutes later both young men came leisurely out of the room,
locking the door on the outside. They each carried hand luggage. Halkett
lighted a cigarette.
At the desk Gray requested that the gentlemen in No. 23 should not be
disturbed that night, as they were lying down and in need of repose. Which
was true.
Then both young men departed in a cab. At the railroad station,
however, an unusually generous stranger offered Gray a motor cycle for
nothing. So he strapped his bag to it, nodded a smiling adieu to Halkett, and
departed.

Halkett bought a ticket to Maastricht, Holland, which he had no idea of
using, and presently came out of the station and walked eastward rather
rapidly. A man who also had bought a ticket for Maastricht rose from his
seat in the waiting room and walked stealthily after him, making a signal to
another man.
This second man immediately stepped into a station telephone booth
and called up room 23 at the Hôtel St. Antoine, where two German
gentlemen, badly battered, were now conferring with a third German
gentleman who had paid no attention to instructions from the hotel office
but had gone to room 23, knocked until out of patience, and had then
summoned the maître d'hôtel, who unlocked the door with a master-key.
Which operation revealed two Teutons flat on their backs, very
carefully tied up with rope and artistically gagged.
This unbattered gentleman now conversed over the telephone with the
man at the railroad station.
A few moments later he and the two battered ones left the hotel hastily
in a taxicab, joined the man at the railroad station, and drove rapidly
eastward.

And before forty-eight hours had elapsed, each one of these four men
operating in pairs, had attempted to kill the young man named Halkett.
Twice he got away. The third time two of them succeeded in locating him in
the little town of Diekirch, a town which Halkett was becoming more and
more anxious to leave, as he finally began to realize what a hornet's nest he
and his friend Gray had succeeded in stirring up.
And all the while the invisible net of destiny in which he now found
himself entangled was every minute enmeshing in its widening spread new

people whose fate was to be linked with his, and who had never even heard
of him. Among them was the girl Philippa.

PROLOGUE

A narrow-gauge railroad track runs through the woods from Diekirch,
connecting the two main lines; and on the deserted wooden platform beside
this track stood Halkett, his suitcase in one hand, the other hand in his side
pocket, awaiting the shuttle train with an impatience born of deepest
anxiety.
The young man's anxiety was presently justified, for, as he sauntered
to and fro, uneasily scanning the track and the unbroken woods around him,
always keeping his right hand in his coat pocket, two men crept out from
behind separate trees in the forest directly behind the platform, and he
turned around only in time to obtain a foreshortened and disquieting view
of the muzzle of a revolver.
"Hands up—" began the man behind the weapon; but as he was in the
very act of saying it, a jet of ammonia entered his mouth through the second
button of Halkett's waistcoat, and he reeled backward off the platform, his
revolver exploding toward the sky, and fell into the grass, jerking and
kicking about like an unhealthy cat in a spasm.
Already Halkett and the other man had clinched; the former raining
blows on the latter's Teutonic countenance, which proceeding so dazed,
diverted, and bewildered him that he could not seem to find the revolver
bulging in his side pocket.

It was an automatic, and Halkett finally got hold of it and hurled it into
the woods.
Then he continued the terrible beating which he was administering.
"Get out!" he said in German to the battered man, still battering him.
"Get out, or I'll kill you!"
He hit him another cracking blow, turned and wrested the other pistol
from the writhing man on the grass, whirled around, and went at the
battered one again.
"I've had enough of this!" he breathed, heavily. "I tell you I'll kill you
if you bother me again! I could do it now—but it's too much like murder if
you're not in uniform!"
The man on the grass had managed to evade suffocation; he got up
now and staggered off toward the woods, and Halkett drove his companion
after him at the point of his own revolver.
"Keep clear of me!" he said. "If you do any more telephoning or
telegraphing it will end in murder. I've had just about enough, and if any
more of your friends continue to push this matter after I enter France, just as
surely as I warn you now, I'll defend my own life by taking theirs. You can
telephone that to them if you want to!"
As he stood on the edge of the wooden platform, revolver lifted, facing
the woods where his two assailants had already disappeared, the toy-like
whistle of an approaching train broke the hot, July stillness.
Before it stopped, he hurled the remaining revolver into the woods
across the track, then, as the train drew up and a guard descended to open a
compartment door for him, he cast a last keen glance at the forest behind
him.
Nothing stirred there, not even a leaf.

But before the train had been under way five minutes a bullet shattered
the glass of the window beside which he had been seated; and he spent the
remainder of the journey flat on his back smoking cigarettes and wondering
whether he was going to win through to the French frontier, to Paris, to
Calais, to London, or whether they'd get him at last and, what was of
infinitely greater importance, a long, thin envelope which he carried
stitched inside his undershirt.
That was really what mattered, not what might become of a stray
Englishman. He knew it; he realized it without any illusion whatever. It was
the contents of this envelope that mattered, not his life.
Yet, so far, he had managed to avoid taking life in defense of his
envelope. In fact, he traveled unarmed. Now, if matters continued during his
journey through France as they had begun and continued while he was
crossing Holland and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, he would be
obliged to take life or lose his own.
And yet, if he did kill somebody, that meant arrest and investigation by
the police of France. And such an investigation might be fatal to the success
of his undertaking—quite as fatal, in fact, as though he himself were killed.
The main thing was to get that envelope and its contents to London.
His instructions were not to mail it, but to take it in person, or to send
it, if necessary, by another messenger through other channels.
One thing became more and more evident to him; the time had now
arrived when certain people unknown to him by sight had decided to kill
him as the only way out of the affair.
Would they actually go so far as to kill him in France, with the chance
of the French police seizing that envelope before they could seize it and
clear out with it to Berlin? Would they hazard the risk of France obtaining

cognizance of a matter which so vitally concerned Germany, rather than
permit that information to reach England?
Halkett lay on his back and smoked and did not know.
But he was slowly coming to the conclusion that one thing was now
imperative: the envelope must not be found upon his person if he were
killed.
But what on earth to do with it until it could be safely transferred to the
proper person he had not the slightest idea.
That evening, as he changed trains at the frontier, in the lamp-lit
dimness of the station platform he was fired at twice, and not hit.
A loud outcry naturally ensued; a stampede of passengers who tried to
escape, a rush of others who desired to see what had happened—much
hubbub and confusion, much shouting in several languages.
But nobody could be found who had fired two shots from a revolver,
and nobody admitted that they had been shot at.
And so, as nobody had been hit, the gendarmes, guards, and railway
officials were in a quandary.
And the train rolled out of the station with Halkett aboard, a prey to
deepest anxiety concerning his long thin envelope.

CHAPTER I

Somebody at Warner's elbow spoke to him in French. He turned his head
leisurely: a well-dressed young fellow, evidently an Englishman, was
striving to maintain a place beside him in the noisy, market day crowd.
"Pardon, Monsieur, are you English?"

"American," replied Warner briefly, and without enthusiasm.
"My name is Halkett," said the other, with a quick smile. "I'm English,
and I'm in trouble. Could you spare me a moment?"
To Warner the man did not look the typical British dead-beat, nor had
he any of the earmarks and mannerisms of the Continental beach-comber.
Yet he was, probably, some species or other of that wearisome and itinerant
genus.
"I'm listening," said the young American resignedly. "Continue your
story."
"There's such a row going on here—couldn't we find a quieter place?"
"I can hear you perfectly well, I tell you!"
Halkett said:
"If I try to talk to you here I'll be overheard, and that won't do. I'm very
sorry to inconvenience you, but really I'm in a fix. What a noise these
people are making! Do you mind coming somewhere else?"
"Say what you desire to say here," returned Warner bluntly. "And
perhaps it might save time if you begin with the last chapter; I think I can
guess the rest of the story."
The features of the American expressed boredom to the point of
unfriendly indifference. The Englishman looked at him, perplexed for a
moment, then his sun-bronzed face lighted up with another quick smile.
"You're quite mistaken," he said. "I don't expect the classic remittance
from England, and I don't require the celebrated twenty-franc loan until it
arrives. You take me for that sort, I see, but I'm not. I don't need money.
May I tell you what I do need—rather desperately?"
"Yes, if you choose."
"I need a friend."
"Money is easier to pick up," remarked Warner drily.

"I know that. May I ask my favor of you all the same?"
"Go ahead."
"Thanks, I will. But can't we get out of this crowd? What is going on
in this town anyway?"
"Market day. It's like this once a month in Ausone. Otherwise the town
is as dead as any other French provincial town."
Shoulder to shoulder they threaded their way through the crowded
market square, amid the clatter of sabots, the lowing of cattle, the incessant
bleating of sheep. Ducks quacked from crates in wagons, geese craned
white necks and hissed above the heads of the moving throngs; hogs
squealed and grunted; fowls hanging by their legs from the red fists of
sturdy peasant women squawked and flapped.
Cheap-Jack shows of all sorts encumbered the square and adjacent
streets and alleys—gingerbread booths, shooting ranges, photograph
galleries, moving-picture shows, theaters for ten sous. Through the lowing,
bleating, and cockcrowing, the drumming and squeaking of Punch and
Judy, and the brassy dissonance of half a dozen bands, mournful and
incessant strains from several merry-go-rounds continued audible.
But the steady clatter of sabots on stony pavements, and the ceaseless
undertone of voices, swelling, subsiding, dominated the uproar, softening
the complaint of kine and feathered fowl to a softly cheerful harmony
suggestive of summer breezes and green fields.
On the dusty Boulevard d'Athos—the typical solitary promenade of
such provincial towns—there were, as usual, very few people—the
inevitable nurses here and there, wheeling prams; a discouraged, red-
trousered and sou-less soldier or two sprawling on benches under the
chestnut trees; rarely a passing pedestrian, more often a prowling dog.

At the head of the Boulevard d'Athos, where the rue d'Auros crosses,
Warner halted under the shade of the chestnuts, for the July sun was very
hot. His unconvinced grey eyes now rested inquiringly on the young
Englishman who had called himself Halkett. He said:
"What species of trouble are you in?"
Halkett shook his head.
"I can't tell you what the trouble is; I may only ask you to help me a bit
—" The quick smile characteristic of him glimmered in his eyes again—a
winning smile, hinting of latent recklessness. "I have my nerve with me,
you see—as you Americans have it," he added. "You're thinking something
of that sort, I fancy."
Warner smiled too, rather faintly, but remained silent.
"This is what I want you to do," continued Halkett. "I've a long thin
envelope in my pocket. I'd like to have you take it from me and slip it into
your breast pocket and then button your coat. Is that too much to ask?"
"What!"
"That's all I want you to do. Then if you wouldn't mind giving me your
name and address? And that is really all I ask."
Said the American, amused and surprised:
"That airy request of yours requires a trifle more explanation than you
seem inclined to offer."
"I know it does. I can't offer it. Only—you won't get into trouble if you
keep that envelope buttoned tightly under your coat until I come for it
again."
"But I'm not going to do that!"
"Why?"
"Why the devil should I? I don't propose to wander about France
carrying papers concerning which I know nothing—to oblige a young man

about whom I know even less."
"I quite see that," admitted Halkett seriously. "I shouldn't feel inclined
to do such a thing either."
"Can't you tell me what is the nature of these papers?—Or something
—some explanation——"
"I'm sorry."
"And why do you propose to trust me with them?" continued Warner,
curiously. "How do you know I am honest? How do you know I won't
examine your packet as soon as you clear out?"
Halkett looked up with his quick and winning smile:
"I'll take that risk."
"Why? You don't know me."
"I had a good look at you in the market square before I spoke to you."
"Oh. You think you are a psychologist?"
"Of sorts. It's a part of my business in life."
"Suppose," said Warner, smiling, "you explain a little more clearly to
me exactly what is your actual business in life."
"Very glad to. I write."
"Books?"
"No; just—stories."
"Fiction?"
"As one might say, facts rather than fiction."
"You are a realist?" suggested Warner with slight irony.
"I try to be. But do you know, there is more romance in realism than in
fairy tales?"
Warner, considerably diverted, nodded:
"I know. You belong to the modern school, I take it."

"Very modern. So modern, in fact, that my work concerns tomorrow
rather than today."
Warner nodded again:
"I see. You are a futurist—opportunist. There are a lot of clever men
working on those lines in England.... Still—" he glanced amusedly at
Halkett "—that scarcely explains your rather unusual request. Why should I
take charge of an envelope for you?"
"My dear fellow, I can't answer that.... Still—I may say this much; I'm
hard put to it—rather bewildered—had a rotten time of it in the Grand
Duchy and in Belgium—so to speak—"
"What do you mean by a rotten time?"
"Rows."
"I don't understand. You'll have to be more explicit."
"Well—it had to do with this envelope I carry. Some chaps of sorts
wanted to get it away from me. Do you see? ... I had a lively time, and I
rather expect to have another before I get home—if I ever get there."
Warner looked at him out of clear, sophisticated eyes:
"See here, my ingenuous British friend," he said, "play square with me,
if you play at all."
"I shan't play otherwise."
"Very well, then; why are you afraid to carry that envelope?"
"Because," said Halkett, coolly, "if I'm knocked on the head and that
envelope is found in my clothing and is stolen, the loss of my life would be
the lesser loss to my friends."
"Is anybody trying to kill you?"
Halkett shrugged his shoulders; but there seemed to be neither swagger
nor bravado in his careless gesture of assent. He said:

"Listen; here's my case in brief. I saw you in the crowd yonder, and I
made up my mind concerning you. I have to think quickly sometimes; I
took a good look at you and—" He waved one hand. "You look like a
soldier. I don't know whether you are or not. But I am ready to trust you.
That's all."
"Do you mean to say that you are in any real personal danger?"
"Yes. But that doesn't count. I can look out for myself. What worries
me is this envelope. Couldn't you take charge of it? I'd be very grateful."
"How long do you expect me to carry it about?"
"I don't know. I don't know whether anything is likely to happen to me
today in this town—or tomorrow on the train—or in Paris—I have no
means of knowing. I merely want to get to Paris, if I can, and send a friend
back here for that envelope."
"I thought you were to return for it yourself."
"Maybe. Maybe I'll send you a letter by a friend—just a line for him to
give you, saying it's all right."
"Mr. Halkett, you have rather a disconcerting way of expressing
unlimited confidence in me—"
"Yes, I trust you."
"But why?"
"You look right."
"That's no reason!"
"My dear chap, I'm in a corner, and instinct rules, not reason! You see,
I—I'm rather afraid they may get me before I can clear out."
"Who'll get you?" demanded Warner impatiently.
"That's the worst of it; I don't know these fellows by sight. The same
chaps never try it on twice."
Warner said quietly:

"What is this very dramatic mess you're in? Can't you give me a hint?"
"I'm sorry."
"Shall I give you a hint?"
"If you like."
"Are the police after you?"
"No."
"You're sure of that?"
"Quite sure. I don't blame you for asking. It looks that way. But it
isn't."
"But you are being followed across Europe by people who want this
envelope of yours?"
"Oh, yes."
"You expect personal violence from them?"
Halkett nodded and gazed absently down the almost deserted
boulevard.
"Then why don't you appeal to the police—if your conscience is
clear?" demanded Warner bluntly.
Halkett's quick smile broke out.
"My dear chap," he said, "I'd do so if I were in England. I can't, as
matters stand. The French police are no use to me."
"Why don't you go to your consulate?"
"I did. The Consul is away on his vacation. And I didn't like the looks
of the vice-consul."
"What?"
"No. I didn't like his name, either."
"What do you mean?"
"His name is Schmidt. I—didn't care for it."
Warner laughed, and Halkett looked up quickly, smiling.

"I'm queer. I admit it. But you ought to have come to some conclusion
concerning me by this time. Do you think me a rotter, or a criminal, or a
lunatic, or a fugitive from justice? Or will you chance it that I'm all right,
and will you stand by me?"
Warner laughed again:
"I'll take a chance on you," he said. "Give me your envelope, you
amazing Britisher!"

CHAPTER II

Halkett cast a rapid glance around him; apparently he saw nothing to
disturb him. Then he whipped out from his pocket a long, very thin
envelope and passed it to Warner, who immediately slipped it into the breast
pocket of his coat.
"That's very decent of you," said Halkett in a low voice. His attractive
face had grown serious and a trifle pale. "I shan't forget this," he said.
Warner laughed.
"You're a very convincing Englishman," he said. "I can't believe you're
not all right."
"I'm right enough. But you are all white. What is your name?"
"I had better write it out for you."
"No. If things go wrong with me, I don't want your name and address
discovered in my pockets. Tell it to me; I'll remember."
Warner looked at him rather gravely for a moment, then:
"James Warner is my name. I'm a painter. My present address is La
Pêche d'Or at Saïs."

"By any chance," asked Halkett, "are you the military painter, James
Warner, whose pictures we know very well in England?"
"I don't know how well my pictures are known in England. I usually
paint military subjects."
"I knew you were right!" exclaimed Halkett. "Any man who paints the
way you paint must be right! Fancy my actually knowing the man who did
'Lights Out' and 'The Last Salute'!"
Warner laughed, coloring a little.
"Did you really like those pictures?"
"Everybody liked them. I fancy every officer in our army owns a
colored print of one or more of your pictures. And to think I should run
across you in this God-forsaken French town! And to think it should be you
who is willing to stand by me at this pinch! Well—I judged you rightly, you
see."
Warner smiled, then his features altered.
"Listen, Halkett," he said, dropping instinctively the last trace of
formality with a man who, honest or otherwise, was plainly of his own
caste. "I have tried to size you up and I can't. You say you are a writer, but
you look to me more like a soldier. Anyway, I've concluded that you're
straight. And, that being my conviction, can't I do more for you than carry
an envelope about for you?"
"That's very decent of you, Warner. No, thanks, there is nothing else
you could do."
"I thought you said you are likely to get into a row?"
"I am. But I don't know when or where. Besides, I wouldn't drag you
into anything like that."
"Where are you stopping in Ausone?"
"At the Boule d'Argent. I got in only an hour before I met you."

"Do you still believe you are being followed?"
"I have been followed so far. Maybe I've lost them. I hope so."
Warner said:
"I came into town to buy canvases and colors. That's how I happen to
be in Ausone. It's only an hour's drive to Saïs. Why don't you come back
with me? Saïs is a pretty hamlet. Few people have ever heard of it. The
Golden Peach is an excellent inn. Why don't you run down and lie snug for
a while? It's the last place on earth anybody would think of looking for a
man who's done—what I suppose you've done."
Halkett, who had been listening with a detached smile, jerked his head
around and looked at Warner.
"What do you suppose I've done?" he asked coolly.
"I think you're a British officer who has been abroad after military
information—and that you've got it—in this envelope."
Halkett's expressionless face and fixed eyes did not alter. But he said
quietly:
"You are about the only American in France who might have been
likely to think that. Isn't it the devil's own luck that I should pick you for my
friend in need?"
Warner shrugged:
"You need not answer that implied question of mine, Halkett. My
theory concerning you suits me. Anyway, I believe you are in trouble. And I
think you'd better come back to Saïs with me."
"Thinking what you think, do you still mean to stand by me?"
"Certainly. I don't know what's in your damned envelope, do I? Very
well; I don't wish to know. Shall we stroll back to the Boule d'Argent?"
"Right-o! What a devilish decent chap you are, Warner!"
"Oh, no; I'm a gambler by disposition. This business amuses me!"

"Are you stopping at the Boule d'Argent, too?" asked Halkett after a
moment.
"I lunched there and left my stack of toiles and my sack of colors
there. Also, I have a dogcart and a horse in the stables."
They turned away together, side by side, crossed the boulevard,
traversed the deserted square in front of the beautiful old church of Sainte
Cassilda, and entered the stony rue d'Auros, which led directly into the
market square.
The ancient town of Ausone certainly seemed to be very much en fête,
and the rue d'Auros—the main business thoroughfare—was crowded with
townspeople, country folk, and soldiers on leave, clustering not only all
over the sidewalks, but in the middle of the streets and squares, filling the
terraces of the cafés and the courts of the two hotels, the Boule d'Argent and
the Hôtel des Voyageurs.
Sunlight filtered through the double rank of chestnut trees in full leaf;
the shade was even denser and cooler by the stone bridge where, between
stone walls, the little stony river flowed, crystal clear. Here women and
young girls, in holiday attire, sat on the benches, knitting or chatting with
their friends; children played along the stone embankment, where beds of
brilliant flowers bloomed; the red trousers of soldiers and the glittering
brass helmets of firemen added a gayety to the color and movement.
"They're a jolly people, these French," remarked Halkett.
"They're very agreeable to live among."
"You've lived in France for some time?"
"Yes," said Warner. "My headquarters are in Paris, but every summer I
take a class of American art students—girls—to Saïs for outdoor
instruction. I've half a dozen there now, plugging away at Plein Air."
"Do you like to teach?"

"Well, not particularly. It interferes with my own work. But I have to
do it. Painting pictures doesn't keep the kettle boiling."
"I see."
"I don't really mind it. Saïs is a charming place; I've known it for
years. Besides, a friend of mine lives there—an American woman, Madame
de Moidrey. Her sister, Miss Brooks, is one of the young girls in my class.
So it makes it agreeable; and Madame de Moidrey is very hospitable."
Halkett smiled.
"Painters," he said, "have, proverbially, a pretty good time in life."
"Soldiers do, too; don't they?"
Halkett's smile became fixed.
"I've heard so. The main thing about a profession is to choose one
which will take you out of doors."
"Yours does. You can sit under a tree and write your stories, can't
you?"
The Englishman laughed:
"Of course I can. That's the beauty of realism; all you have to do is to
walk about outdoors and jot down a faithful description of everything you
see."
They had reached the little stone quai under the chestnut and lime
trees; the cool ripple of the river mingled with the laughter of young girls
and the gay voices of children at play made a fresh and cheerful sound in
the July sunshine.
They leaned against the mossy river wall and looked out under the
trees across the square which surged with people. Flags fluttered from
booths and white tents; the blare of bands, the tumult of wooden shoes, the
noises of domestic creatures, and human voices all mingled with the
unceasing music from the merry-go-rounds.

Across the esplanade there was a crowd around the Café de Biribi—
people constantly passing to and fro—and strains of lively music leaked out
from within.
After a moment Warner suggested that they go over and have
something light and cool to drink.
"I've never been in there," he remarked, as they started, "but I've
always intended to go. It's kept by a rascal named Wildresse—a sporting
man, fight promoter, and an ex-gambler. You've heard of the Cabaret
Wildresse in Paris, haven't you?"
"I think I have," replied Halkett. "It was an all night place on the
Grand Boulevard, wasn't it?"
"Yes; opposite the Grand Hôtel. This is the same proprietor. He's an
American—a shady sort of sport—and he certainly must have been a pretty
bad lot, because the police made him leave Paris six years ago—what for, I
don't know—but they fired him out, and he started his cabaret business here
in Ausone. You hear of it everywhere. People come even from Nancy and
Liége and Louvain to dance, and dine here—certain sorts of people, I mean.
The cuisine is celebrated. There are cockfights and other illegal attractions."
The Cabaret Biribi formed the corner of the square. It was a detached
stucco structure surrounded by green trees and pretty shrubbery; and in the
rear the grounds ran down to the river, where a dozen rowboats were
moored along that still, glassy reach of water which extends for several
miles south of Ausone between meadows and pleasantly wooded banks.
They found the Cabaret Biribi crowded when they went in; a lively
young person was capering on the little stage at the end of the dancing floor,
and singing while capering; soldiers and civilians, with their own or other
people's sweethearts, sat at the zinc tables, consuming light beer and wine
and syrups; a rather agreeable stringed orchestra played intermittently.

Waiters scurried about with miraculously balanced trays on high; old
man Wildresse roamed furtively in the background, his gorilla arms behind
his back, his blunt fingers interlocked, keeping a sly and ratty eye on
waiters and guests, and sometimes on the young woman cashier who
lounged listlessly upon her high chair behind the wire cage, one rather lank
leg crossed over the other, and her foot swinging in idle time to the music.
The moment that Warner and Halkett appeared in the doorway, looking
about them to find a table, Wildresse crossed the floor and said to his
cashier in a whisper:
"It's one of those men. Schmidt's description might fit either. If they
don't make eyes at you and ask you to dance and drink with them, come
over and join them anyway. And I want you to pump them dry. Do you
hear?"
"Yes, I hear."
Warner looked across the room at her again when he and Halkett were
seated. She had considerable paint on her cheeks, and her lips seemed too
red to be natural. Otherwise she was tragically young, thin, excepting her
throat and cheeks—a grey-eyed, listless young thing with a mass of
chestnut hair crowning her delicately shaped head.
She made change languidly for waiter and guest; acknowledged the
salutes of those entering and leaving without more than a politely detached
interest; smiled at the jests of facetious customers with mechanical civility
when importuned; and, when momentarily idle, swung her long, slim foot
in time to the music and rested her painted cheek on one hand.
Her indifferent grey eyes, sweeping the hall, presently rested on
Warner; and remained on him with a sort of idle insolence until his own
shifted.
Halkett was saying:

"You know that girl—the cashier, I mean—is extraordinarily pretty.
Have you noticed her, Warner?"
Warner turned again:
"I've been looking at her. She's rather thickly tinted, isn't she?"
"Yes. But in spite of the paint. She has a charmingly shaped head.
Some day she'll have a figure."
"Oh, yes; figures and maturity come late to that type.... If you'll notice,
Halkett, those hands of hers are really exquisite. So are her features—the
nose is delicate, the eyes beautifully drawn—she's all in good drawing—
even her mouth, which is a little too full. As an amateur, don't you agree
with me?"
"Very much so. She's a distinct type."
"Yes—there's a certain appeal about her.... It's odd, isn't it—the
inexplicable something about some women that attracts. It doesn't depend
on beauty at all."
Halkett sipped his Moselle wine.
"No, it doesn't depend on beauty, on intelligence, on character, or on
morals. It's in spite of them—in defiance, sometimes. Now, take that thin
girl over there; her lips and cheeks are painted; she has the indifferent,
disenchanted, detached glance of the too early wise. The chances are that
she isn't respectable. And in spite of all that, Warner—well—look at her."
"I see. A man could paint a troubling portrait of her—a sermon on
canvas."
"Just as she sits there," nodded Halkett.
"Just as she sits there, chin on palm, one lank leg crossed over the
other, and her slim foot dangling.... And the average painter would make her
seem all wrong, Halkett; and I might, too, except for those clear grey eyes
and their childish indifference to the devil's world outside their ken." He

inspected her for a moment more, then: "Yes, in spite of rouge and other
obvious elementals, I should paint her as she really is, Halkett; and no man
in his heart would dare doubt her after I'd finished."
"That's not realism," remarked Halkett, laughing.
"It's the vital essence of it. You know I'm something of a gambler.
Well, if I painted that girl as she sits there now, in this noisy, messy,
crowded cabaret, with the artificial tint on lip and cheek—if I painted her
just as she appears to us, and in all the insolently youthful relaxation of her
attitude—I'd be gambling all the while with myself that the soul inside her
is as clean as a flame; and I'd paint that conviction into her portrait with
every brush stroke! What do you think of that view of her?"
"As you Americans say, you're some poet," observed Halkett,
laughingly.
"A poet is an advanced psychologist. He begins where scientific
deduction ends."
"That's what makes your military pictures so convincing," said Halkett,
with his quick smile. "It's not only the correctness of details and the spirited
drawing and color, but you do see into the very souls of the men you paint,
and their innermost characters are there, revealed in the supreme crisis of
the moment." He smiled quietly. "I'll believe it if you say that young girl
over there is quite all right."
"I'd paint her that way, anyhow."
The singing on the stage had ceased from troubling, and the stringed
orchestra was playing one of the latest and most inane of dance steps. A
clumsy piou-piou got up with his fresh-cheeked partner; other couples rose
from the sloppy tables, and in another moment the dancing floor was
uncomfortably crowded.

It was a noisy place; a group of summer touring students from
Louvain, across the border, were singing "La Brabançonne"—a very
patriotic and commendable attempt, but it scarcely harmonized with the
dance music. Perspiring waiters rushed hither and thither, their trays piled
high; the dancers trotted and spun around and galloped about over the
waxed floor; the young girl behind her wire wicket swung her narrow foot
to and fro and gazed imperturbably out across the tumult.
"Philippa!" cried one of the Louvain students, hammering on the table
with his beer glass. "Come out from behind your guichet and dance with
me!"
The girl's grey eyes turned superciliously toward the speaker, but she
neither answered nor moved her head.
The young man blew a kiss toward her and attempted to climb upon
the zinc table, but old man Wildresse, who was prowling near, tapped him
on the shoulder.
"Pas de bêtise!" he growled. "Soyez sage! Restez tranquille, nom de
Dieu!"
"I merely desired the honor of dancing with your charming cashier—"
"Allons! Assez! It's sufficient to ask her, isn't it? A woman dances with
whom she chooses."
And, grumbling, he walked on with his heavy sidling step, hands
clasped behind him, his big, hard, smoothly shaven face lowered and partly
turned, as though eternally listening for somebody just at his heels. Always
sidling nearer to the table where Warner and Halkett were seated, he
paused, presently, and looked down at them, shot a glance across at the girl,
Philippa, caught her eye, nodded significantly. Then, addressing Warner and
his new friend:

"Well, gentlemen," he said in English, "are you amusing yourselves in
the Café Biribi?"
"Sufficiently," nodded Warner.
Wildresse peeped stealthily over his shoulder, as though expecting to
surprise a listener. Then his very small black eyes stole toward Halkett, and
he furtively examined him.
"Jour de fête," he remarked in his harshly resonant voice. "Grand
doings in town tonight. Do you gentlemen dine here this evening?"
"I think not," said Warner.
"I am sorry. It will be gay. There are dance partners to be had for a
polite bow. You should see my little caissière yonder!" He made a grunting
sound and kissed his blunt fingers to the ceiling. "M-m-m!" he growled.
"She can dance! But I don't permit her to dance very often. Only a special
client now and then——"
"May we consider ourselves special clients?" inquired Warner,
amused.
"Oh, I don't say yes and I don't say no." He jerked his round, shaven
head. "It all depends on her. She dances with whom she pleases. And if the
Emperor of China asked her, nevertheless she should be free to please
herself."
"She's very pretty," said Halkett.
"Others have said so before you in the Cabaret de Biribi."
"Why do you call your cabaret the Café Biribi?" asked Warner.
"Eh? By God, I call it Biribi because I'm not ashamed of the name."
Halkett looked up into his wicked black eyes, and Wildresse wagged
his finger at him.
"Supposition," he said, "that your son is a good boy—a little lively, but
a good boy—and he comes of age and he goes with his class for two years

—three years now, and to hell with it!
"Bon! Supposition, also, that his sergeant is a tyrant, his captain an ass,
his colonel an imbecile! Bon! Given a little natural ardor—a trifle of animal
spirits, and the lad is up before the council—bang!—and he gets his in the
battalions of Biribi!"
His voice had become a sort of ominous growl.
"As for me," he said heavily, "I mock at their council and their
blockhead colonel! I accept their challenge; I do not conceal that my son is
serving in a disciplinary battalion; I salute all the battalions of Biribi—
where there are better men in the ranks than there are in many a regiment of
the line, by God! And I honor those battalions by naming my cabaret
'Biribi.' The Government gets no change out of me!"
The man asserted too much, swaggered too obviously; and Halkett, not
suspicious but always cautious, kept his inquiring eyes fixed on him.
Warner said with a smile:
"You have the courage of your convictions, Monsieur Wildresse."
"As for that," growled Wildresse, casting another stealthy glance
behind him, "I've got courage. Courage? Who hasn't? Everybody's got
courage. It's brains the world lacks. Excuse me, gentlemen—affairs of
business—and if you want to dance with my little cashier, there is no harm
in asking her." And he shuffled away, his heavy head bent sideways, his
hands tightly clasped behind him.
"There's an evil type," remarked Halkett. "What a brute it is!"
Warner said:
"With his cropped head and his smooth, pasty face, and those
unpleasant black eyes of his, he looks like an ex-convict. It doesn't astonish
me that he has a son serving in the disciplinary battalions of Africa."

"Does it astonish you that he is the employer of that girl behind the
counter?" asked Halkett.
Warner turned to look at her again:
"It's interesting, isn't it? She seems to be another breed."
"Yes. Now, what do you make of her?"
Warner hesitated, then looked up with a laugh.
"Halkett," he said, "I'm going over to ask her to dance."
"All right; I'll hold the table," said the Englishman, amused. And
Warner rose, skirted the dancers, and walked around to the cashier's desk,
aware all the while that the girl's indifferent grey eyes were following his
movements.

CHAPTER III

Warner tucked his walking stick and straw hat under one arm and,
sauntering over to the cashier's desk, made a very nice and thoroughly
Continental bow to the girl behind it.
Her impartial and uninterested gaze rested on him; after a moment she
inclined her head, leisurely and in silence.
He said in French:
"Would Mademoiselle do me the honor of dancing this dance with
me?"
She replied in a sweet but indifferent voice:
"Monsieur is too amiable. But he sees that I am caissière of the
establishment."

"Yet even the fixed stars of heaven dance sometimes to the music of
the spheres."
She smiled slightly:
"When one is merely a fixture de cabaret, one dances only to the
music of the Sbires! You must ask Monsieur Wildresse if I may dance with
you."
"He suggested that I ask you."
"Very well, if it's a matter of business——"
Warner laughed.
"Don't you ever dance for pleasure?" he asked in English.
She replied in English:
"Is it your theory that it would give me pleasure to dance with you?"
"It is," he said, still laughing. "But by demonstration alone are theories
proven."
The girl hesitated, her grey eyes resting on him. Then she turned her
head, drew a pencil from her chestnut hair, rapped with it on the counter. A
head waiter came speeding to her.
"Aristide, I'm going to dance," she said in the same sweetly indifferent
voice. "Have the goodness to sit in my chair until I return or Mélanie
arrives."
She slid to the floor from her high seat, came out, through the wire
gate, and began to unpin her cambric apron.
The closer view revealed to him her thinness in her black gown. She
was not so tall as he had thought her, and she was younger; but he had been
right about her cheeks and lips. Both were outrageously painted.
She handed her daintily embroidered apron to the waiter, laid one hand
lightly on Warner's arm; he led her to the edge of the dancing floor, clasped
her waist and swung her with him out into the noisy whirl beyond.

Thin, almost immature in her angular slenderness, the girl in motion
became enchantingly graceful. Supple as a sapling in the summer wind, her
hand rested feather-light in his; her long, narrow feet seemed like shadows
close above the floor, never touching it.
The orchestra ceased playing after a few minutes, but old man
Wildresse, who had been watching them, growled, "Go on!" and the music
recommenced amid plaudits and shouts of general approval.
Once, as they passed the students' table, Warner heard the voice of old
Wildresse in menacing dispute with the student who had first shouted out an
invitation to Philippa.
"She dances with whom she chooses!" roared Wildresse. "Do you
understand, Monsieur? By God, if the Grand Turk himself asked her she
should not dance with him unless she wished to!"
Warner said to her jestingly:
"Did the Grand Turk ever ask you, Philippa?"
The girl did not smile.
"Perhaps I am dancing with him now. One never knows—in a
cabaret."
When the music ceased she was breathing only a trifle faster, and her
cheeks under the paint glowed softly pink.
"Could you join us?" he asked. "Is it permitted?"
"I'd like to.... Yes."
So he took her back to the table, where Halkett rose and paid his
respects gracefully; and they seated themselves and ordered a grenadine for
her.
Old Wildresse, sidling by, paused with a non-committal grunt:
"Eh bien? On s'amuse? Dis, petit galopin!"
"I'm thirsty," said the girl Philippa.

"And your caisse?"
"Tell them to find Mélanie," she retorted indifferently.
"Bon! A jour de fête, too! How long are you going to be?" But as she
glanced up he winked at her.
She shrugged her shoulders, leaned forward, chose a straw, and
plunged it into the crimson depths of her iced grenadine.
Old Wildresse looked at her a moment, then he also shrugged his
shoulders and went shuffling away, always apparently distrustful of that
invisible something just behind his back.
Halkett said:
"Mr. Warner and I have been discussing an imaginary portrait of you."
"What?" The clear, grey eyes turned questioningly to him, to Warner.
The latter nodded:
"I happen to be a painter. Mr. Halkett and I have agreed that it would
be an interesting experiment to paint your portrait—as you really are."
The girl seemed slightly puzzled.
"As I really am?" she repeated. "But, Messieurs, am I not what you see
before you?"
The music began again; the Louvain student, a little tipsy but very
decorous, arose, bowed to the girl Philippa, bowed to Halkett and to
Warner, and asked for the honor of a dance with her.
"Merci, Monsieur—another time, perhaps," she replied indifferently.
The boy seemed disposed to linger, but he was not quarrelsome, and
finally Halkett got up and led him away.
From moment to moment Warner, glancing across during his tête-à-
tête with the girl Philippa, could see the Louvain student continually
shaking hands with Halkett who seemed horribly bored.

A little later still the entire Louvain delegation insisted on entertaining
Halkett with beer and song; and the resigned but polite Englishman, now
seated at their table, was being taught to sing "La Brabançonne," between
draughts of Belgian beer.
The girl Philippa played with the stem of her glass and stirred the ice
in it with her broken wheat straw. The healthy color in her face had now
faded to an indoor pallor again under the rouge.
"So you are a painter," she said, her grey eyes fixed absently on her
glass. "Are you a distinguished painter, Monsieur?"
He laughed:
"You'll have to ask others that question, Philippa."
"Why? Don't you know whether you are distinguished?"
"I've had some success," he admitted, amused.
She thought a moment, then leaned forward toward the Louvain table.
"Mr. Halkett," she called in English. "Is Mr. Warner a distinguished
American painter?"
Halkett laughed.
"One of the most celebrated American painters of the day!"
The Louvain students, understanding, rose as a man, waved their
glasses, and cheered for Warner, the "grand peintre Américain." Which
embarrassed and annoyed him so that his face grew brighter than the paint
on Philippa's lips.
"I'm sorry," she said, noticing his annoyance. "I did not mean to make
you conspicuous."
Everybody in the café was now looking at him; on every side he gazed
into amused and smiling faces, saw glasses lifted, heard the cries of easily
aroused Gallic enthusiasm.
"Vive le grand peintre Américain! Vive l'Amérique du Nord!"

"This is tiresome!" exclaimed Philippa. "Let us walk down to the river
and sit in one of our boats. I should really like to talk to you sensibly—
unless you are too much annoyed with me."
She beckoned a waiter to bring her apron; and she put it on.
"When you are ready, Monsieur," she said serenely.
So they rose; Warner paid the bill, and, with a whimsical smile at
Halkett, walked out beside Philippa through one of the rear doors, and
immediately found himself in brightest sunshine, amid green trees and
flower beds.
Here, under the pitiless sky, the girl's face became ghastly under its
rouged mask—the more shocking, perhaps, because her natural skin, if
pale, appeared to be smooth and clear; and the tragic youth of her seemed to
appeal to all out of doors from the senseless abuse it was enduring.
To see her there in the freshness of the open breeze, sunshine and
shadow dappling the green under foot, the blue overhead untroubled by a
cloud, gave Warner a slightly sick sensation.
"The air is pleasant," she remarked, unconscious of the effect she had
on him.
He nodded. They walked down the grassy slope to the river bank,
where rows of boats lay moored. A few were already in use out on the calm
stream; young men in their shirt sleeves splashed valiantly at the oars;
young women looked on under sunshades of flamboyant tints.
There was a white punt there called the Lys. Philippa stepped into it,
drew a key from her apron pocket, unlocked the padlock. Then, lifting the
pole from the grass, she turned and invited Warner with a gesture.
He had not bargained for this; but he tossed the chain aboard, stepped
in, and offered to take the pole.

But Philippa evidently desired to do the punting herself; so he sat back,
watching her sometimes and sometimes looking at the foliage, where they
glided swiftly along under overhanging branches and through still,
glimmering reaches of green water, set with scented rushes where dragon
flies glittered and midges danced in clouds, and the slim green frogs floated
like water sprites, partly submerged, looking at them out of golden goblin
eyes that never blinked.
"The town is en fête," remarked Philippa presently. "Why should I not
be too?"
Warner laughed:
"Do you call this a fête?"
"For me, yes." ... After a moment, turning from her pole: "Do you not
find it agreeable?"
"Certainly. What little river is this?"
"The Récollette."
"It flows by Saïs, too. I did not recognize it for the same. The
Récollette is swifter and shallower below Saïs."
"You know Saïs, then?"
"I live there in summer."
"Oh. And in winter?"
"Paris."
An unconscious sigh of relief escaped her, that it was not necessary to
play the spy with this man. It was the other man who interested Wildresse.
The girl poled on in silence for a while, then deftly guided the Lys into
the cool green shadow of a huge oak which overhung the water, the lower
branches touching it.
"The sun is warm," she observed, driving in the pole and tying the
white punt so that it could swing with the current.

She came and seated herself by Warner, smiled frankly.
"Do you know," she said, "I've never before done this for pleasure."
"What haven't you done for pleasure?" he inquired, perplexed.
"This—what I am doing."
"You mean you never before went out punting with a customer?"
"Not for the pleasure of it—only for business reasons."
He hesitated to understand, refused to, because, for all her careless
freedom and her paint, he could not believe her to be merely a fille de
cabaret.
"Business reasons," he repeated. "What is your business?"
"Cashier, of course."
"Well, does your business ever take you boating with customers? Is it
part of your business to dance with a customer and drink grenadine with
him?"
"Yes, but you wouldn't understand——" And suddenly she
comprehended his misunderstanding of her and blushed deeply.
"I am not a cocotte. Did you think I meant that?"
"I know you are not. I didn't know what you meant."
There was a silence; the color in her cheeks cooled under the rouge.
"It happened this way," she said quietly. "I didn't want to make it a
matter of business with you. Even in the beginning I didn't.... You please
me.... After all, the town is en fête.... After all, a girl has a right to please
herself once in her life.... And business is a very lonely thing for the
young.... Why shouldn't I amuse myself for an hour with a client who
pleases me?"
"Are you doing it?"
"Yes. I never before knew a distinguished painter—only noisy boys
from the schools, whose hair is uncut, whose conversation is blague, and

whose trousers are too baggy to suit me. They smoke soldier's tobacco, and
their subjects of discussion are not always convenable."
He said, curiously:
"As for that, you must hear much that is not convenable in the
cabaret."
"Oh, yes. I don't notice it when it is not addressed to me.... Please tell
me what you paint—if I am permitted to ask."
"Soldiers."
"Only soldiers?"
"Portraits, sometimes, and landscapes out of doors—anything that
appeals to me. Do pictures interest you?"
"I used to go to the Louvre and the Luxembourg when I was a child. It
was interesting. Did you say that you would like to make a portrait of me?"
"I said that if I ever did make a portrait of you I'd paint you as you
really are."
Her perplexed gaze had the disconcerting directness of a child's.
"I don't understand," she said.
"Shall I explain?"
"If you would be so kind."
"You won't be offended?"
She regarded him silently; her brows became slightly contracted.
"Such a man as you would not willingly offend, I think."
"No, of course not. I didn't mean that sort of thing. But you might not
like what I have to say."
"If I merit what you say about me, it doesn't matter whether I like it or
not, does it? Tell me."
He laughed:

"Well, then, if I were going to paint you, I'd first ask you to wash your
cheeks."
She sat silent, humiliated, the painful color deepening and waning
under the rouge.
"And," he continued pleasantly, "after your face had been well
scrubbed, I'd paint you in your black gown, cuffs and apron of a caissière,
just as I first saw you there behind the desk, one foot swinging, and your
cheek resting on your hand.
"But behind your eyes, which looked out so tranquilly across the
tumult of the cabaret, I'd paint a soul as clean as a flame.... I'm wondering
whether I'd make any mistake in painting you that way, Philippa?"
The girl Philippa had fixed her grey eyes on him with fascinated but
troubled intensity. They remained so for a while after he had finished
speaking.
Presently, and partly to herself, she said:
"Pour ça—no. So far. But it has never before occurred to me that I
look like a cocotte."
She turned, and, resting one arm on the gunwale, gazed down into the
limpid green water.
"Have you a fresh handkerchief?" she asked, not turning toward him.
"Yes—but——"
"Please! I must wash my face."
She bent swiftly, dipped both hands into the water, and scrubbed her
lips and cheeks. Then, extending her arm behind her for the handkerchief,
she dried her skin, sat up again, and faced him with childish resignation. A
few freckles had become visible; her lips were no longer vivid, and there
now remained only the faintest tint of color under her clear, cool skin.

"You see," she said, "I'm not attractive unless I help nature. One
naturally desires to be thought attractive."
"On the contrary, you are exceedingly attractive!"
"Are you sincere?"
"Perfectly."
"But I have several freckles near my nose. And I am pale."
"You are entirely attractive," he repeated, laughing.
"With my freckles! You are joking. Also, I have no pink in my cheeks
now." She shrugged. "However—if you like me this way——" She
shrugged again, as though that settled everything.
Another punt passed them; she looked after it absently. Presently she
said, still watching the receding boat:
"Do you think you'll ever come again to the Café Biribi?"
"I'll come expressly to see you, Philippa," he replied.
To his surprise the girl blushed vividly and looked away from him; and
he hastily took a different tone, somewhat astonished that such a girl should
not have learned long ago how to take the irresponsible badinage of men.
Certainly she must have had plenty of opportunity for such schooling.
"When I'm in Ausone again," he said seriously, "I'll bring with me a
canvas and brushes. And if Monsieur Wildresse doesn't mind I'll make a
little study of you. Shall I, Philippa?"
"Would you care to?"
"Very much. Do you think Monsieur Wildresse would permit it?"
"I do what I choose."
"Oh!"
She misunderstood his amused exclamation, and she flushed up.
"My conduct has been good—so far," she explained. "Everybody
knows it. The prix de la rosière is not yet beyond me. If a girl determines to

behave otherwise, who can stop her, and what? Not her parents—if she has
any; not bolts and keys. No; it is understood between Monsieur Wildresse
and me that I do what I choose. And, Monsieur, so far I have not chosen—
indiscreetly——" She looked up calmly. "——In spite of my painted
cheeks which annoyed you——"
"I didn't mean——"
"I understand. You think that it is more comme il faut to exhibit one's
freckles to the world than to paint them out."
"It's a thousand times better! If you only knew how pretty you are—
just as you are now—with your soft, girlish skin and your chestnut hair and
your enchanting grey eyes——"
"Monsieur——"
The girl's rising color and her low-voiced exclamation warned him
again that detached and quite impersonal praises from him were not
understood.
"Philippa," he explained with bored but smiling reassurance, "I'm
merely telling you what a really pretty girl you are; I'm not paying court to
you. Didn't you understand?"
The grey eyes were lifted frankly to his; questioned him in silence.
"In America a man may say as much to a girl and mean nothing more
—important," he explained. "I'm not trying to make love to you, Philippa.
Were you afraid I was?"
She said slowly:
"I was not exactly—afraid."
"I don't do that sort of thing," he continued pleasantly. "I don't make
love to anybody. I'm too busy a man. Also, I would not offend you by
talking to you about love."

She looked down at her folded hands. Since she had been with him
nothing had seemed very real to her, nothing very clear, except that for the
first time in her brief life she was interested in a man on whom she was
supposed to be spying.
The Gallic and partly morbid traditions she had picked up in such a
girlhood as had been hers were now making for her an important personal
episode out of their encounter, and were lending a fictitious and perhaps a
touching value to every word he uttered.
But more important and most significant of anything to her was her
own natural inclination for him. For her he already possessed immortal
distinction; he was her first man.
She was remembering that she had gone to him after exchanging a
glance with Wildresse, when he had first asked her to dance. But she had
needed no further persuasion to sit with him at his table; she had even
forgotten her miserable rôle when she asked him to go out to the river with
her. The significance of all this, according to her Gallic tradition, was now
confronting her, emphasizing the fact that she was still with him.
As she sat there, her hands clasped in her lap, the sunlit reality of it all
seemed brightly confused as in a dream—a vivid dream which casts a
deeper enchantment over slumber, holding the sleeper fascinated under the
tense concentration of the happy spell. Subconsciously she seemed to be
aware that, according to tradition, this conduct of hers must be merely
preliminary to something further; that, in sequence, other episodes were
preparing—were becoming inevitable. And she thought of what he had said
about making love.
Folding and unfolding her hands, and looking down at them rather
fixedly, she said:

"Apropos of love—I have never been angry because men told me they
were in love with me.... Men love; it is natural; they cannot help it. So, if
you had said so, I should not have been angry. No, not at all, Monsieur."
"Philippa," he said smilingly, "when a girl and a man happen to be
alone together, love isn't the only entertaining subject for conversation, is
it?"
"It's the subject I've always had to listen to from men. Perhaps that is
why I thought—when you spoke so amiably of my—my——"
"Beauty," added Warner frankly, "—because it is beauty, Philippa. But
I meant only to express the pleasure that it gave to a painter—yes, and to a
man who can admire without offense, and say so quite as honestly."
The girl slowly raised her eyes.
"You speak very pleasantly to me," she said. "Are other American men
like you?"
"You ought to know. Aren't you American?"
"I don't know what I am."
"Why, I thought—your name was Philippa Wildresse."
"I am called that."
"Then Monsieur Wildresse isn't a relation?"
"No. I wear his name for lack of any other.... He found me somewhere,
he says.... In Paris, I believe.... That is all he will tell me."
"Evidently," said Warner in his pleasant, sympathetic voice, "you have
had an education somewhere."
"He sent me to school in England until I was sixteen.... After that I
became cashier for him."
"He gave you his name, and he supports you.... Is he kind to you?"
"He has never struck me."
"Does he protect you?"

"He uses me in business.... I am too valuable to misuse."
The girl looked down at her folded hands. And even Warner divined
what ultimate chances she stood in the Cabaret de Biribi.
"When I'm in Ausone again, I'll come to see you," he said pleasantly.
"—Not to make love to you, Philippa," he added with a smile, "but just
because we have become such good friends out here in the Lys."
"Yes," she said, "friends. I shall be glad to see you. I shall always try to
understand you—whatever you say to me."
"That's as it should be!" he exclaimed heartily. "Give me your hand on
it, Philippa."
She laid her hand in his gravely. They exchanged a slight pressure.
Then he glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up the pole.
"I've got to drive to Saïs in time for dinner," he remarked. "I'm sorry,
because I'd like to stay out here with you."
"I'm sorry, too," she said.
The next moment the punt shot out into the sunny stream.

CHAPTER IV

Warner and the girl Philippa reëntered the Cabaret de Biribi together the
uproar had become almost deafening. Confetti was thrown at them
immediately, and they advanced all a-flutter with brilliant tatters.
The orchestra was playing, almost everybody was dancing, groups at
tables along the edge of the floor sang, clinked glasses, and threw confetti
without discrimination. The whole place—tables, floor, chandeliers, and

people—streamed with multi-colored paper ribbons. Waiters swept it in
heaps from the dancing floor.
Philippa entered the cashier's enclosure and dismissed the woman in
charge. Seated once more on her high chair she opened her reticule and
produced a small mirror. Then she leaned far over her counter toward
Warner.
"Is it permitted me to powder my nose?" she whispered with childlike
seriousness; but she laughed when he did, and, still laughing, made him a
gay little gesture of adieu with her powder puff.
He stood looking at her for a moment, where she sat on her high chair
behind the cage, intently occupied with her mirror, oblivious to the tumult
around her. Then, the smile still lingering on his features, he turned to look
for his new acquaintance, Halkett.

Old man Wildresse sidled up to the cashier's desk, opened the wicket, and
went inside. Philippa, still using her tiny mirror, was examining a freckle
very seriously.
"Eh, bien?" he growled. "Rien?"
"Nothing!"
"Drop that glass and talk!" he said harshly.
She turned and looked at him.
"I tell you it was silly to suspect such a man!" she said impatiently. "In
my heart I feel humiliated that you should have set me to spy on him——"
"What's that!"
"No, I've had enough! I don't like the rôle; I never liked it! Are there
no police in France——"
"Little idiot!" he said. "Will you hold your tongue?"
"It is a disgusting métier——"

"Damnation! Hold your tongue!" he repeated. "We've got to do what
the Government tells us to do, haven't we?"
"Not I! Never again——"
"Yes, you will! Do you hear? Yes, you will, or I'll twist your neck!
Now, I'm going to keep my eye on that other gentleman. Granted that the
man you pumped is all right, I'm not so sure about the other, who seems to
be an Englishman. I'm going over to stand near him. By and by I'll address
him. And if I wink at you, leave your caisse with Mélanie, come over, and
sit at their table again——"
"No!"
"Yes, you will!"
"No!"
"Yes, you will. And you'll also contrive it so the Englishman asks you
to dance. Do you hear what I say? And you'll find out where he comes from,
and when he arrived in Ausone, and where he is going, and whatever else
you can worm out of him!" He glared at her. "Disobey if you dare," he
added.
She was silent.
After a moment he continued in a softer voice:
"Do you want to see me in prison and my son in New Caledonia? Very
well, then; do what the Government tells you to do."
"I—I've done enough—filthy work——" she stammered. "Why must
I? I have never done anything wrong——"
"Did you hear what I said? Do you want to see Jacques in Noumea?"
"No," she said sullenly.
"Then do what I tell you, or, by God, they'll ship him there and me
too!"

And he clasped his hands behind his back, peered sideways at her,
shrugged, and went shuffling out of the enclosure.
Groups at various tables were singing and shouting; the floor seethed
with sweating dancers. On the edge of this vortex the girl Philippa, from her
high chair, looked darkly across the tumult toward the table where Halkett
sat.
Something seemed to be happening there; she could see Wildresse
gesticulating vigorously; she saw Warner making his way toward his friend,
who was seated alone at a table, a lighted cigarette balanced between his
fingers and one arm thrown carelessly around the back of the chair on
which he sat.
He was looking coolly but steadily at three men who occupied the
table next to him; Wildresse now stood between the two tables, and his
emphatic gesticulations were apparently directed toward these three men;
but in the uproar, and although he also appeared to be shouting, what he
was saying remained inaudible.
Warner went over and seated himself beside Halkett; and now he could
distinguish the harsh voice of the Patron raised in irritation:
"No politics! I'll not suffer political disputes in my cabaret!" he
bawled. "Quarrels arise from such controversies. I'll have no quarrels in my
place. Now, Messieurs, un peu de complaisance!"
One of the men he was exhorting leaned wide in his seat and looked
insolently across at Halkett.
"It was the Englishman's fault," he retorted threateningly. "I and my
friends here had been speaking of the assassination of the Archduke Francis
Ferdinand in Serajevo. We were conversing peaceably and privately among
ourselves, when that Englishman laughed at us——"
"You are mistaken," said Halkett quietly.

"Did you not laugh?" cried the second of the men at the next table.
"Yes, but not at what you were saying. I'm sorry if you thought so
——"
The man half rose in his chair, exclaiming:
"Why shouldn't I think it natural for an Englishman to laugh at the
murder of an Austrian arch-duke——"
"Stop that discussion!" cried Wildresse, angrily jerking his heavy head
from Halkett to the three men at the other table. "Let it rest where it is, I tell
you! The English gentleman says he did not laugh at what you were saying.
Nom de Dieu! Nobody well brought up laughs at murder!" And to Halkett
and Warner: "Be amiable enough, gentlemen, to carry this
misunderstanding no further. I've had sufficient trouble with the police in
my time."
Warner laid one hand lightly on Halkett's arm.
"All right," he said to Wildresse; "no trouble shall originate with us."
And, to Halkett, in a lowered voice: "Have you an idea that those men over
there are trying to force a quarrel?"
"Of course."
"Have you ever seen them before?"
"Not one of them."
Warner's lips scarcely moved as he said:
"Is it the matter of the envelope?"
"I think so. And, Warner, I don't intend to drag you into any——"
"Wait. Are you armed?"
Halkett shook his head.
"That's no good," he said. "I can't afford to do anything conspicuous. If
I'm involved with the authorities I'm done for, and I might just as well be

knocked on the head." After a moment he added: "I think perhaps you'd
better say good-by to me now, Warner——"
"Why?"
"Because, if they manage to force a quarrel, I don't mean to have you
involved——"
"Do you really expect me to run away?" asked Warner, laughing.
Halkett looked up at him with a faint smile:
"I'm under very heavy obligations to you already——"
"You are coming to Saïs with me."
"Thanks so much, but——"
"Come on, Halkett. I'm not going to leave you here."
"My dear chap, I'll wriggle out somehow. I've done it before. After all,
they may not mean mischief."
Warner turned and looked across at the three men. Two were
whispering together; the third, arms folded, was staring truculently at
Halkett out of his light blue eyes.
Warner turned his head and said quietly to Halkett:
"I take two of them to be South Germans or Austrians. The other might
be Alsatian. Do any of these possible nationalities worry you?"
"Exactly," said Halkett coolly.
"In other words, any trouble you may expect is likely to come from
Germans?"
"That's about it."
Warner lighted a cigarette.
"Shall we try a quiet getaway?" he asked.
"No; I'll look out for myself. Clear out, Warner, there's a good fellow
——"

"Don't ask me to do a thing that you wouldn't do," retorted Warner
sharply. "Come on; I'm going to drive you to Saïs."
Halkett flushed.
"I shan't forget how decent you've been," he said. They summoned the
waiter, paid the reckoning, rose, and walked leisurely toward the door.
At the caissière's desk they turned aside to say good-night to Philippa.
The girl looked up from her accounts, pencil poised, gazing at Warner.
"Au revoir, Philippa," he said, smilingly.
The girl's serious features relaxed; she nodded to him gayly, turned,
still smiling, to include Halkett. And instantly a swift change altered her
face; she half rose from her chair, arm outstretched.
"What is that man doing behind you!" she cried out—too late to avert
what she saw coming. For the man close behind Halkett had dexterously
passed a silk handkerchief across his throat from behind and had jerked him
backward; and, like lightning, two other men appeared on either side of
him, tore his coat wide, and thrust their hands into his breast pockets.
Warner pivoted on his heel and swung hard on the man with the silk
handkerchief, driving him head-on into the table behind, which fell with a
crash of glassware. Halkett, off his balance, fell on top of the table,
dragging with him one of the men whose hand had become entangled in his
breast pocket.
The people who had been seated at the table were hurled right and left
among the neighboring tables; a howl of anger and protest burst from the
crowd; there came a shout of "Cochon!"—a rush to see what had happened;
people mounted on chairs, waiters arrived, running. Out of the mêlée
Halkett wriggled and rose, coughing, his features still crimson from partial
strangulation. Warner caught his arm in a grip of iron and whisked him out

of the door. The next instant they were engulfed in the crowds thronging the
market square.
Warner, thoroughly aroused and excited, still maintained his grip on
Halkett's arm.
"Did you ever see anything like it?" he said in a low voice. "It came
like a bolt from the sky. That was the Coup du Père François. Did they get
anything from you?"
Halkett spoke with difficulty, pressing his throat with his fingers and
trying to smile.
"What they got," he said, "was meant for them to get—time-tables and
a ticket to Paris. I don't intend to travel that way——" A fit of coughing
shook him. "——For a moment I thought they'd actually broken my neck.
What did you do to that fellow with his noose?"
"He fell on the table behind you. Everybody was piled up with the
crockery. You wriggled out like a lizard." He turned cautiously and looked
back over his shoulder. "Do you think we have been followed?"
"I can't see that we are."
They entered the rue d'Auros and turned into the Hôtel Boule d'Argent.
Warner sent a chasseur to the stables for his horse and dogcart; Halkett
hastened to collect his luggage.
In a few minutes the horse and cart came rattling out of the mews;
luggage, canvases, and the sack of colors were placed in the boot; Warner
mounted, taking reins and whip; Halkett sprang up beside him, and the
groom freed the horse's head.
Into the almost deserted Boulevard d'Athos they went at a lively clip,
circled the lovely church of Sainte Cassilda at the head of it, and trotted out
into the broad highroad which swings cast to the river Récollette, and

follows that pretty little stream almost due south to the hills and cliffs and
woods and meadows of Saïs.
The sun hung low above the fields, reddening the roadside bushes and
painting the tall ranks of poplars with vivid streaks of gold and rose.
Just outside the remains of the old town wall they passed through a
suburban hamlet. That, except for a farm or two more, included the last
houses this side of Saïs.
For a little while neither of the young men spoke; Halkett's cough had
ceased, but now and then he fidgeted with his collar as though to ease it
from the bruised throat. Warner drove, looking straight between his horse's
ears, as though intently preoccupied with his navigation.
After a while Halkett said:
"The envelope is safe, I take it:"
"Oh, yes. They never noticed me until I hit one of them."
"I'm so grateful," said Halkett, "that it's quite useless for me to try to
say so——"
"Listen! I'm enjoying it. I'm grateful to you, Halkett, for giving me the
opportunity. I needed touching up." He laughed in sheer exhilaration. "We
stodgy professional people ought to be stirred out of our ruts, A little mix-
up like that with a prospect of others is exactly what I needed."
Halkett smiled rather dryly.
"Oh," he said. "If it strikes you that way, I shall feel much relieved."
"Relieve yourself of all embarrassment," returned Warner gayly. "If
our acquaintance entails further scraps with those gentlemen, I shall be
merely the more grateful to you."
They both laughed; Warner swung his long whip like a fly rod and
caught the loop cleverly on his whip-stock.
Halkett, still laughing, said:

"You don't look as though you enjoyed a cabaret fight. You look far too
respectable."
"Oh, I am respectable, I suppose. But I'm not very aged yet, and my
student days are still rather near."
The road curved out now along the Récollette where it still flowed a
placid stream between green meadows and through charming bits of
woodland. In the glass of the flood the sunset sky was mirrored; swallows
cut the still, golden surface; slowly spreading circles of rising fish starred it
at intervals.
"So you don't go armed?" remarked Warner thoughtfully.
"No."
The American pointed with the butt of his whip to the dashboard
where the blue-black butts of two automatics appeared from slung holsters.
"Why the artillery?" inquired Halkett.
"I drive my neighbor, Madame de Moidrey, sometimes; and in summer
it is often dark before we return. It's a lovely country; also, the quarrymen at
the cement works are a rough lot. So I let my pretty neighbor take no
chances with me."
"Quite right," nodded Halkett. "When quarrymen get drunk it's no
joke. What quarry is it?"
"The Esser Company. It's a German cement concern, I believe."
"German?"
"I believe so."
"Where is this quarry?"
"In the hills back of the Récollette. They run barges to Ausone. Just
below their canal the Récollette becomes unnavigable, and the shallows and
rapids continue for several miles below Saïs. That is the reason, I suppose,

that the country around Saïs remains primitive and undeveloped, lacking as
it does railroad and water transportation."
"I wonder," said Halkett thoughtfully, "whether I might see the quarry
and cement works. It must be interesting."
Warner shrugged:
"If that sort of thing interests you, I'll take you over. It's a messy place
full of stone crushers and derricks and broken rock and pits full of green
water. Still, if you want to see it——"
"Thanks, I should like to."
Warner glanced at him; a slight grin touched his lips.
"You seem to be interested in a great many kinds of business," he said,
"—literature, military science, cement works, cabaret life——"
Halkett laughed outright; but the next moment he turned like a flash in
his seat, and Warner also cast a quick glance behind him.
"A car coming!" he said, driving to the right. "What's the matter,
Halkett? You don't think it's after us?"
"I think it is."
"What?"
"I know damned well it is!" said Halkett between his teeth. "Shall I
jump and swim for it? Pull in a moment, Warner——"
"Wait! Do you see that gate in the hedge? Get out and open it. Quick,
Halkett! I know what to do——"
Halkett leaped, dragged open the gate; Warner swung his horse and
drove through and out into a swampy meadow set with wild flowers and
bushes and slender saplings.
The wheels of the cart cut through the spongy sod and sank almost to
the hubs, but Warner used his whip and Halkett, taking the horse by the
head, ran forward beside the swaying cart. Right across their path flowed a

deep, narrow stream, partly invisible between reeds and tufts of swamp
weed; Warner turned the vehicle with difficulty, urged his nervous horse
across a cattle bridge which had been fashioned out of a few loose planks,
and drove up on firmer ground among tall ferns and willow bushes.
"Pull up those planks!" he shouted back to Halkett, guiding his horse
with difficulty; and Halkett ran back, lifted the mossy, half rotted planks,
and threw them up among the bushes.
A grey touring car which had halted on the highway outside the hedge
had now turned after them through the gate; and already the driver was
having a bad time of it in the swampy meadow.
As Halkett lifted the last plank that spanned the brook, one of three
men in the tonneau of the car stood up and fired a revolver at him; and
another of the men, seated beside him, also fired deliberately, resting his
elbow on the side of the stalled car to steady his aim, and supporting the
revolver with his left hand under the barrel.
Halkett ran back to where the cart stood, partly concealed among the
ferns and bushes; Warner, holding whip and reins in one hand, passed him
an automatic revolver and drew out the other weapon for his own use.
"This is rottenly ungrateful of me," said the Englishman. "I've certainly
involved you now!"
"It's all right; I'm enjoying it! Now, Halkett, their car is badly mired.
There is another gate to that hedge a few hundred yards below. If you'll just
lay those planks in the cart, we'll drive along the hard ground here and make
another bridge below."
Halkett picked up the wet and muddy planks, one by one, and placed
them crossways in the cart. Then, at a nod from Warner, he climbed up and
the cart started slowly south, winding cautiously in and out among the
bushes.

When they had driven a little distance, the men in the car across the
brook caught sight of them; the driver left his wheel and sprang out; and
from either door of the tonneau the three other men followed, revolvers
lifted. There was no shouting; not a word spoken; not a sound except the
hard, dry crack of the pistols.
"I don't know," said Warner coolly, "whether this horse will stand our
fire, but if they cross the stream we'll have to begin shooting.... We'd better
begin now anyway, I think." He drew rein, turned in his seat, and fired two
shots in quick succession. The horse started, and, instantly checked, stood
trembling but behaving well enough.
Another shot from Halkett brought the running men to a halt. Warner
drove on immediately; three of the men started to follow on a run, but half a
dozen rapid shots brought them to a dead stop again. And again the dogcart
jolted slowly forward.
One of the men made a furious gesture, turned, and ran back to the
mud-stalled car; two of the others followed to aid him to extricate the
machine; the fourth man, skulking along the stream, continued to advance
as the dogcart drove on.
Warner, driving carefully, shoved with his foot a box of clips toward
the dashboard; Halkett reloaded both automatics. Presently the cart turned
east, descending the hard slope toward the stream again; and the man who
had followed them along the swampy brook immediately opened fire.
Halkett and Warner sprang out; the former shouldered the planks and
ran forward; the latter, holding his nervous horse by the head, fired at the
man among the reeds as he advanced toward the stream.
It seemed odd that so many bullets could fly and hit nothing; Halkett
heard them whining over his head; the horse heard them too and threatened
to become unmanageable. Far up the stream the three other men were

laboring frantically to disengage the grey automobile; the man across the
creek, routed out of the reeds by the stream of bullets directed at him, was
running now to get out of range. Evidently his automatic was empty, for it
merely swung in his hand as he ran.
But what occupied Warner was the course the man was taking, straight
for the lower gate in the hedge.
"Jump in!" he called to Halkett. "We can't wait for the other planks!"
The Englishman swung up beside him; the whip whistled and the horse,
now thoroughly frightened, bounded forward down the slope and took the
improvised bridge at a single leap. For one moment it looked like a general
smash, but the cart stood it, and, after a perilous second, righted itself.
Straight at the closed gate drove Warner, whipping his horse into a
dead run; crashed through the flimsy pickets, slashed mercilessly with his
whip at the man who pluckily stripped off his coat and strove to make the
horse swerve into the hedge, as a toreador waves his cloak at a charging
bull.
Halkett could have shot the man; but he merely turned his weapon on
him as they dashed out into the highroad once more, and tore away due
south through the rose and golden glory of the sunset.
The horse ran a flat mile before Warner chose to ease him down; the
summer wind whistled in their ears; the last glow faded from the purpling
zenith; the crimson streak on the river surface, which had run parallel on
their left like level and jagged lightning, glimmered to a pallid ochre tint;
and the flying mist of trees and bushes which had fled past like an endless
rush of phantoms now took shape and substance once more above the rising
veil of river mist.
Warner's tense features were flushed with excitement. As he gradually
eased in his horse he was smiling.

"Well, what do you know about this performance of ours, Halkett?" he
inquired rather breathlessly. "Can you beat it in the movies?"
"I'm wondering what I've let you in for," said the Englishman very
seriously.
"I'll tell you," laughed Warner; "you've let me in for a last glimpse of
my youth—the days when everything went and every chance for mischief
was gratefully seized—the days when I was a subject of the only real
democracy on earth—the Latin Quarter—the days that dawn no more,
Halkett. This is the last gleam from their afterglow. Nosce tempus! But the
sun has set at last, Halkett, and the last haymaker is going home."
"It would not have been very amusing if one of those bullets had
knocked you off your seat," remarked Halkett.
"But they didn't, old chap!" returned Warner heartily. "It was a good
mix-up—exciting, harmless, and beneficial. I feel years younger.
Respectability is a good, warm coat for the winter of life; but one feels its
weight in Indian summer."
Halkett smiled but shook his head:
"No good hunting trouble. You've only to turn around any time to find
it sniffing in your tracks."
"You don't understand. For years I've worked very steadily, very
seriously. I've painted, studied, read; I've made a living by selling some
pictures, by royalties on the reproduction of pictures, by teaching a summer
class of girls. After a while, you know, one goes stale with respectability. I
went out to the East and saw the Balkan fighting. It helped some. I made
some sketches last year in Mexico. That helped.
"But there's an exhilaration about lawbreaking—or in aiding and
abetting a lawbreaker—that has the rest beaten to a batter. Today's misdeeds
mean a new lease of life to me, Halkett."

The Englishman laughed. He was still cradling the two automatics on
his knees; now, with a careless glance behind him, he leaned forward and
replaced them in their respective holsters.
"For a rather celebrated and weighty member of the social structure,"
he remarked, "there is a good deal of the boy left in you."
"When that dies in a man," returned Warner lightly, "creative and
constructive work end. The child who built with blocks, the youth who built
airier castles, is truly dead. And so is the man he has become."
"Do you think so?"
"I know it. The same intellectual and physical restlessness drives one
to create and construct, which, as a boy, drove one into active and
constructive mischief. When the day dawns wherein creating no longer
appeals to me, then I am old indeed, Halkett, and the overcoat of
respectability will suit me the year round.... I'm very glad that I have found
it oppressive this July day. By the way, what day does it happen to be?"
Halkett said:
"It happens to be the last day of July. I have an idea that several billion
other people are destined to remember these last few days of July, 1914, as
long as they live."
"Why?" inquired the American curiously.
"Because, within these last few days, Austria has declared war on
Servia, Russia has already ordered partial mobilization, Germany has sent
her an ultimatum, and will back it up tomorrow."
"What! How do you know?"
"You don't mean to ask me that, do you?" said Halkett pleasantly.
"No, of course not——" Warner gazed straight ahead of him as he
drove; his altered features had become gravely expressionless. After a
moment he said:

"I can't comprehend it. Servia had agreed to everything demanded—
except that one item which she offered to arbitrate. I can't understand it."
Halkett said calmly:
"It is not difficult to understand. A telegram has been suppressed—the
only telegram which could now prevent war." He removed his straw hat,
took from the lining a strip of semi-transparent paper, and read aloud the
minute handwriting:

"The German government has published several telegrams which the
Emperor of Russia exchanged with Emperor William. Among these
telegrams, nevertheless, is one which was not published—a dispatch from
His Russian Majesty, dated July 29, 1914, containing a proposition to
submit the Austro-Servian conflict to The Hague Tribunal.
"This has an appearance of a desire in Germany to pass over in silence
the attempt to prevent the approaching collision. In view of this, the
Minister of Foreign Affairs is authorized to publish the telegram mentioned,
of which this is the text:
"'Thanks for your conciliatory and friendly telegram. Inasmuch as the
official message presented today by your ambassador to my minister was
conveyed in a very different tone, I beg you to explain this divergency. It
would be right to give over the Austro-Servian problem to The Hague
Conference. I trust in your wisdom and friendship.'"

"Where did you get that?" asked Warner bluntly.
"This morning at the Boule d'Argent. A friend was kind enough to
leave it for me in a note," he added blandly.
"Do you believe it to be authentic?"
"Unfortunately, I can not question its truth."
"You think that the German government——"
"Without any doubt at all, Warner. For her The Day is about to dawn at
last. Her Joshua has halted the course of the sun long enough to suit
himself. It is scheduled to rise tomorrow."
"Do you mean war?"
"I do."
"Where?"

"Well, here, in France—to mention one place."
"In France!"
"Surely, surely!"
"Invasion?"
"Exactly."
"From which way?"
Halkett shrugged:
"Does anybody now believe it will come by way of the Barrier Forts?
The human race never has been partial to cross-country traveling; only ants
prefer it."
"You think it will come by the flank—through Belgium?"
"Ask yourself, Warner. Is there an easier way for it to come?"
"But the treaties?"
"Nulla salus bello; necessitas no habet legem."
"Nothing dishonorable is ever necessary."
"Ah! If nations could only agree upon the definition of that word
'honor'! There'd be fewer wars, my friend."
"You think, if France follows Russia's example and mobilizes, that
Germany will strike through Belgium?"
"I'm sure of it."
"What about England, then?" asked Warner bluntly.
But Halkett remained silent; and he did not repeat the question.
"After all," he said, presently, "this entire business is incredible.
Diplomacy will find a way out of it." And, after a moment's silence: "You
don't think so?"
"No."
Presently Halkett turned and looked back through the gathering dusk.
"I wonder," he said, "whether they'll get their car out tonight?"

"They'll have to go back to Ausone for aid," said Warner.
"Do you still mean to put me up at Saïs?"
"Certainly. You don't expect your friends back there to assault the inn,
do you?"
"No," said Halkett, laughing. "They don't do things that way just yet."
Warner snapped his whip, caught the curling lash, let it free, twirled it,
and, snapped it again, whistling cheerfully a gay air from his student days—
a tune he had not thought of before in years.
"I believe," he said, frankly hopeful, "that you and I are going to have
another little party with those fellows before this matter is ended."
"I'm sure of it," said Halkett quietly.
A few moments later Warner, still whistling his joyous air, pointed
toward a cluster of tiny lights far ahead in the dark valley.
"Saïs," he said; and resumed his song blithely:

"Gai, gai, mariez-vous!
C'est un usage
Fort sage.
Gai, gai, mariez-vous,
Le mariage est si doux!—"

"Like a bird it is!" he added ironically.
"By the way, you're not married, are you?" inquired Halkett uneasily.
"Oh, Lord! No! Why the unmerited suspicion?"
"Nothing much. I just thought that after getting you into this scrape I
shouldn't dare face your wife."

Then they both laughed heartily. They were already on excellent terms.
Already acquaintance was becoming an unembarrassed friendship.
Warner flourished his whip and continued to laugh:
"I have no serious use for women. To me the normal and healthy
woman is as naïve as the domestic and blameless cat, whose first ambition
is for a mate, whose second is to be permanently and agreeably protected,
and whose ultimate aim is to acquire a warm basket by the fireside and fill
it full of kittens! ... No; I'm not married. Don't worry, Halkett."
He whistled another bar of his lively song:
"Women? Ha! By the way, I've a bunch of them here in Saïs, all
painting away like the devil and all, no doubt laying plans for that fireside
basket. It's the only thing a woman ever really thinks about, no matter what
else she pretends to be busy with. I suppose it's natural; also, it's natural for
some men to shy wide of such things. I'm one of those men. So, Halkett, as
long as you live, you need never be afraid of offending any wife of mine!"
"Your sentiments," said Halkett, mockingly serious, "merely reveal
another bond between us. I thank God frequently that I am a bachelor."
"Good," said Warner with emphasis. And he chanted gayly, as he
drove, "Gai, gai, marions-nous—" in a very agreeable baritone voice, while
the lights of Saïs grew nearer and brighter among the trees below.
"I never saw a girl worth the loss of my liberty," he remarked. "Did
you, Halkett? And," he continued, "to be tied up to a mentally deficient
appendage with only inferior intellectual resources, and no business or
professional occupation—to be tied fast to something that sits about to be
entertained, and that does nothing except nourish itself and clothe itself, and
have babies!—It's unthinkable, isn't it?"
"It's pretty awful.... Of course if a woman came along who combined
looks and intellect and professional self-sufficiency——"

"You don't find them combined. Take a slant at my class. That's the
only sort who even pretend to anything except vacuous idleness. There are
no Portias, Halkett. There never were. If there were, I'd take a chance
myself, I think. But a man who marries the young girl of today has on his
hands an utterly useless incubus. No wonder he sometimes makes
experiments elsewhere. No wonder he becomes a rainbow chaser. But he's
like a caged squirrel in a wheel; the more he runs around looking for
consolation the less progress he makes.
"No, Halkett, this whole marriage business is a pitiable fizzle. Until
both parties to a marriage contract are financially independent,
intellectually self-sufficient, and properly equipped to earn their own livings
by a business or a trade or a profession—and until, if a mistake has been
made, escape from an ignoble partnership is made legally easy—marriage
will remain the sickly, sentimental, pious fraud which a combination of
ignorance, superstition, custom, and orthodoxy have made it.
"I'm rather eloquent on marriage, don't you think so?"
"Superbly!" said Halkett, laughing. "But, do you know, Warner, your
very eloquence betrays the fact that you have thought as much about it as
the unfortunate sex you have so eloquently indicted."
"What's that?" demanded Warner wrathfully.
"I'm sorry to say it, but you are exactly the sort of man to fall with a
tremendous flop."
"If ever I fall——"
"You fell temporarily this afternoon."
"With that painted, grey-eyed——"
"Certainly, with the girl Philippa. Come, old chap, you were out with
her a long while! What did you two talk about? Love?"
"No, you idiot——"

"You didn't even mention the word 'love'? Be honest, old chap!"
Warner began to speak, checked himself.
"Didn't you or she even mention the subject?" persisted Halkett with
malicious delight.
But Warner was too angry to speak, and the Englishman's laughter
rang out boyishly under the stars. To look at them one would scarcely
believe they had been a target for bullets within the hour.
"You don't suppose," began Warner, "that——"
"No, no!" cried Halkett. "—Not with that girl. I'm merely proving my
point. You're too eloquent concerning women not to have spent a good deal
of time in speculating about them. You even speculated concerning
Philippa. The man who mourns the scarcity of Portias wouldn't be likely to
care for one if he met her. You're just the man to fall in love with everything
you denounce in a girl. And I have no doubt I shall live to witness that
sorrowful spectacle."
Warner had to laugh.
"You are rather a terrifying psychologist," he said. "You almost make
me believe I have a streak of romance in me."
"Oh, we all have that, Warner. We call it by other names—cleverness,
logic, astuteness, intelligence—but we all have it in us, and it is revealed in
every man who marries a woman for love.... Believe me, no normal man
ever lived who was not, at some brief moment in his life, in love with some
woman. Maybe he ignored it and it never came again; maybe he strangled it
and went on about more serious business; maybe it died a natural but early
death. But once, before he died, he must have had a faint, brief glimpse of
it. And that was the naissance of the latent germ of romance in him—
ephemeral, perhaps, but inevitably to be born before it died."
Warner waved his whip and snapped it maliciously:

"So you have been in love, have you?"
"Why? Because I, also, am suspiciously eloquent?"
"That's the reason—according to you."
Halkett smiled slightly.
"Perhaps I have been," he said.... "Hello! Is this your inn?" as they
drew up before the lighted windows of a two-story building standing close
to the left-hand edge of the highway, under the stars.
"Here we are at the Golden Peach," nodded Warner, as the door opened
and a smiling peasant lad came out with a: "Bon soir, Monsieur Warner!
Bon soir, messieurs!" And he took the horse's head while they descended.

That night, lying awake on his bed in the Inn of the Golden Peach, Halkett
heard the heavy rush of a southbound automobile passing under his window
with the speed of an express train.
And he wondered whether the spongy morass by the little brook still
held the long, grey touring car imprisoned.
He got up, went to his window and leaned out. Far away down the
road the tail lamps of the machine twinkled, dwindled to sparks, and were
engulfed in the invisible.
"More trouble south of me," he thought. But he returned to his bed and
lay there, tranquil in the knowledge that when he started south alone on the
morrow the envelope would not be on his person.
After a while he rose again, walked to the door connecting his room
with Warner's, and opened it cautiously.
"I'm awake," said Warner in a low voice.
"Did you hear that car?"
"Yes. Was it the one that chased us?"

"I only guess so. Listen, Warner! When I go south tomorrow, what are
you going to do with that envelope until I send a man back for it?"
"I've thought it all out, old chap. I shall take one of my new canvases,
lay the envelope on it, cover envelope and canvas with a quarter of an inch
of Chinese White, and when the enamel is dry I shall paint on it. By the
way, did you do your telephoning to your satisfaction?"
"Entirely, thank you."
"You got your man?"
"I did," said Halkett. "He's on his way here now. Good night. I'll sleep
like a fox, old chap!"
"Good night," said Warner cheerily, enamored with his invention for
the safety of the envelope, as well as with the entire adventure.
That night, while they both slept, far away southward, on a lonely road
in the Vosges, the car which had rushed by under their windows was now
drawn up on the edge of the road.
Four men sat in it, waiting.
Just as dawn broke, what they awaited came up out of the south—a far,
faint rattle announced it, growing rapidly louder; and a motor cyclist, riding
without lights, shot out of the grey obscurity, trailing a comet's tail of dust.
Head-on he came, like a streak, caught sight suddenly of the
motionless car and of four men standing up in it, ducked and flattened out
over his handlebars as four revolvers poured forth streams of fire.
Motor cycle and rider swerved into the ditch with a crash; the latter,
swaying wide in his saddle, was hurled a hundred feet further through the
air, landing among the wild flowers on the bank above.
He was the man to whom Halkett had telephoned.
He seemed to be very young—an Englishman—with blood on his fair
hair, and his blue eyes partly open.

They searched him thoroughly; and when they could find nothing
more they lifted him between two of them; two others carried the wrecked
motor cycle out across the fields toward the slope of a wooded mountain.
After ten minutes or so, two of the men returned to the car, drew a
couple of short, intrenching spades from the tool box, and went away again
across the fields toward the misty woods.
A throstle in a thorn bush had been singing all the while.

CHAPTER V

Halkett had not slept well; all night long in the garden under his window the
nightingales had been very noisy. When he slept, sinister dreams had
assailed him; cocks crowed at sunrise, cowbells tinkled, outside his drawn
blinds a refreshed and garrulous world was awakening; and the happy
tumult awoke him, too.
He was bathed, shaved, and dressed, and downstairs before Warner
awoke at all; and he began to rove about the place which, by daylight, did
not look at all like what he had imagined it to be the night before.
The Inn of the Golden Peach was one of those cream-tinted stucco
houses built into and around a series of haphazard garden walls which
inclosed flower and fruit gardens, cow-barns and stables. Its roof and wall
copings were covered with red tiles, weather-faded to a salmon tint; two
incredible climbing rosebushes nearly covered the front with delicate,
salmon-pink blossoms, and, in the rear, flowers bloomed along stone-edged
borders—masses of white clove pinks, rockets, poppies, heliotrope, reseda,
portulaca, and pansies—a careless riot of color, apparently, yet set with that

instinctive good taste which seldom fails in France and is common alike to
aristocrat and peasant.
Beyond the strawberry beds were fruit trees, peach, cherry, plum, and
apricot—the cherries hanging ripe and deeply crimson among dark green
leaves, the apricots already golden, peaches and plums delicately painted
with a bloom which promised approaching maturity.
Everywhere the grass grew thick and intensely green, though it was
not very neatly kept; water ran out of a stone trough and made a dancing
little rivulet over a bed of artificially set stones among which grew ferns.
Beyond stood a trellised summerhouse, with iron tables and chairs painted
green.
On the edge of the watering trough, Halkett seated himself in the sun.
An immaculate tiger cat sat on the garden walk a few paces away, polishing
her countenance with the velvet side of one forepaw, and occasionally
polishing the paw with a delicate pink tongue.
Once or twice she looked at Halkett without any apparent interest; now
and then she glanced up with more interest at the side of the house where,
under the kitchen door, in a big basket-cage, a jay hopped about, making a
scuffling noise among his cracked maize and rye straw.
However, the cat proved entirely susceptible to flattery, responded
graciously to polite advances, and presently relapsed into a purring doze on
his knee.
It was very still in the garden, too early even for butterflies to be
abroad. The kitchen door remained closed; smoke had just begun to rise
from one chimney.
In the peaceful silence nothing stirred; there was no breeze, no sound
save the trickle of water among fern fronds.

Then, from nowhere apparently, into this golden tranquillity came a
nun—no, not a nun, but one of those Grey Daughters of St. Vincent de Paul,
who have "for their monastery the houses of the sick, for a cell a hired
room, for a cloister the city streets, for a veil modesty."
In her white cornette, or pointed coiffe, with its starched wings, her
snowy collarette, wide sleeves, grey apron, and grey-blue habit, she became
instantly the medieval incarnation which vitalized the old garden and the
ancient wall, so that the centuries they had witnessed were born again there
where their spirit had returned, clothed in the costume which they had
known so well.
The soeur de charité had not seen Halkett; she passed lightly, swiftly,
along the flowering borders with scissors and ozier basket, bending here to
gather the white clove pinks, kneeling there to snip off pansies.
And it was only when the grey cat leaped from Halkett's knees and
advanced toward the Sister of Charity with a little mew of recognition that
she turned, still kneeling, caught sight of Halkett, and remained looking at
him, one delicate white hand resting on the purring cat.
Halkett was on his feet, his hat under his arm, now, and he bade her
good-morning with that pleasant deference which marks such men
immediately for what they are.
She smiled faintly from the transparent shadow of her white cornette.
"Flowers are all so lovely," she said, "it is never easy for me to choose.
They are for my school, you know?"—with a slight rising inflection. But
evidently this young man did not know, so she added, "I am Sister Eila,"
and smiled again, when it was apparent that he had never heard of Sister
Eila.
"I am English," he said, "—traveling through France on business. I
arrived last night to visit my friend, Mr. Warner. My name is Halkett."

She nodded and snipped a few more pansies.
"May I help you, Sister? If you don't mind telling me what flowers you
desire——"
"Merci, Monsieur. Pansies, if you please. The children see odd little
faces in their petals, and it amuses them."
Down on his knees beside the border, the grey cat seated between
them, Halkett picked pansies and laid them in rows in her ozier basket.
"Of course," he said, "your school is a charity school."
"For the poor, of course. My children are those of the quarrymen."
"You do not teach them alone?"
"Oh, no. Sister Félicité teaches with me. And then, of course, we are
together when, during the vacation, hospital service is required of us."
"Is there a quarry hospital?"
"Yes, Monsieur. It is more like an ambulance where first aid is given.
The hospital at Ausone takes our sick." Still kneeling, she looked up at the
slender fruit trees beyond, and the sunlight fell full on the most exquisite
young face that Halkett had ever seen. Whether it was her unexpected
beauty that gave him a little shock, or the sudden idea that in her features
there was a haunting resemblance to somebody he had seen, perhaps met,
he did not know.
Sometimes in the first glimpse of a face we recognize the living
substance of her to whom we have aspired, and of whom we have dreamed.
But she has never existed except in the heart which created her until we
unconsciously endow another with all we dreamed she was.
He went on gathering flowers to fill her basket.
"I wonder," she said musingly, "whether any of those apricots are ripe.
One of my children is convalescent, and she really needs a little fresh fruit."

So Halkett rose, threaded his way through the flowers, and looked
carefully among the branches for a ripe apricot. He found two, and Sister
Eila laid them together in the corner of her basket, which was now full.
He walked with her to the garden door, which was set solidly under an
arch in the wall. There she looked up, smiling, as she said in English:
"Is not our country of Saïs very lovely, Mr. Halkett?"
"Yes, indeed, it is," he replied, also smiling in his surprise. "But, Sister
Eila, you are English, are you not?"
"Irish—but brought up in France." ... Her face grew graver; she said
very quietly: "Is it true there is any danger of war? The children are talking;
it is evident that the quarrymen must be discussing such things among
themselves. I thought I'd ask you——"
"I'm afraid," he said, "that there is some slight chance of war, Sister."
"Here in France?"
"Yes—here."
"It is Germany, of course?"
"Yes, the menace comes from—" he cast a quick glance toward the
east, "—from over there.... Perhaps diplomacy may regulate the affair. It is
always best to hope."
"Yes, it is best always—to hope," she said serenely.... "Thank you, Mr.
Halkett. Mr. Warner is a friend of mine. Perhaps you may have time to visit
our school with him."
"I'll come," said Halkett.
She smiled and nodded; he opened the heavy green door for her, and
Sister Eila went out of the golden world of legend, leaving the flowers and
young trees very still behind her.

CHAPTER VI

Warner discovered him there in the garden, seated once more on the stone
trough, the grey cat dozing on his knees.
"Hello, old chap!" he said cheerfully. "Did you sleep?"
Halkett gave him a pleasant, absent-minded glance:
"Not very well, thanks."
"Nor I. Those damn nightingales kept me awake. Has your man
arrived?"
"Not yet. I don't quite understand why."
Warner sauntered up and caressed the cat.
"Well, Ariadne, how goes it with you?" he inquired, gently rubbing her
dainty ears, an attention enthusiastically appreciated, judging by the
increased purring.
"Ariadne, eh?" inquired Halkett.
"Yes—her lover forsook her—although she doesn't seem to mind as
much as the original lady did. No doubt she knows there's a Bacchus
somewhere on his way to console her."
The other nodded in his pleasant, absent-minded fashion. After a
moment he said:
"I've been talking to a Sister of Charity here in the garden."
"Sister Félicité?"
"No; Sister Eila."
"Isn't she the prettiest thing!" exclaimed Warner. "And she's as good as
she is beautiful. We're excellent friends, Sister Eila and I. I'll take you over
to her school after breakfast."
"It's the Grey Sisterhood, isn't it?"

"St. Vincent de Paul's Filles de la Charité; not the Grey Nuns, you
know."
"I supposed not. Of course these nuns are not cloistered."
"They are not even nuns. They don't take perpetual vows."
Halkett looked up quickly.
"What!" he demanded.
"No. The vows of these Sisters of Charity are simple vows. They
renew them annually. Still, it is a strict order. Their novitiate is five years'
probation."
"Oh! I supposed——" He remained silent, his thoughtful gaze fixed on
space.
"Yes, our brave gentle Sisters of Charity remain probationers for five
years, and then every year they renew their vows of chastity, poverty, and
obedience. The annual vows are taken some time in March, I believe. They
have no cloister, you know, other than a room in some poor street near the
school or hospital where they work. Did you ever hear the wonderful story
of their Order?"
"No."
So Warner sketched for him the stainless history of a true saint, and of
the Filles de St. Vincent de Paul through the centuries of their existence;
and Halkett listened unstirring, his handsome head bent, his hand resting
motionless on Ariadne's head.
A few minutes later a fresh-faced peasant girl, in scarlet bodice and
velvet-slashed black skirts, came out into the garden bearing a tray with
newly baked rolls, new butter, and café-au-lait for two. She placed it on the
iron table in the little summerhouse, curtseyed to the two young men,
exchanged a gay greeting with Warner, and trotted off again in her

chaussons—the feminine, wholesome, and admirable symbol of all that is
fascinating in the daughters of France.
Halkett placed Ariadne on the grass, rose, and followed Warner to the
arbor; Ariadne tagged after them, making gentle but pleased remarks. There
was an extra saucer, which Warner filled with milk and set before the cat.
"You know," he said to Halkett, "I like to eat by myself—or with some
man. So I have my meals served out here, or in the tap room when it rains.
The Harem feeds itself in the dining-room——"
"The what?"
"My class, I mean. An irreverent friend of mine in Paris dubbed it 'the
Harem,' and the title stuck—partly, I suppose, because of its outrageous
absurdity, partly because it's a terse and convenient title."
"They don't call it that, do they?"
"I should say not! And I hope they don't know that others do. Anyway,
the Harem dawdles over its meals and talks art talk at the long table where
Madame Arlon—the Patronne—presides. You'll have to meet them."
"Do you criticise your—Harem—this morning?" inquired Halkett,
laughing.
"Yes; I give them their daily pabulum. Do you want to come about
with me and see how it's done? After the distribution of pap I usually pitch
my own umbrella somewhere away from their vicinity and make an hour's
sketch. After that I paint seriously for the remainder of the day. But I'll take
you over to Sister Eila's school this morning if you like." He fished out a
black caporal cigarette and scratched a match.
Halkett, his cigarette already lighted, lounged sideways on the green
iron chair, his preoccupied gaze fixed on Ariadne.
"Annual vows," he said, "mean, of course, that a Sister renews such
vows voluntarily every year; does it not, Warner?"

"Yes."
"They usually do renew their vows, I suppose."
"Almost always, I believe."
"But—a Sister of Charity could return to the—the world, if she so
desired?"
"It could be done, but it seldom is, I understand. The order is an
admirable one; a very wonderful order, Halkett. They are careful about
admitting their novices, but what they regard as qualifications might not be
so considered in a cloistered order like the Ursalines. The novitiate is five
years, I believe; except for the head of the order in Paris, no grades and no
ranks exist; all Sisters are alike and on the same level." He smiled. "If
anything could ever convert me to Catholicism, I think it might be this
order and the man who founded it, Saint Vincent de Paul, wisest and best of
all who have ever tried to follow Christ."

Ariadne had evidently centered her gentle affections upon the new
Englishman; she trotted at his heels as he sauntered about in the garden; she
showed off for his benefit, playfully patting a grasshopper into flight,
frisking up trees only to cling for a moment, ears flattened, and slide back
to earth again; leaping high after lazy white butterflies which hovered over
the heliotrope, but always returning to tag after Halkett where he roamed
about, a burnt-out cigarette between his fingers, his eyes dreaming, lost in
speculations beyond the ken of any cat.
The Harem came trooping into the garden, presently, shepherded by
Warner. They all carried full field kit—folding easels, stools, and umbrellas
slung upon their several and feminine backs; a pair of clamped canvases in
one hand, color-box in the other.

Halkett was presented to them all. There was Miss Alameda Golden,
from California, large, brightly colored, and breezy; there was Miss Mary
Davis, mouse-tinted, low-voiced, who originated in Brooklyn; there was
Miss Jane Post, of Chicago, restlessly intense and intellectually curious
concerning all mundane phenomena, from the origin of café-au-lait to the
origin of species; and there was Miss Nancy Lane, of New York, a dark-
eyed opportunist and an observer of man—sometimes individually, always
collectively. And there was Miss Peggy Brooks, cosmopolitan, sister of
Madame de Moidrey who lived in a big house among the hills across the
meadows—the Château des Oiseaux, prettily named because the protection
and encouragement of little birds had been the immemorial custom of its
lordly proprietors.
And so the Harem, fully equipped to wrestle with the giant, Art, filed
out of the quiet garden and across the meadows by the little river Récollette,
where were haystacks, freshly erected and fragrant, which very unusual
subject they had unanimously chosen for their morning's crime.
To perpetrate it upon canvas they pitched their white umbrellas, tripod
easels, and sketching stools; then each maiden, taking a determined grip
upon her charcoal, squinted, so to speak, in chorus at the hapless haystacks.
And the giant, Art, trembled in the seclusion of the ewigkeit.
Warner regarded them gloomily; Halkett, who had disinterred a pipe
from his pockets, stood silently beside him, loading it.
"They'll paint this morning, and after luncheon," said Warner. "After
dinner they all get into an omnibus and drive to Ausone to remain
overnight, and spend tomorrow in street sketching. I insist on their doing
this once every month. When they return with their sketches, I give them a
general criticism."

"Will these young ladies ever really amount to anything?" inquired
Halkett.
"Probably never. Europe, the British Isles, and the United States are
dotted all over with similar and feminine groups attempting haystacks. The
sum-total of physical energy thus expended must be enormous—like the
horsepower represented by Niagara. But it creates no ripple upon the
intellectual serenity of the thinking world. God alone knows why women
paint haystacks. I do my best to switch them toward other phenomena."
The rural postman on his bicycle, wearing képi and blue blouse, came
pedaling along the highway. When he saw Warner he saluted and got off his
wheel.
"Letters, Grandin?"
"Two, Monsieur Warner."
Warner took them.
"Eh, bien?" he inquired, lowering his voice; "et la guerre?"
"Monsieur Warner, the affair is becoming very serious."
"What is the talk in Ausone?"
"People are calm—too calm. A little noise, now, a little gesticulation,
and the affair would seem less ominous to me—like the Algeciras matter
and the Schnaeble incident before that—Monsieur may remember?"
"I know. It is like the hush before a tempest. The world is too still, the
sunlight too perfect."
"There seems to me," said the little postman, "a curious unreality about
yesterday and today—something in the cloudless peace overhead that
troubles men."
Being no more and no less poet than are all French peasants, this
analysis sufficed him. He touched his képi; the young men lifted their hats,
and the postman pedaled away down the spotless military road.

Warner glanced at the envelope in his hand; Halkett looked at it, too. It
was addressed in red ink.
"It's for me, old chap," said the Englishman.
The other glanced up, surprised.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite—if you don't mind trusting me."
Warner laughed and handed him the letter.
"It's addressed very plainly to me," he said. "You've got your nerve
with you, Halkett."
"I have to keep it about me, old chap."
"No doubt. And still I don't see——"
"It's very simple. I sent two telephone messages last night. One letter
should have arrived. It has not! The man who wrote this letter must have
gone miles last night on a motor cycle to mail it so that your little postman
should hand it to me this morning——"
"Intriguer!" interrupted Warner, still laughing. "He handed it to me! I
see you're going to get me in Dutch before I'm rid of you."
"I don't comprehend your Yankee slang," retorted Halkett with a slight
grin, "so if you don't mind I'll sit here on the grass and read my letter. Go on
and criticize your Harem. But before you go, lend me a pencil. They stole
even my pencil in the Cabaret de Biribi."
Warner, amused, handed him a pencil and a pad, and strolled away
toward the industrious Harem to see what they might be perpetrating.
Halkett seated himself on the grass where, if he chose to glance up, he
had a clear view all about him. Then he opened his letter.
It was rather an odd sort of letter. It began:

DEAR GREEN:

A red wagon, red seat, orange rumble, red mudguards, blue steering-wheel,
red bumpers, blue wheels, red engines, red varnish, red open body, red
machinery, red all over, in fact, except where it isn't—is for sale.

So much of this somewhat extraordinary letter Halkett very carefully and
slowly perused; then, still studying this first paragraph intently, he wrote
down on his pad the following letters in the following sequence, numbering
each letter underneath:

R O Y G B I V S W A
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

The letters represented, up to and including the letter V, the colors of the
solar spectrum in their proper sequence: red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo, and violet. The letter S, which followed the letter V, stood for
schwarz, which in German means black. The letter W stood for weiss,
white; the letter A for argent. Every letter, therefore, represented some color
or metallic luster; and these, in turn, represented numbers.
And now Halkett took the opening salutation in the first paragraph of
his letter—"Dear Green." The color green being numbered 4, he found that
the fourth letter in the word "dear" was the letter R. This he wrote down on
his pad.
Then he took the next few words: "A red wagon, red seat, orange
rumble, red——" etc.
The first and only letter in the word "A" he wrote down. The next
word after "wagon" was "red." The color red indicated the figure 1. So he

next wrote down the first letter of the word "wagon," which is W.
Then came the word "seat." The word "orange" followed it. The color
orange indicated number 2 in the spectrum sequence. So he found that in
the word "seat" the letter E was the second letter. This he wrote.
Very carefully and methodically he proceeded in this manner with the
first paragraph of the letter, as far as the words "all over," but not including
them or any of the words in the first paragraph which followed them.
He had, therefore, for his first paragraph, this sequence of letters:
RAWERUSEWEVOM.
Beginning with the last letter, M, he wrote the letters again, reversing
their sequence; and he had:
MOVEWESUREWAR.
These, with commas, he easily separated into four words: "Move,"
"we," "sure," and "war." Then, again reversing the sequence of the words,
he had two distinct sentences of two words each before him:
WAR SURE! WE MOVE!
Always working with the numbered color key before him, taking his
letter paragraph by paragraph, he had as a final remainder the following
series of letters:
EDIHUOYERADELIARTTIAWDROWOTDEECORPSIALAC.
Reversing these, checking off the separate words, and then reversing
the entire sequence of words, he had as the complete translation of his letter,
including the first paragraph, the following information and admonition:
"War sure. We move. Hide. You are trailed. Wait word to proceed
Calais."
"War sure!" That was easily understood. "We move." That meant
England was already mobilizing on land and sea. And the remainder

became plain enough; he must stay very quietly where he was until further
instructions arrived.
He read through his notes and his letter once more, then twisted letter,
envelope, and penciled memoranda into a paper spiral, set fire to it with a
match, and leisurely lighted his pipe with it.
When the flame of the burning paper scorched his fingers, he laid it
carefully on the grass, where it was presently consumed. The charred
remnants he ground to dust under his heel as he got up and brushed a spear
or two of hay from his clothing.
Then he looked at the Harem, all busily committing felony with brush
and colors; and, as he gazed upon them, he politely stifled a yawn.

CHAPTER VII

Warner, conscientious but not hopeful, circulated among the easels of the
Harem. Halkett strolled at his heels.
Stopping in front of Alameda Golden's large canvas, which was all
splashed with primary and aggressive colors, he gazed, uncomforted, upon
what she had wrought there. After a few moments he said very patiently:
"You should not use a larger canvas than I have recommended to the
class. Mere size is not necessarily a synonym for distinction, nor does
artistic strength depend upon the muscular application of crude paint. A
considerable majority of our countrymen comprehend only what is large,
gaudy, and garrulous. Bulk and noise only can command their attention. On
the other hand, only what is weak, vague, and incoherent appeals to the

precious—the incapables and eccentrics among us. But there is a sane and
healthy majority: enroll yourself there, Miss Golden!
"Be honest, reticent, and modest. If you have anything to say in paint,
say it without self-consciousness, frankly, but not aggressively. Behave on
canvas as you would bear yourself in the world at large, with freedom but
with dignity, with sincerity governed by that intelligent consideration for
truth which permits realism and idealism, both of which are founded upon
fact."
Miss Golden pouted:
"But I see haystacks this way!" she insisted. "I see them in large and
brilliant impressions. To me nothing looks like what it is. Haystacks appear
this way to my eyes!"
"My dear child, then paint them that way. But the popular impression
will persist that you have painted the battle of Trafalgar."
Miss Golden wriggled on her camp chair.
"Everything," she explained, "is one monstrous, gaudy, and brutal
impression to me. I see a million colors in everything and very little shape
to anything. I see only cosmic vigor; and I paint it with a punch. Can't you
see all those colors in those haystacks? To me they resemble gigantic
explosions of glorious color. And really, Mr. Warner, if I am to be true to
myself, I must paint them as I see them."
Warner, horribly discouraged, talked sanely to her for a while, then
with a pleasant nod he passed to the next easel, remarking to Halkett under
his breath:
"It's a case for a pathologist, not for a painter."
And so for an hour he prowled about among the Harem, ministering to
neurotics, inspiring the sluggish, calming despair, gently discouraging self-
complacency.

"Always," he said, "we must remain students, because there is no such
thing as mastery in any art. If ever we believe we have attained mastery,
then our progress ceases; and we do not even remain where we are; we
retrograde—and swiftly, too.
"The life work of the so-called 'master' is passed only in solving newer
problems. There is no end to the problems, there is an end only to our lives.
"Look at the matter in that way, not as a race toward an attainable goal,
nor as an eternally hopeless effort in a treadmill; but as a sane and sure and
intelligent progress from one wonder-chamber to a chamber still more
wonderful—locked rooms which contain miracles, and which open only
when we find the various keys which fit their locks....
"That is all for this morning, young ladies."
He lifted his hat, turned, and strolled away across the meadow, Halkett
at his side.
"Some lecture!" he commented with a faint grin.
"It's sound," said Halkett.
"I do the best I can with them. One might suppose I know how to
paint, by the way I pitch into those poor girls. Yet, I myself never pick up a
brush and face my canvas but terror seizes me, and my own ignorance of all
I ought to know scares me almost to death. It's not modesty; I can paint as
well as many, better than many. But, oh, the long, long way there is to
travel! The stars are very far away, Halkett."
He pitched his easel, secured a canvas, took a freshly-set palette and
brushes from his color-box, and, still standing, went rapidly about his
business, which was to sketch in an impression of what lay before him.
Halkett, watching him over his shoulder, saw the little river begin to
glimmer on the canvas, saw a tender golden light grow and spread, bathing
distant hills; saw the pale azure of an arching sky faintly tinting with

reflections the delicate green of herbage still powdered with the morning
dew.
"This is merely a note," remarked Warner, painting away leisurely but
steadily. "Some day I may pose my models somewhere outdoors under
similar weather conditions; and you may see dragoons in their saddles,
carbines poised, the sunlight enveloping horses and men—or perhaps a line
of infantry advancing in open order with shrapnel exploding in their faces....
Death in the summer sunshine is the most terrifying of tragedies.... I
remember once after Lule Burgas—— Never mind, I shan't spoil the
peaceful beauty of such a morning.
"War? War here!—In this still meadow, bathed in the heavenly
fragrance of midsummer! ... Well, Halkett, the government of any nation
which attacks another nation is criminal, and all the arguments of church
and state and diplomacy cannot change that hellish fact.
"There is only one right in any combat, only one side in any war. And
no reasoning under the sun can invest an aggressor with that right.
"He who first draws and strikes forestalls God's verdict."
Halkett said:
"How about your own wars?"
"Halkett, the United States is the only nation which ever entered a war
from purely sentimental reasons. It was so in the Revolution; it was so in
1812, in the War of Secession, in Mexico, in the Cuban War.
"All our wars have been undertaken in response to armed aggression;
all were begun and carried on in defense of purely sentimental principles. I
do not say it because I am a Yankee, but our record is pretty clean, so far, in
a world which, since our birth, has accused us of ruthless materialism."
He continued to paint for a while in silence; and when his color notes
were sufficiently complete for his purpose, and when the Harem had filed

before the canvas and had adoringly inspected it, Warner packed up his kit,
and, taking the wet canvas, walked with Halkett back to the Golden Peach.
There Halkett was made acquainted with Madame Arlon, the stout,
smiling proprietress of the inn, who sturdily refused to believe that war was
possible, and who explained why to Halkett with animation while Warner
went indoors to deposit his sketches in his studio.
He returned presently, saying that he would take Halkett to Sister Eila's
school across the fields; so the two young men lighted their pipes and
strolled away together through the sunshine.
Eastward, far afield, the gay aprons and sunbonnets of the Harem still
dotted the distance with flecks of color; beyond, the Récollette glimmered,
and beyond that hazy hills rolled away southward toward the Vosges
country.
Halkett looked soberly into the misty east.
"It won't come from that direction," he said, half to himself.
Warner glanced up, understood, and sauntered on in silence.
"By the way," remarked the Englishman, "I shall stay here tonight."
"I'm very glad," returned Warner cordially.
"So am I, Warner. Ours is an agreeable—acquaintance."
"It amounts to a little more than that, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It's a friendship, I hope."
"I hope so."
After a moment he added laughingly:
"I've fixed up your bally envelope for you."
"How?"
"Covered it with a thick, glossy layer of Chinese white. I put in a
dryer. In a day or two I shall make a pretty little picture on it. And nobody

on earth could suspect that embedded under the paint and varnish of my
canvas your celebrated document reposes."
They took a highway to the left, narrow and tree-shaded.
"When do you get the newspapers here?" inquired Halkett.
"After lunch, usually. The Petit Journal d'Ausone arrives then. Nobody
bothers with any Paris papers. But I think I shall subscribe, now.... There's
the school, just ahead."
It was a modern and very plain two-storied building of stone and white
stucco, covered with new red tiles. A few youthful vines were beginning to
climb gratefully toward the lower window sills; young linden trees shaded
it. A hum, like the low, incessant murmur of a hive, warned them as they
approached that the children were reciting in unison; and they halted at the
open door.
Inside the big, clean room, the furniture of which was a stove and a
score or more of desks, two dozen little girls, neatly but very poorly
dressed, stood beside their desks reciting. On a larger desk stood a glass full
of flowers which Halkett recognized; and beside this desk, slenderly erect,
he saw Sister Eila, facing the children, her white hands linked behind her
back.
Seated behind the same desk was another Sister—a buxom one with
the bright, clear coloring of a healthy peasant—more brilliant, even, for the
white wimple, collarette, and wide-winged headdress which seemed to
accent the almost riotous tint of physical health.
The childish singsong presently ceased; Sister Eila turned pensively,
took a step or two, lifted her eyes, and beheld Halkett and Warner at the
doorway.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Please come in, Messieurs. I have been
wondering whether Mr. Warner would bring you before luncheon.... Sister

Félicité, this is Monsieur Halkett, who so amiably aided me to gather my
bouquet this morning."
Sister Félicité became all animation and vigor; she was cordial to
Halkett, greeted Warner with the smiling confidence of long acquaintance.
It lacked only a few minutes to noon, and so lessons were suspended,
and the children put through one or two drills for Halkett's benefit.
Out in the kitchen a good, nourishing broth was simmering for them,
and Sister Eila slipped away during the brief exhibition to prepare twenty-
four bowls and spoons and tartines for these ever-hungry little children of
the poor, orphaned for the most part, or deserted, or having parents too poor
to feed them.
At noon Sister Félicité dismissed the school; and the little girls formed
in line very demurely and filed off to the kitchen.
"What a delicious odor!" exclaimed Halkett, nose in the air.
Sister Félicité sniffed the soup.
"We do our best," she said. "The poor little things fatten here, God be
praised." And, to Warner, in her vigorous, alert manner: "What is all this
talk concerning war? The children prattle about it. They must have heard
such gossip among the quarry people."
Warner said:
"It begins to look rather serious, Sister."
"Is it Germany again?"
"I fear so."
Sister Félicité's pink cheeks flushed:
"Is it the noisy boaster who rules those Germans who would bring the
sword upon us again? Is there not enough of barbaric glory in his Empire
for him and his that he should invade the civilized world to seek for more?

It is a vile thing for any man, be he ruler or subject, to add one
featherweight to the crushing burden of the world's misery!"
"To declare war is the heaviest of all responsibilities," admitted
Warner.
"Is it already declared?"
"No. That is to say, Austria has declared war against Servia, Russia is
mobilizing, and Germany has warned her."
"Is that an excuse for anybody to attack France?"
"Russia is mobilizing, Sister," he repeated meaningly.
"What then?"
"France must follow."
"And then?"
Warner shrugged his shoulders.
Sister Eila came out, nodding to Sister Félicité, who usually presided
at the lunch hour: and the latter went away with Warner toward the kitchen,
still plying the American with questions. Sister Eila bent her head, inhaled
the perfume of the flowers on her desk, and then looked up at Halkett.
"Don't you ever lunch?" he asked.
"Yes; I tasted the soup. You lunch at one at the inn."
"I suppose so. What a charming country this is—this little hamlet of
Saïs! Such exquisite peace and stillness I have seldom known."
Sister Eila's eyes grew vague; she looked out through the sunny
doorway across the fields towards a range of low hills. The quarries were
there.
"It is a tranquil country," she said pensively, "but there is misery, too.
Life in the quarries is hard, and wages are not high."
"Mr. Warner tells me they are a hard lot, these quarrymen."

"There is intemperance among the quarrymen, and among the cement
workers, too: and there is roughness and violence—and crime, sometimes.
But it is a very hard métier, Mr. Halkett, and the lime dust blinds and sears
and incites a raging thirst. God knows there is some excuse for the
drunkenness there. We who are untempted must remain gentle in our
judgments."
"I could not imagine Sister Eila judging anybody harshly."
Sister Eila looked up and laughed:
"Oh, Mr. Halkett, I have confessed to impatience too many times to
believe that I could ever acquire patience. Only today I scolded our children
because they tore down a poster which had been pasted on the public wall
at the crossroad. I said to them very severely, 'It is a sin to destroy what
others have paid for to advertise their merchandise.'"
"That was a terrible scolding," admitted Halkett, laughing.
"I'll show you the poster," volunteered Sister Eila, going over to her
desk. Raising the lid, she picked up and displayed an advertisement.

CHAPTER VIII

Halkett looked curiously at this specimen of a poster which was already
very familiar to him. The dead walls of northern and eastern France and
Belgium had been plastered with such advertisements for the last year or
two, extolling the Savon de Calypso. But what had recently interested
Halkett in these soap advertisements was that posters, apparently exactly
similar, appeared to differ considerably in detail when examined minutely.

The picture in this advertisement represented, as always, the nymph,
Calypso, seated upon the grass, looking out over the sea where the sun
shone in a cloudless sky upon a fleet of Grecian ships which were sailing
away across the blue waves of the Ægean.
Where details varied was in the number of ships in the fleet, the
number and grouping of sails, sea birds flying, of waves, and of clouds—
when there were any of the latter—the number of little white or blue or pink
blossoms in the grass, the height of the sun above the horizon line and the
number and size of its rays.
There was always at least one ship—never more than a dozen; he had
counted twenty white blossoms on some posters; varying numbers on
others, of white, of blue, or of pink, but never less than three of any one
color. Sometimes there were no sea birds.
As for the sun, sometimes it hung well above the ocean, often its
yellow circle dipped into it, and then again only the rays spread fanlike
above the horizon line.

Savon de Calypso poster

And concerning the nymph, her pose and costume did not seem to vary
at all in the various poster specimens which he had seen; the wind was
always blowing her red hair and white, transparent scarf; she always sat
gazing laughingly seaward, one hand resting on the grass, the other
clutching a cake of soap to her bosom.

Still examining the sheet of paper, he counted the white flowers
scattered over the grass around the seated nymph. There were ten of them.
"Sister Eila," he said carelessly, "how many kilometers is it to the next
town south of us? I mean by the military road."
"To Rosières-sous-Bois?"
"Yes."
"About ten kilometers by the military road."
He nodded and counted the ships. There were three.
"Is there more than one road which runs to Rosières-sous-Bois?" he
asked.
"Yes. One may go by this road, or cross the bridge by the quarries and
go by the river road, or there is still a better and shorter highway which runs
west of Saïs."
"Then there are three main roads to Rosières-sous-Bois?"
"Yes. The road to the west is shorter. It is not more than seven miles
that way."
Halkett casually counted the sea gulls. Seven gulls were flying around
one of the ships; thirteen around another.
"And the river road, Sister?" he inquired.
"By the quarry bridge? Oh, that is longer—perhaps twelve or thirteen
kilometers."
"I see.... Rosières-sous-Bois is not a garrison town?"
"No. There are only a few gendarmes there."
Halkett examined the picture attentively. The sun appeared to be about
three hours high above the horizon.
"The nearest military post must be about three hours' journey from
here," he ventured.
Sister Eila thought a moment, then nodded:

"Yes, about three hours. You mean the fort above the Pass of the
Falcons? That is the nearest."
He counted the rays of the sun. There were three long ones and two
short ones.
"I suppose there are three or four battalions garrisoned there," he
remarked.
"Three, I think. And a company of engineers and one company of
Alpine chasseurs."
All the time, with a detached air, the young Englishman was
examining the colored poster, searching it minutely for variations from
other posters of the same sort which he had recently investigated.
There remained in his mind little or no doubt that the number and
position of the groups of pointed wavelets signified something important;
that the number of sails set on the ships, which varied in every poster,
contained further information; that the sky, cloudless in some posters,
dotted with clouds in others, was destined to convey topographical
particulars to somebody.
These colored advertisements of a soap made in Cologne by
Bauermann and Company, and plastered over the landscape of Northern and
Eastern Belgium and France, concealed a wealth of secret information for
anybody who possessed the key to the messages so clearly and craftily
expressed in pictograph and cipher code.
The sinister significance of the sheet in his hand was becoming more
apparent every minute. He had made a study of these posters—was just
beginning to find them interesting, when he had been ordered to America.
Now, all his interest in them returned.
Sister Eila had seated herself at her desk, and, while he was still
examining the poster, she continued serenely to correct the pile of inky

copybooks.
He watched her for a while, where she bent above the scrawled pages,
her pen poised, her lovely face framed in the snowy wimple under the pale
shadow of her wide-winged coiffe.
"Sister Eila?"
She turned her head tranquilly.
"You are English, you tell me?"
"Irish." She smiled.
"It's the same. Tell me, have you had enough experience in your world
of duty and of unhappiness to know an honest man when you encounter
him?"
Sister Eila laid aside her pen and turned toward him.
"I don't think I understand," she said.
"I mean, could you make up your mind about—well—about such a
man as I am—merely by inspecting me and hearing me speak?"
Sister Eila laughed:
"I think I could very easily."
"Have you already done so?"
"Why, yes, I suppose so."
"Do you think I am honest enough to be trusted?"
Sister Eila laughed again, deliciously.
"Yes, I think so," she said.
He remained silent and his face, already grave, grew more serious.
Sister Eila's smile faded as she watched him. It was becoming very plain to
her that here was a man in trouble.
Silent there together in the cool stillness of the schoolroom, they heard
the distant clatter of little feet, the vigorous voice of command from Sister
Félicité; and a moment later a double file of chattering children passed in

the sunshine outside the window, led toward their noonday playground by
Sister Félicité accompanied by Warner.
"What is on your mind, Mr. Halkett?" asked Sister Eila, still watching
him.
"If I tell you," he said, "will you ask me no more than I offer to tell
you?"
She flushed:
"Naturally, Monsieur——"
"You don't quite understand, Sister. What I have to say I wish you to
write down for me in the form of a letter of information to the French
Government."
"You wish me to write it?"
"Please. And that is what I mean. Naturally, you might ask me why I
do not write it myself.... Don't ask me, Sister.... If you really do trust me."
He turned, met her gaze, saw two clear, sweet eyes unspoiled and
unsaddened by the wisdom she had learned in dark and wretched places;
saw in them only a little wonder, a faintly questioning surprise.
"What is your answer, Sister?" he asked.
"My answer is—I—I do trust you.... What am I to write?"
She took a few loose leaves of paper from the desk, and sat looking at
him, pen lifted.
He said:
"Write to the chief of the general staff at the Ministry of War in Paris."
And when she had properly addressed the personage in question, he
dictated his letter very slowly in English; and Sister Eila, her expressionless
young face bent above the letter paper, translated into French as he dictated,
and wrote down the exact meaning of every word he uttered:

"Information has come to me that the advertisements of Bauermann and
Company, of Cologne, Prussia, which are posted everywhere throughout
Belgium and Northern and Eastern France, conceal military and
topographical details concerning the vicinity where these advertisements
are displayed.
"Such information could be of use only to a prowling spy or an
invading enemy.
"Therefore, acting upon the incomplete information offered me, I deem
it my duty to bring this matter to the notice of the Government.
"It would appear that:
"1st. Secret information is contained in the details of the picture which
embellishes this advertisement, a sample of which I inclose herewith.
"2nd. These details vary in every poster. Presumably their number,
color, groupings, and general distribution constitute a secret code which is
calculated to convey information to the enemies of France.
"3rd. In the sample which is inclosed with this letter, the number of
ships probably represents the number of highways leading from Saïs to
Rosières-sous-Bois; the sea gulls flying above two of the ships give the
distance in kilometers; the ten white flowers give the distance by the
military road.
"The sun, in the picture, appears to be about three hours high above the
horizon; and it is three hours' journey from here to the nearest French
fortified post, the Pass of the Falcons in the Vosges.
"The rays of the sun are five in number, three long ones and two short
ones; and there are three battalions of the line guarding the fort at the pass,
and two companies, one of engineers, one of Alpine infantry.
"My informant, who desires to remain anonymous, further declares it
to be his belief that an exhaustive study of this and similar posters would

reveal perfectly clear messages in every detail of color, drawing, and letter-
press; and that it is his firm conviction that these posters, representing a
German firm which manufactures soap, have been placed throughout
Belgium and France for the convenience of an invading army.
"Immediate removal of these advertisements seems advisable in the
opinion of my informant.

"(Signed), SISTER EILA,

"Of the Daughters of St. Vincent de Paul at Saïs."

When she had finished the letter and had unhesitatingly signed it, she lifted
her clear eyes to him in silence. Her breath came a trifle unevenly; the tint
of excitement grew and waned in her cheeks.
"At least," he said, "you will understand that I am a friend to France."
"Yes, that is evident."
"Will you direct and seal the packet and give it to the postman?"
"Yes."
"And, Sister Eila, if they send gendarmes or other officials to question
you?"
She looked straight into his eyes, deeply, so that her gaze seemed to
plunge into the depths of his very soul.
Then, lifting the cross from the rosary at her girdle, she slipped out of
her chair and knelt down beside her desk, her young head bent low over the
crucifix which she held between the palms of her joined hands.
Halkett, head also lowered, stood motionless.
After a few moments she rose lightly from her knees.
"It is a vow, now," she said. "I have bound myself to silence
concerning the source of my information—" her untroubled eyes rested

again on his—"because I believe in you, Monsieur."
He started to speak, but seemed to find no word to utter. A bright color
mounted to his brow; he turned abruptly from the desk and stepped toward
the open door.
And the instant he appeared there, framed by the doorway, a shot rang
out, knocking a cloud of stucco and plaster from the wall beside him.

CHAPTER IX

He shrank back flat against the wall, edged along it, and slipped swiftly
inside the house. A thick veil of lime dust hung across the open doorway,
gilded by the sunlight. Crumbs of plaster and mortar still fell to the
schoolroom floor.
Through the heated silence of early afternoon he could hear the distant
cries of the children from their playground; there was no other sound;
nothing stirred; nobody came.
If Warner had noticed the shot at all, no doubt he supposed it to be the
premature report of some piece. To the gaunt, furtive Vosges poacher no
close season exists. If it did exist, he would cease to.
Halkett slowly turned his head and saw Sister Eila behind him. She
had risen from her chair at the desk; now she came slowly forward, her
deep, grey eyes fixed on him. But before she could take another step he laid
his hand firmly on her wide, blue sleeve and forced her back into the room.
"Keep away from that door," he said quietly.
"Did somebody try to kill you?" she asked. Her voice was curious, but
perfectly calm.

"I think so.... Don't show yourself near that door. They might not be
able to distinguish their target at such a range."
"They? Who are 'they'?"
"Whoever fired.... I must ask you again to please keep out of range of
that doorway——"
"The shot came from the river willows across the fields, did it not?"
she interrupted.
"I'm very sure of it. You need not feel any anxiety for the children,
Sister; I am going. There'll be no more shots."
"There is a door at the back by the kitchen yard, Mr. Halkett. They will
not see you if you leave that way."
He stood thinking for a while; then:
"On your account, and on the children's, I'll have to show myself again
when I leave the house, so that there'll be no mistake about my identity.
Don't move until after I have gone some distance along the road. And please
say to Mr. Warner that I've returned to the inn for luncheon——"
"There is a door in the rear! You must not show yourself——"
"Indeed, I must. Otherwise, they might mistake you or Sister Félicité
or one of the children for me——"
"Mr. Halkett!" He had already started.
"Yes?" he replied, halting and glancing back; and found her already at
his elbow.
"Why were you shot at?" she asked. "I desire to know."
He looked her straight in the eyes:
"I can't tell you why, Sister."
"You say you are English, and that you are a friend to France. If that is
true, then tell me who shot at you! Do you know?"
"In a general way, I suppose I do know."

"Do you not trust a French Sister of Charity sufficiently to tell her?"
"What man would not trust a daughter of St. Vincent de Paul?" he said
pleasantly.
"Then tell me. Perhaps I already guess. Has it to do with your
knowledge of German advertisements?"
He was silent.
"You are evidently a British agent." Her deep, grey eyes grew more
earnest. "You are more!" she said, clasping her hands with sudden
conviction. "I suspected it the first time I saw you——"
"Please do not say to anybody what it is that you suspect——"
"You are a British officer!" she exclaimed.
"Sister Eila; you could do me much harm by mentioning to others this
belief of yours, or anything concerning this affair. And—do you remember
that you once said you trusted me?"
"I said it—yes."
"Do you still have confidence in me?"
Their eyes met steadily.
"Yes," she said. "I believe you to be a friend to France, and to me." A
slight flush edged the snowy wimple which framed the lovely oval of her
face.
"I am your friend; and I am a friend to France—I say as much as that
to you. I say it because of what you are, and because—you are you. But ask
me no more, Sister. For men of my profession there are confessionals as
secret and as absolute in authority as those which shrive the soul."
He hesitated, his eyes shifted from her to the fresh flowers on the desk,
which they had both gathered; he reached over and drew a white blossom
from the glass.
"May I take it with me?"

She bent her head in silence.
Then he turned to go through the deadly doorway, carrying his flower
in his hand; but, as he walked out into the sunshine, Sister Eila stepped
swiftly in front of him, turned on the doorstep, screening him with extended
arms.
"This is the best way," she said. "They ought to see quite clearly that I
am a Sister of Charity, and they won't fire at me——"
But he tried to push her aside and spring past her:
"Stand clear of me, for God's sake!" he said.
"Wait——"
"Sister! Are you insane?"
"You must be, Mr. Halkett——"
"Keep away, I tell you——"
"Please don't be rough with me——"
He tried to avoid her, but her strong, young hands had caught both his
wrists.
"They won't shoot at a Sister of Charity!" she repeated. "—And I shall
not permit them to murder you! Be reasonable! I am not afraid."
She held on to his wrists, keeping always between him and the distant
glimmer of the river:
"I shall walk to the road with you this way; don't try to shake me off; I
am strong, I warn you!" She was even laughing now. "Please do not
wriggle! Only schoolboys wriggle. Do you suppose I am afraid? Since
when, Monsieur, have Sisters of Charity taken cover from the enemies of
France?"
"This is shameful for me——"
"You behave, as I have said, like a very bad schoolboy, Mr. Halkett
——"

He tried vainly to place himself between her and the river, but could
not disengage her grasp without hurting her. Then, over his shoulder, he saw
three men come out of the river willows.
"You shall not take this risk——" he insisted.
"Please listen——"
"I take no risk worth mentioning. It was you who would have walked
out to face their fire—with that smile on your lips and a flower in your
hand! Did you think that a Grey Sister would permit that? Soyez
convenable, Monsieur. They will not fire while I am walking beside you."
She looked over her shoulder. One of the men by the willows was raising a
rifle.
They reached the highway at the same moment, and the roadside bank
sheltered them. Here she released his arm.
"I beg you to be a little reasonable," she said. "You must leave Saïs at
once. Promise me, Mr. Halkett——"
"I cannot."
"Why?"
"Sister, if I am really a soldier, as you suppose me to be, perhaps I
have—orders—to remain at Saïs."
"Have you?" she asked frankly.
He turned and looked at her:
"Yes, little comrade."
"That is really serious."
"It must not cause you any anxiety. I shall 'wriggle'—as you say—out
of this mess when the time comes. I may start tonight."
"For London? Do you wriggle as far as that?"
He said gravely:

"You know more about me now from my own lips than I would admit,
even prompted by a firing squad. I trusted you even before you faced death
for me on that doorstep a moment ago. Did you see that man come out of
the willows and level his rifle at us?"
She said tranquilly:
"We daughters of St. Vincent de Paul never heed such things."
"I know you don't; I know what are your traditions. Many a Sister of
your Order has fallen under rifle and shell fire on the battlefields of the
world; many have died of the pest in hospitals; many have succumbed to
exposure. The history of modern war is the history of the Grey Sisters.
What you have just done, as a matter of course, is already part of that
history. And so—" he looked down at her crucifix and rosary—"and so,
Sister, and comrade, I shall tell you what it would not be possible for me to
admit to any other living soul in France. Yes; I am a British officer on
special and secret duty. I left the United States two weeks ago. Trouble
began in Holland. I am now on my way to London. Orders came today
halting me at Saïs. Enemies of France are annoying me—people who are
becoming more desperate and more determined as the hours pass and the
moment approaches swiftly when they can no longer hope to interfere with
me. That moment will come when war is declared. It will be declared. I
shall be very glad to arrive in England. Now I have told you almost
everything, Sister Eila. My honor is in your keeping; my devotion is for my
own country, for France—and for you."
"I have made one vow of silence," she said simply. "I shall make
another—never to breathe one word of this."
"You need not. Just say to me that you will not speak."
Her lovely face became as solemn as a child's:
"I shall not speak, Mr. Halkett."

"That settles it," he said. "If it lay with me, I'd trust you with every
secret in our War Office!" He checked himself, hesitated, then: "Sister Eila,
if anything happens to me, go to Mr. Warner and ask him for that envelope.
There are sure to be British soldiers in France before very long. Give that
envelope to some British officer."
After a moment she laughed:
"Englishmen are odd—odd! They are just boys. They are delightful. I
shall do what you ask.... And there is your inn.... Am I tired? I? Vous
plaisantez, Monsieur! But, Mr. Halkett, what would be the object in your
walking back with me? I should only have to walk back here again with
you! It would continue ad infinitum."
They both laughed.
"When trouble finally comes, and if I am hit, I pray I may lie in your
ward," he said gayly.
Her smile faded:
"I shall pray so, too," she said.
"I'd feel like a little boy safe in his own nursery," he added, still
smiling.
"I am—happy—to have you think of me in that way." Her smile
glimmered anew in her eyes. "I should be a devoted nurse." She made him a
friendly little signal of adieu and turned away.
Hat in hand, he stood looking after the grey-blue figure under the
snowy headdress.
At the turn of the road she looked back, saw him, still standing there;
and again, from the distance, she made him a pretty gesture of caution and
of farewell. Then the grassy bank hid her from view.

At the Inn of the Golden Peach, Warner's Harem was already lunching.
Through the open windows of the dining-room came a discreet clatter of
tableware and crockery, and a breezy, cheery tumult like the chatter in an
aviary.
Halkett, not fancying it, went around the house to the quiet garden.
Here he wandered to and fro among the trees or stood about aimlessly,
looking down at the flower beds where, kneeling beside Sister Eila, he had
aided her to fill her ozier basket.
Later Warner found him seated under the arbor with Ariadne on his
knee; and a few moments afterward the maid, Linette, served their
luncheon.
Neither of the young men was very communicative, but after the
dishes and cloth had been removed, and when Halkett, musing over his
cigarette and coffee, still exhibited no initiative toward conversation,
Warner broke the silence:
"What about that shot?" he asked bluntly.
"What shot?"
"Don't you want to talk about it?"
Halkett glanced up, amused:
"Well, I suppose there was no hiding that bullet hole and the plaster
dust from Sister Félicité."
"Of course not. The bullet ripped out the lathing. Who was it fired at
the school? Or was it at you they let go?"
"Didn't you ask Sister Eila?"
"I did. She absolutely refused to discuss it, and referred us both to you.
It was no accident, was it?"
"No."
"Somebody tried to get you?"

"It rather looked that way."
"Our friends in the grey car, of course!" concluded Warner.
"Not necessarily. They have other friends who might be equally
attentive to me. I don't know who shot at me. There were three of them over
by the river."
"Well, Halkett, don't you think you had better remain indoors for a
while?"
"I'd better, I suppose." He laughed. "Honestly, I'm sick of being shot at.
One of these days they'll hit me, if they're not very careful."
But Warner did not smile.
"Do you promise to stay indoors?" he insisted.
"I'll see. Perhaps."
"Don't you think it advisable for you to carry some sort of a firearm—
one of my automatics, for example?"
"Thanks, old fellow. I think I'll do that, if you can spare a section of
your artillery for a day or two."
Warner promptly fished an automatic out of his hip pocket, and Halkett
took it and examined it.
"So I'm to do the Wild West business after all," he said gayly. "Right
you are, old chap. I know how it's done; I've read about it in your novels.
You wait till your enemy takes a drop, then you get the drop!" He laughed
at his British joke. And, having no hip pocket, he stowed away the lumpy
bluish weapon in a side pocket of his coat.
"Now, don't let me interfere with your daily routine," he continued. "I
shall do very well here in the arbor while you lead your Harem toward the
Olympian heights."
"Sometimes I feel like pushing 'em off those cliffs," muttered Warner.
"All right; I fancy you'll be snug enough in the garden, here with Ariadne,

till I return. We shall have the whole house to ourselves after dinner. The
Harem migrates to Ausone for overnight to do street sketches tomorrow,
and returns the next morning for a general criticism. So if you'll amuse
yourself——"
"I shall be quite comfortable, thanks. If anybody climbs the wall to pot
me, we'll turn loose on 'em, this time—won't we, old girl?"—caressing
Ariadne, who had returned to his knee.
Half an hour afterward Warner went away in the wake of the Harem;
and at the end of the second hour he gave them a final criticism before they
started for Ausone.
Much good it did them; but they adored it; they even adored his
sarcasms. For the Harem truly worshiped this young man—a fact of which
he remained uncomfortably conscious, timidly aware that warier men than
he had been landed by maidens less adept than they.
So it was with his usual sense of deep relief that he saluted the Harem,
picked up his own kit and canvases, and wandered at hazard through a little
poplar grove and out of it on the other edge.
A wild meadow, deep with tasseled grasses and field flowers, stretched
away before him, where swallows sailed and soared and skimmed—where
blue lupin, bouton d'or, meadowsweet, and slender, silvery stems crowned
with queen's lace grew tall, and the heliotrope perfume of hidden hawkweed
scented every fitful little wind.
But what immediately fixed his attention was a distant figure wading
waist-deep amid the grasses—a slim, brilliant shape, which became oddly
familiar as it drew nearer, moving forward with light and boyish grace,
stirring within him vaguely agreeable recollections.
Then, in spite of her peasant's dress, he recognized her; and he walked
swiftly forward to meet her. The figure out there in the sunshine saw him

coming and lifted one arm in distant recognition and salute.
They met in mid-meadow, Warner and the girl Philippa.
Her short skirt and low peasant bodice had faded to a rose-geranium
tint; her white chemisette, laced with black, was open wide below the
throat. Black velvet straps crossed it on the shoulders and around the cuffs.
Her hair was tied with a big black silk bow.
"How in the world did you come to be here?" he asked, not yet
releasing the eager, warm little hands so frankly clasped between both of
his.
Philippa laughed with sheerest happiness:
"Figurez-vous, Monsieur. I have been punting since early morning;
and when I found myself so near to Saïs I was ready to drop with heat and
fatigue: 'Mais, n'importe! Allons!' I said to myself. 'Courage, little one! Very
soon you shall see Mr. Warner painting a noble picture by the river!' Et puis
——" She tightened her clasp on his hands with an adorable laugh, "Nous
voici enfin ensemble—tous les deux—vous et moi! Et je suis bien content
et bien fatiguée."
"But, Philippa—how in the world do you propose to get back to
Ausone tonight?"
She shrugged, looked up as though protesting to the very skies:
"I have this instant arrived, and his first inquiry is concerning my
departure! That is not a very friendly welcome."
"Philippa, I am glad to see you——"
"It is time you said so——"
"I thought you understood——"
The girl laughed:
"I understand how glad I am to see you!" She looked about her in the
sunshine, and touched a tall blossom of queen's lace with outstretched

fingers.
"How heavenly beautiful is this world of God!" she said with that
charming lack of self-consciousness which the skies of France seem to
germinate even in aliens. "I am very glad to see you," she repeated abruptly,
"and I am awaiting the expression of your sentiments."
"Of course I am glad to see you, Philippa——"
"That makes me quite happy." She smiled on him and then looked
curiously at his painting kit. "If you will choose your picture," she added, "I
shall sit beside you and watch you at your painting. It will be agreeable. We
can converse."
So he chose a ferny spot at the wood's edge, pitched his field easel and
camp stool, and opened his color box; and Philippa seated herself cross-
legged on the short grass beside him, gathering both slim ankles into her
hands.
While he was fussing with his canvas, she sang to herself blithely,
radiantly contented, rocking herself to and fro to the rhythm of her song:

"'Hussar en vedette,
What do you see?
The sun has set
And a voice is calling me
Across the Récollette,
Where the scented rushes fret
In the May wind's breath—
Et garde à vous, Hussar!
'Tis the voice of Death!

'Hussar en vedette,

What do you see?
The moon has set
And a white shape beckons me
Across the Récollette,
Where the scented rushes fret
In the night wind's breath—
Et garde à vous, Hussar!
'Tis the shape of Death!'"

Singing away with the serene unconsciousness of a bird, rocking her lithe
young body, and watching his every movement out of wide grey eyes,
Philippa assisted at the artistic preparations with great content, missing
nothing.
"To squeeze color from tubes must be amusing," she remarked. "I like
to squeeze out tooth paste."
"I am very sure," said Warner, "that you accomplish more charming
results with your tooth paste than I do with my colors."
The girl laughed, showing her snowy teeth:
"Do you find them pretty, Monsieur?"
"Quite perfect, and therefore in keeping with the remainder of you,
Philippa."
"He really seems to mean it," she said, addressing a grasshopper which
had alighted on her knee. And to Warner: "Is my face sufficiently scrubbed
to suit you?"
He glanced down at her:
"You have kept your word, haven't you?"

"Ma foi! My word is my word.... Listen; I came to Saïs to see you; and
partly because I have something to show you. It concerns your friend, I
think."
"Mr. Halkett?"
"Yes. After the fight in our cabaret there was much excitement, but
when you had disappeared, and before the agents de police and the
gendarmes arrived, I found on the floor under the overturned table a
portfolio. In that portfolio was part of an unfinished letter. It is written in
German. I could not read it; but, studying it, I recognized Mr. Halkett's
name written several times. So I said nothing to anybody, but I have
brought it. Here it is."
She drew from her bosom a small leather pocketbook.
"Before you examine it," she continued, "I ought to tell you what
really happened at the cabaret. Those men who attacked Mr. Halkett were in
the employment of Monsieur Wildresse."
"What!" exclaimed Warner.
"It is true. I was furious when I noticed them creeping up behind him. I
realized instantly what they meant to do, and I cried out—too late. You
ought to be told about this. Therefore, I came here to tell you.
"And I desire to tell you more. The three men who were seated across
the hall, and who attempted to pick a quarrel with Mr. Halkett, were
'provocative agents'—Germans.
"The patron knew them and interfered. Besides, he had his own ideas
and his own ends to serve just then.
"But I saw those three German agents whisper to a fourth—a stranger.
And that man came and seated himself with three other men directly behind
Mr. Halkett, where he stood while you were talking to me——"

"Philippa," he interrupted with blunt impatience, "I don't understand
all this that you are saying to me. Give me that letter if it concerns Mr.
Halkett."
The girl colored painfully.
"Please don't speak rudely to me," she said. "I am trying to behave
honestly——"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to speak roughly. Please continue."
"Yes; it is better you should know what happened before you read this
letter. Well, then, the men who attacked Mr. Halkett naturally got away; the
patron attended to that. Naturally, also, he desired to have people believe
that the German agents were responsible for the fight, and they were,
therefore, detained by Monsieur Wildresse and were asked for an
explanation. Then they declared that Mr. Halkett was a British spy, and that
they were Belgian police agents with full authority to arrest him in France.
Which was a lie, of course, but it served its purpose by increasing the
tumult."
"Did they say that they were Belgians?"
"Yes. I heard them. They lied. There was much confusion and shouting
—everybody crowding around and disputing. The three Germans pushed
their way toward the door; nobody knew whether or not to stop them." She
shrugged. "They were gone before people could make up their minds. And,
as usual, the police came in too late. Now you know all there is to tell about
what happened after you left the cabaret."
Warner laid aside his brushes, looked curiously at the portfolio which
she held out to him, hesitated, then opened it and drew out three pages of a
letter in German, but written in English script. Evidently it was an
unfinished fragment of a letter. He translated it rather freely and without
any great difficulty:

—were followed from New York by this man, Halkett, and a companion of
his named Gray. Disembarking at Antwerp and going immediately to room
No. 23 in the Hôtel St. Antoine, according to instructions, we walked
directly into a trap, prepared for us, no doubt, by a wireless message sent
from the steamer by the individual, Halkett. Schmidt was knocked flat on
his back and lay unconscious; me they hurled violently on the bed; my face
was covered with a pillow, my legs and arms held as in a vise, while they
ripped my clothing from me and then literally tore it to shreds in their
search for the papers I carried.
In the lining of my vest they found the information and drawings
which we had been at such pains and danger to secure from the Yankee War
Department. And now the Yankee Government will find out who has been
robbing it.
Unless we can overtake these individuals, Halkett and Gray, the loss to
us must be irreparable, as we dared not study the plans and formula on
board ship, nor even venture to trust in the security of our stateroom,
believing that British agents might be on board and watching. God knows
they were.
I regret deeply that we did not suspect Halkett and Gray.
Also, the ship's officers, crew, stewards, wireless operator—all
evidently were our enemies and in willing collusion with these two
Englishmen.
Gray, on his motor cycle, left Antwerp for Brussels. We shall watch
him and prevent his meeting Halkett in France. We fear they have divided
the papers between them.
Our orders are to use our own discretion. Therefore, I repeat that Gray
shall not live to meet Halkett.

As for Halkett, he undoubtedly has some of the papers on his person.
We missed him in Holland by accident; we unfortunately failed in the city
of Luxembourg, because he was too crafty to cross the viaduct, but slept
that night in a water mill under the walls in the lower city.
We traced him to Diekirch, but missed him again, twice, although
Schmidt, who was posted further along on the narrow-gauge line, fired at
him as a last resort. For, as you point out, it is better that France should
come into possession of the Harkness shell than that the British Admiralty
should control it. The very existence of our fleet is now at stake. France is
slow to accept foreign inventions; but England is quick as lightning.
So, if necessary, we shall take extreme measures in regard to Halkett
and Gray, and stand the chances that we may secure their papers and get
back to Berlin before the French police interfere.
And if we fail to get away, well, at least England shall not profit by the
Harkness shell.
Meier and Hoffman are following Gray; we are now leaving for
Ausone, and hope to find Halkett somewhere in that vicinity.
I am writing this with difficulty, as the road is not what it ought to be,
and the wind is disconcerting. Esser is acting as chauffeur——

And there the letter ended.

CHAPTER X

Philippa was plaiting grass stems when he finished his examination of the
letter. And while she deftly braided boutons d'or among the green blades,

she continued under her breath the song of the Vidette, casting an
occasional side glance upward at him, where he sat on his camp stool
studying the written fragments.
At length, seeing that he had finished, she tossed aside the flowering
rope of grass, set her elbows on her knees, her rounded chin on her hands,
and regarded him inquiringly, as though, for the moment, she had done with
childish things.
"It is a letter which urgently concerns Mr. Halkett," he nodded coolly.
"Shall I give it to him?"
"Please."
He pocketed the portfolio, hesitated, glanced at his watch, then, with
an absent-minded air, began to pack up his painting kit. As he unhooked his
toile he looked around at her.
"Philippa," he said, "if you are going to punt back to Ausone, isn't it
nearly time you started?"
"Aren't you going to paint any more?" she asked, smiling.
"No. I think I had better find Mr. Halkett and show him this letter."
"But—I have come all the way from Ausone to pay you a visit!"
explained the girl in hurt surprise. "Didn't you want to see me?"
"Certainly I want to see you," he replied smilingly. "But to punt up
stream to Ausone this afternoon is going to take you quite a long while
——"
"As for that," she remarked, "it need not concern us. I am not going
back to Ausone."
"Not going back!"
"Listen, please. Monsieur Wildresse and I have had a disagreement
——"
"Nonsense!"

"No, a serious disagreement. I am not going back to Ausone. Shall I
tell you all about it?"
"Yes, but listen to me, Philippa. You can't run away from your home
merely because you have had a disagreement with your Patron and
guardian."
"Shall I tell you why we disagreed?"
"If you choose. But that doesn't justify you in running away from your
home."
The girl shook her head:
"You don't yet understand. In our café the French Government compels
us to spy on certain strangers and to report whatever we can discover.
Always it disgusted me to do such a thing. Now I shall not be obliged to do
it any more, because I am never going back to the Cabaret de Biribi."
"Do you mean to say that you and Monsieur Wildresse are in the secret
service of your Government?" he asked, astonished.
"That is too dignified an explanation. I have been an informer since I
was seventeen."
"A—a paid informer?"
"I don't know whether the Government pays Monsieur Wildresse."
"But he doesn't do such things for the pleasure of doing them."
"Pleasure? It is an abominable profession! It is unclean."
"Then why do you do it?" he demanded, amazed.
"I am not perfectly sure why. I know that the Patron is afraid of the
Government. That, I suppose, is why we have been obliged to take orders
from them."
"Afraid? Why?"
"It's partly on Jacques' account—his son's. If we do what they ask of us
they say that they won't send him to New Caledonia. But I believe it is all

blague." She looked up at Warner out of her troubled grey eyes. "Espionage
—that has been my metier since I was taken out of school—to listen in the
cabaret, to learn to keep my eyes open, to relate to the Patron whatever I
saw or heard concerning any client the Government desired him to watch....
Do you think that is a very pleasant life for a young girl?"
His face became expressionless.
"Not very," he said. "Go on."
She said thoughtfully:
"It is a horrible profession, Mr. Warner. Why should I continue it? Are
there no police? Why should I, Philippa Wildresse, do their dirty work? Can
you explain? Alors, I have asked myself that many, many times. Today, at
last, I have answered my own question: I shall never again play the spy for
anybody! C'est fini! Voilà!"
Warner remained silent.
"Why, it is revolting!" she exclaimed. "Figurez-vous, Monsieur! I was
even signaled to spy upon you! Can you conceive such a thing?"
"On me?" he repeated, bewildered and angry.
"Certainly. That is why I danced with you. I am permitted to dance
only with clients under observation."
Her unflattering candor sent a flush to his face. His latent vanity had
been rather rudely surprised.
"Afterward," she continued, "I knew you could not be the man they
wanted——"
"What man did they want?"
"Somebody who had stolen documents in America, I believe. But I
was sure that you were honest."
"Why?"
Philippa lifted her grey eyes:

"Because you were honest with me."
"How, honest?"
"You did not make love to me. Dishonest men always regard women
as a pastime. To make advances is the first thing I expect from them. I am
never disappointed. All men are more or less dishonest—excepting you."
"This is a sorry school you have been brought up in," he said grimly.
"Do you mean that I have had my schooling by observing life?"
"Yes—a life in a cabaret full of rastaoqueres and cocottes—a rather
limited and sordid outlook, Philippa. The world lies outside."
"Still—it is life. Even a cocotte is part of life."
"So is disease. But it isn't all there is in life."
"Nor is life in a cabaret all corruption. A cabaret is merely the world in
miniature; all types pass in and out; they come and go as souls are born and
go: the door opens and closes; one sees a new face, one loses it. It is much
like birth and death."
She made an unconsciously graceful gesture toward the white clouds
overhead.
"A cabaret," she went on seriously, "is a republic governed by the
patron, audited by the caissière, policed by waiters. Everybody goes there
—even you, Monsieur. All languages are spoken there, all questions
discussed, all theories aired, all passions ventilated. Every trait of human
nature is to be observed there; the germ of every comedy; the motive of
every tragedy.... Yet, as you say, it is a saddening school.... Wisdom is too
early acquired there. One learns too quickly and too completely in such a
school. Such an education means precocity. It foreshadows the early death
of youth, Monsieur.... If I remain there, all that is still young in me will die,
now, very quickly."
"You poor child!"

She shrugged her shoulders.
"Therefore," she said, "I am leaving. Now do you understand?"
He sat looking at her, wondering uneasily at her intelligence and her
ability to express herself. Here was a maturity of mind unexpected in this
girl. So far it had not visibly altered the youth of her, nor impaired her
sweetness and honesty.
In spite of the appalling surroundings amid which she had matured, her
mind and heart still remained young.
Biting a tasselled grass stem reflectively, she sat thinking for a few
moments, then she reverted to the subject of Wildresse and his son.
"I am convinced that it is all blague," she repeated, "—this threat of
Noumea. Unless Jacques misbehaves very seriously in Biribi, nobody can
send him to La Nouvelle. Besides, if his father chooses to oblige the
Government, what does it matter about me? No; I have had enough of
degradation. An hour on the river with you was enough to settle it."
"But what do you intend to do, Philippa?" he inquired.
She looked up at him with her winning smile:
"I came to ask you that. Please tell me what I am to do."
"You must not ask me——"
"Of course. You are the first man who ever pleased me. You please me
more and more. Why should I not come to you in my perplexity and say,
'What am I to do, my friend?'"
He reddened at that; found nothing to answer. The sudden and
grotesque responsibility which this young girl was so lightly placing upon
his shoulders might have amused if it had not disconcerted him. But it did
not disconcert her.
"What am I to do, Mr. Warner?" she repeated with a smile of perfect
confidence.

"Why, I don't know, Philippa. What can you do down here at Saïs?"
"Tell me!" she insisted with undisturbed serenity.
"You couldn't very well remain here. You will have to go back to
Ausone and consider this matter more seriously——"
"Ah, ça—non! I shall not go back!"
"What do you propose to do?"
She bit her grass stem:
"I don't know. I have my trunk in the punt——"
"What!"
"Certainly, I brought my effects! I have some money—not very much.
I shall go to the inn and remain there until you have decided what it is best
for me to do."
The situation began to strike him as sufficiently ludicrous—the tragic
mask is always on the verge of a grin—but he did not feel like smiling.
For a few minutes he occupied himself with collecting, strapping, and
slinging his kit; and when he was ready to go, he looked down at the girl
Philippa, where she was seated watching him out of her trustful grey eyes.
"I can employ you as a model," he said, "until Monsieur Wildresse
sends for you. What do you think of the idea?"

"'I can employ you as a model,' he said"

"As a—a model, Monsieur?" she stammered.
"Yes. You could pose for me, if you like."
A delicate scarlet flush slowly mounted to her hair.
Perplexed, he watched her.
"Don't you like the idea?" And suddenly he divined what was troubling
her. "Not that sort of model," he said, amused. "You shall wear your clothes,
Philippa."
"Oh.... Yes, I should like it, I think."
"It's about the only excuse which would enable you to remain at the
inn until you have come to some conclusion regarding your future," he
explained.

"A painter may always have his models? It is expected, is it not?"
"Oh, yes, that is always understood. But nobody would understand
your coming to live at the Golden Peach merely because you and I
happened to be good friends," he added laughingly.
"I understand," she said in a grave voice. "I am to be your model, not
your friend."
He nodded carelessly, looking away from her. After a moment, he
lighted a cigarette. It relieved him considerably to recollect that the Harem
had gone to Ausone.
"Now," he said, "if you are ready to walk back to the inn with me, I'll
explain you to Madame Arlon, the patronne."
"And my punt?" she inquired, rising from the grass.
"Oh, Lord! I forgot."
"My trunk is in it."
"Where is your punt?"
She pointed across the meadow to where the river sparkled:
"It is my own punt; the Lys. I took nothing from Monsieur Wildresse
that did not belong to me. It will be agreeable for us to have a punt here,
will it not?"
"Very," he said uneasily.
They turned eastward across the blossoming meadow, over which
already the swallows were soaring in their late afternoon flight. A vanneau
or two rose from moist spots, protesting, and flapping away on greenish-
bronze wings; a bécassine went off like a badly-balanced arrow, and his
flat, raucous, "squack! squack!" rang through the sunny silence. Higher,
higher his twisting flight carried him toward the sky, where he dwindled to
a speck and vanished; but out of the intense blue zenith his distant cry still
rang long after he had disappeared from the range of human vision.

CHAPTER XI

When Warner and the girl Philippa arrived at the Golden Peach, they found
that Madame Arlon, profiting by the prospective temporary absence of the
Harem, had gone to visit relatives near Nancy for a day or two. But Linette
smilingly took charge of Philippa and her luggage.
Warner, entering the southern end of the walled garden, discovered
Halkett at the other extremity, still seated under the latticed arbor. A letter
lay spread upon the table beside his elbow. Over this letter, with pencil and
paper, he pored as though he were working out a problem in hieroglyphics.
But when Warner appeared, the Englishman leisurely folded and
pocketed the papers on which he had been working, nodded pleasantly, and
handed to Warner a copy of the Petit Journal d'Ausone.
"It came after you left," he said. "There's nothing really new in it—
Germany's ultimatum to Russia, that's about all.... I am feeling rather
anxious about a friend of mine, Reginald Gray. He was to have arrived here
last night or early this morning on his motor cycle. No word has come from
him personally, and it is now nearly night again."
Warner seated himself, glanced over the inky little provincial
newspaper, then laid it aside. There was in its columns nothing definite
concerning the threatened rupture of the peace of Europe.
"Halkett," he said almost solemnly, "this crime with which they say
our civilization is menaced can never be consummated. There will be no
World War, because the world dares not acquiesce in such an outrage. The
eleventh hour has struck, I know; but salvation exists only because there is

a twelfth hour on the dial; otherwise the preordained end of everything
would be hell."
Halkett smiled slightly.
"I've just had another letter," he said. "I'm likely to remain here for a
few days more.... Which means only one thing."
"What does it mean?"
"War."
Warner smiled incredulously.
"Anyway, there will be one compensation for the general smash if you
remain here," he said gayly.
"You're very good to take it that way.... You and I—and to hell with the
Deluge!" But his face sobered while the jest was spoken; he leaned rather
wearily on the iron table and rested his forehead in one hand. "I wish I
knew what has happened to Reginald Gray," he repeated.
"What is it that worries you about your friend Gray?"
"His cap was picked up on the highway five miles southeast of Saïs."
"How could you know that?"
"I have just learned it by telephone, through a certain source of
information."
"Did you learn anything more?"
"There was a little blood on the road."
Warner remained silent.
"Also," continued Halkett thoughtfully, "a motor cycle had skidded up
the bank.... But no signs of a serious accident could be discovered—merely
the ragged swathe cut through soft earth and rank vegetation.... If Gray met
with an accident, he must have mended his machine, remounted, and
continued his course—wherever he was going—unless somebody picked up

him and his wheel and took them away.... I can't understand this affair. It
bothers me."
"The chances are that your friend Gray had a rather bad spill,"
suggested Warner, "and no doubt you'll hear from him, or about him, before
morning."
"I ought to, certainly." He filled and lighted his pipe; Warner rose and
began to pace the garden path rather nervously. Presently he came back to
where the Englishman sat brooding over his pipe and nursing Ariadne.
"Halkett," he said abruptly, "you remember that girl Philippa in the
Café Biribi?"
The Englishman looked up inquiringly.
"Well, she is here."
"At the inn?"
"Yes. I met her down in the big river meadow this afternoon, and she
calmly informed me that she had left home for good."
"Run away?"
"Run away. Taken the key of the fields. Beat it for keeps. How does
that strike you?"
"Any particular reason?" inquired Halkett indifferently.
"Why, yes. The child has been used by the secret police to spy on
people in the Café Biribi."
Halkett's eyes opened at that.
Warner went on:
"That old rascal, Wildresse, it seems, is nothing but a paid informer.
He forced this girl Philippa to engage in the same filthy business. She even
admitted that old Wildresse had set her on me! No doubt he had decided to
watch you himself. And do you know what I think?"
Halkett was very wide-awake now. He said:

"I believe I do know what you are thinking. And I believe you are
pretty nearly right."
"That the assault on you was merely a local matter instigated by
Wildresse?"
"It wouldn't surprise me."
"I think it was, too. Some of his thugs did it. He had made up his mind
about you. But somebody must have tipped him off to watch you."
"Probably."
"I am sure of it. The three German-appearing men who tried to pick a
quarrel with you over the Archduke's murder were not the men who tried to
frisk you for your papers. They were 'provocative agents' in the pay of a
foreign government—hired opportunists who were expected to pick
something of value out of any confusion attending a general row fomented
by themselves."
"Who told you that?"
"Philippa."
Halkett, now thoroughly interested, looked keenly at Warner through
the thin haze of his pipe.
"These three agents," continued Warner, "were certainly in close
communication with the men who have been following you. And at least
one of those men was seated at the table directly behind you when
Wildresse's thugs tried to frisk you for documents. So you see that
Wildresse, prodded by the French secret police, and these provocative
agents, prodded by the people who are following you, who, in turn, are
spurred by the German Government, were all playing at cross purposes, but
with you as a common objective. A fine nest of intrigue I led you into when
I took you to the Cabaret de Biribi! I'm terribly sorry, Halkett. But I believe

that some good has come out of that mess—a fragment of a letter, written in
German, which Philippa gave me in the meadow this afternoon.
"She found it under the wrecked table behind you. Nobody has seen it
except myself and Philippa; and the child cannot read much German. But,
studying it and seeing your name in the letter, she was clever enough to
bring it to me. Here it is." He laid it on the table under the Englishman's
eyes.
While Halkett remained absorbed in his translation, Warner paced the
garden, deeply occupied with his own uneasy cogitations. After a little
while Halkett spoke to him in an altered voice, and he turned and came
swiftly back to the arbor.
The Englishman, looking up, said gravely:
"Concerning myself, there seems to remain now nothing worth
concealing from you.... Perhaps you had better know the truth. I happen to
be an officer temporarily serving with the Intelligence Department; I had
just been assigned to duty in New York when the Harkness shell was stolen.
The general alarm went out. Gray, a brother officer, and I chanced to
stumble on evidence which sent us aboard an Antwerp steamer. Our birds
were aboard. We pulled every string available, and, passing over the details
of the affair, he and I managed to recover the drawings, specifications, and
formula which had been stolen. Some of these papers are in that envelope.
"Every German agent in Europe knows we have them. My
Government, for some reason or other, instructs me to remain here for the
present. As Gray and I are known, doubtless somebody will appear and take
the drawings out of our hands, because the chances are that I'd be murdered
before I reached Calais. That is the situation, Warner."
"Has Gray any of the drawings?"
"He has."

"I understand."
"And that is why I am worrying about Gray. They'd not hesitate to kill
him if they thought there was a chance that he had any of the papers."
Warner said:
"They couldn't have killed him. A crime on the public highway cannot
remain undiscovered very long."
Halkett sat thoughtfully stroking Ariadne. Presently he looked up with
a slight smile.
"Well, what are you going to do with the girl Philippa?" he inquired.
"Now, what do you think of a situation like this?" demanded Warner,
half laughing, half vexed. "I told her to go home. She positively refuses.
You can't blame the child. The dirty business there has disgusted her. This
seems to be a final revolt. But—what would you do if a young girl wished
herself on you?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," said Halkett, intensely amused.
Warner reddened.
"I haven't either," he said. "All I can think of is to use her as a model—
give her a small salary until she finds something to do."
"Are you going to use her for a model?"
"I suppose so, until somebody comes after her to take her back."
"Suppose nobody comes?" suggested Halkett mischievously.
"Well, I'm not going to adopt her, that's certain," insisted the other.
"Poor little thing!" he added. "—Her instincts seem to be decent. Who could
blame a young girl for sickening of such a life and cutting away on her own
hook? That's a rotten joint, that Cabaret de Biribi. And as for that old
villain, Wildresse, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he were playing the dirty
game from both ends—German and French. Informers are often traitors."
"Very frequently."

"Spies also have that reputation, I believe—except in romantic
fiction," said Warner.
"They usually deserve it," returned Halkett. "Generally speaking, they
are a scum recruited from low pubs and brothels. Rarely does any reputable
person enter that profession except in line of military duty or in time of war.
"Servants, waiters, chauffeurs, those are the most respectable classes
of secret agents. But the demi-monde and their hangers-on furnish the
majority of those popularly supposed to represent people of position who
play the rôle of international spy. They are a rummy lot, Warner.
"It is very, very seldom in Occidental drawing-rooms that such
practices prevail. A woman of position very rarely becomes a paid agent of
that sort. Diplomats and attachés who are pumped and victimized are
usually the dupes of socially disreputable people. Society in England and in
Western Europe rarely entertains such a favorite of fiction as a paid
Government spy; nor are such people very often recruited from its ranks.
East of the Danube it is different."
They sat for a while smoking, Halkett lavishing endearments upon
Ariadne who never failed to respond, Warner musing on what Halkett had
said and wondering exactly what duties the Military Intelligence
Department of any Government might include.
No doubt, like the Government, it employs spies, and, like the
Government, never admits the fact.
For among all outcasts so vitally necessary to autocracy and
militarism, the spy is the most pitiable: in time of peace no authority admits
employing him; in time of war, his fate, if taken, is as certain as that his
own Government will disown him. Eternally repudiated, whether of
respectable or disreputable antecedents, honest or otherwise, patriotic or

mercenary, the world has only one opinion to express concerning spies,
although it often cackles over their adventures and snivels over their fate.
Perhaps Halkett was musing on these things, for presently he took his
pipe from his mouth and said:
"To my knowledge, we British never employ spies in America. Your
Government, I know, never employs them anywhere in time of peace. All
other Governments do. Europe swarms with them. If I were in Germany
today, I'd be considered a spy. They'd follow me about and lock me up on
the first excuse—or without any excuse at all. And if we chanced to be at
war with Germany, and I were caught, they'd certainly shoot me because I
have recovered stolen property."
"They'd execute you because you are not in uniform?"
"Certainly. I'd not stand a ghost of a chance. So I shall be rather glad
that I'm in France when war comes."
"You are so certain it is coming?"
"Absolutely, my dear fellow. Probably it will be declared tomorrow."
"I cannot believe it, Halkett."
"I can scarcely believe it myself. But—I know it is coming. And it is
coming from the north."
"Through Belgium?"
"Exactly."
"And the treaty?"
"I have already told you how Germany regards such agreements. She'll
kill that treaty with just as much emotion as she'd experience in
assassinating a fly. It's a rotten outlook, Warner. The eleventh hour has
passed."
They smoked for a while in silence, then:

"Where is your little protégée?" asked Halkett, making an effort to
shake off his depression.
"Linette is making her comfortable. When Madame Arlon returns from
Nancy I shall tell her to look out for the child. She's in her room, unpacking,
I suppose."
"Did she even bring her boxes?" asked the Englishman, greatly
amused.
"Yes, she did. And I don't know what on earth she intends to do for a
living when I go back to Paris. I'm sorry for her, but she can't expect me to
travel about France with her——"
He checked himself abruptly; Halkett also looked up.
The girl Philippa had entered the further end of the garden.
She came slowly forward through the rosy evening light, straight and
slim in her girlish gown of white, unrelieved except by a touch or two of
black, and by the coppery splendor of her hair.
She halted in the path a little way from the arbor, evidently aware that
somebody was within.
"Are you there, Monsieur Warner?" she asked in her sweet, childish
voice.
He got up with a glance of resignation at Halkett, and went to meet
her. Halkett, from the arbor, noticed the expression of her face when Warner
appeared, and he continued to observe the girl with curious attention.
She had instinctively laid her hands in Warner's, detaining him naïvely,
and looking up into his face with an honesty too transparent to mistake.
"I miss you very much," she said, "even for a few minutes. I hastened
my toilet to rejoin you."
"That is very sweet of you, Philippa——" He didn't know what else to
say; felt the embarrassment warm on his face—chagrin, shyness, something

of both, perhaps—and a rather helpless feeling that he was acquiescing in
an understanding which already was making him very uneasy.
"Come in to the arbor," he said. "Mr. Halkett is there."
She slipped her arm through his. Halkett saw both their faces as they
approached, and, watching Warner for a moment, he felt inclined to laugh.
But in this young girl's eyes there was something that checked his
amusement. A man does not laugh at the happy and serious eyes of
childhood.
So he rose and paid his respects to Philippa with pleasant formality;
she seated herself between the two men.
The last pink rays of the sun fell across the little iron table, flooding
the garden with an enchanted light: already the evening perfume of clove
pinks had become exquisitely apparent; a belated bumblebee blundered out
of the reseda and, rising high in the calm air, steered his bullet flight into the
west. Ariadne, on the table, stretched herself, yawned, and looked about her,
now thoroughly awake for the rest of the night.
"Minette!" murmured Philippa, caressing her and laying her cheek
against the soft fur.
"You are sunburned," remarked Halkett.
"And badly freckled, Monsieur——" She looked mischievously at
Warner, laughed at their secret agreement concerning cosmetics, then turned
again to Halkett:
"You have heard, I suppose, of the happy understanding between Mr.
Warner and me?"
"I think so," said Halkett, subduing an inclination to laugh.
"The future, for me, is entirely secure," continued Philippa happily. "I
am permitted to assist Mr. Warner in his art. It is a very wonderful future,
Mr. Halkett, destined for me without doubt by God." She added, half to

herself: "And a lifetime on my knees would be too short a time to thank
Him in."
Both men became silent and constrained, Warner feeling more helpless
than ever in the face of such tranquil confidence; Halkett remembering what
Warner had once said about the soul of Philippa—but still pleasantly and
gently inclined to skepticism concerning this fille de cabaret.
Philippa, leaning forward on the table between them, joined her
slender hands and looked at Warner.
"It is pleasant to be accepted as a friend by such men as you are," she
said thoughtfully.... "I have met other gentlemen of your station in life, now
and then. But their attitude toward me has been different from yours.... I
once supposed that, in a cabaret, all men resembled each other where
women were concerned. I have been very happily mistaken."
Warner said:
"A man scarcely expects to see more than one sort of woman in a
cabaret."
"Yet, you were not astonished to see me, were you?"
"Yes," he said, "I was astonished."
"You did not seem to be."
Warner glanced at Halkett:
"Do you remember what I once said about Philippa's soul?"
The Englishman smiled at Philippa:
"As soon as Mr. Warner saw you he said to me that your soul was as
clean as a flame.... I was slower to understand you."
The girl turned swiftly to Warner:
"What a heavenly thing for a man to say about a woman! And my lips
painted scarlet—and I a caissière de cabaret——" Her voice broke

childishly; she sprang to her feet and stood looking through the starting
tears at the last level rays of the sun.
Standing so, unstirring till the tears dried, she presently turned and
resumed her chair; and, after a few moments' silence, she dropped her
elbows on the table again and clasped her hands under her chin.
She said, not looking at either of the men:
"I have thought of becoming a nun. But it is too late. Cloisters make
awkward inquiries and search records; no Sisterhood of any order I ever
heard of would admit to a novitiate any girl who has served five years
where I have served.... And so—until I saw you—I did not know what was
to become of me——"
She lifted her grey eyes to Warner. They were starry with recent tears.
Her chin rested on her clasped hands, her enchanted gaze on him.
Halkett was first to move and make an effort:
"Yes, it was perhaps time to cut away," he muttered. "Anything we can
do—very glad, I'm sure."
"Certainly," said Warner. "There are a lot of agreeable young women in
my class who will be interested to know you when they return from Ausone
day after tomorrow——"
Philippa turned swiftly toward him:
"I do not wish any woman to know what I have been! You wouldn't tell
them, would you?"
"No, of course not—if you feel that way," he said. "Only I—it
occurred to me—some protection—some countenance—understanding—
from other women——"
"I desire none. I want only your friendship."
"But how am I going to explain you——"

"You are a painter. I am your model. Is not that sufficient
explanation?"
"Yes—if you desire to be so regarded—permanently——"
"I do. My privacy will then remain my own. I permit nobody to invade
it—excepting you."
"Very well, if you feel that way.... Only, you are—attractive, Philippa
—and I am rather afraid you might not be understood——"
She shrugged her shoulders:
"For five years I have not been understood. Do you know that men
have even thrown dice for me, so certain were they that they understood
me? I am accustomed to it. But I am not accustomed to women—I mean to
your kind. I distrust them; possibly I am afraid of them. Anyway, their
interest in me would be unwelcome. It is your friendship I want. Nothing
else matters."
"You are wrong, Philippa. Other things do matter. No woman can go it
alone, disdainful of other women's opinions."
"I have always been alone."
Warner said patiently:
"I should not do anything without first consulting you."
"I feel very sure that you would not." She smiled at him trustfully, her
cheek on her linked fingers; then her gaze grew absent. The last sun ray
lingered on her hair, turning it to fiery bronze. Under it her grey eyes gazed
absently into the future, filled now, for her, with iridescent castles and
peopled with vaguely splendid images—magic scenes that young and
lonely hearts evoke out of the very emptiness of their isolation.
And in the center of the phantom pageant always appeared Warner, her
friend, endowed with all the mystery and omniscience with which a young

girl's heart invests the man who first awakens it to irregularity—who first
interferes with the long monotony of its virgin rhythm.
Halkett, a little keener of the two—a little more sensitive, if more
reticent—said pleasantly:
"Perhaps you might prefer to dine out here with us, Philippa. The Ha—
the class, I mean—banquets and carouses in the dining-room, when it is
here."
"Of course I wish to dine with you! I said so to Linette before I came
out here. It is all arranged."
Halkett laughed. At the same moment, Linette came out with the tray.

A bright afterglow still lingered in the zenith when their leisurely dinner had
ended; and in the garden the mellow light was beginning to make objects
exquisitely indistinct.
Halkett, smoking in silence, was evidently thinking about his friend
Gray, for, when Linette came to remove the cloth and coffee cups, and to
say that some gentlemen on motor cycles were at the garden gate inquiring
for Mr. Halkett, the young Englishman rose with a quick sigh of relief and
walked swiftly to the heavy, green door under the arch in the garden wall.
As he laid his hand on the latch, he turned toward Warner:
"I'll bring Gray in directly," he called back; and opened the door and
stepped out into the dusk.
At the same instant Warner rose to his feet, listening; then he ran for
the green door. As he reached it, the heavy little door burst open; Halkett
sprang inside, slid the big iron bolt into place, turned and warned the
American aside with upflung hand.
"Keep Philippa out of range of the door!" he called across the garden,
drawing his automatic at the same time and springing backward. "Don't

stand in a line with that green door——"
A volley of pistol shots cut him short.

CHAPTER XII

The green door in the garden wall had been perforated by a dozen bullets
from outside before the first heavy crash came, almost shaking it from its
hinges.
Warner had already whipped out his own automatic; Halkett pushed
him aside across a flower bed.
"Keep out of this!" he said. "It's my affair——"
"I'm damned if it is!" retorted Warner. "I'll settle that question once for
all!" And he leveled his automatic and sent a stream of lead through the
green door in the wall.
No more blows fell on it, but all over it, from top to bottom, white
splinters flew while bullets poured through it from outside.
"You are wrong to involve yourself," insisted Halkett, raising his voice
to dominate the racket of the automatics. "They want only me."
"So do I, Halkett. And I've got you and mean to keep you. Blood is the
thicker, you know."
Philippa came from the arbor, carrying the badly frightened cat with
difficulty.
"Is it really war?" she asked calmly, while Ariadne alternately cowered
and struggled.
"Just a little private war," said Halkett. "And you had better go into the
house at once——"

"You and I should go, also," added Warner, "if there are more than two
men out there."
"I saw at least half a dozen beyond the wall. You are quite right,
Warner; we couldn't hope to hold this garden. But I dislike to go into a
strange house and invite assault on other people's property—just to save my
own hide——"
"Keep out of range!" interrupted Warner sharply, taking him by the
arm and following Philippa around the garden toward the rear of the house.
The back door was iron, armed with thick steel bolts; the
neighborhood of the quarry rendering such defenses advisable. Warner shot
all three bolts, then passed rapidly through the kitchen to the front door and
secured it, while Halkett went to the telephone. The nearest gendarmes were
at Ausone.
Linette, the chambermaid and waitress, and Magda, the cook, had
followed Halkett and Philippa from the pantry through the kitchen to the
front hallway. They had heard the noisy fusillade in the garden. Curiosity
seemed to be their ruling emotion, but even that was under control.
"Is it the Prussians, Messieurs?" asked Linette calmly. "Has the war
really begun?" Her face, and Magda's too, seemed a trifle colorless in the
failing evening light, but her voice was steady.
"Magda," said Warner, "the men outside our garden who fired at Mr.
Halkett are certainly Germans. He and I mean to keep them out of this
house if they attempt to enter it. So you and Linette had better go very
quietly to the cellar and remain there, because there may be some more
firing——"
"I? The cellar! When Prussians are outside!" exclaimed Magda. "Ma
foi! I think Linette and I can be of better use than hiding in the cellar.

Linette! Set water to boil in both kettles! I have my dishes to wash. The
Prussians had better not interfere with me when I have dishes to wash!"
"Keep away from the windows," added Warner to Linette. "There are
iron bars on all the lower windows, aren't there?"
"Yes, Monsieur Warner. If the front door holds, they cannot get in."
Halkett, at the telephone, called back through the dim hallway to
Warner:
"Somebody has cut the telephone wire. I can't do anything with the
instrument!"
Philippa, still clasping Ariadne, had betrayed no sign of fear or
excitement.
"If somebody would tell me what to do," she began—but Warner
quickly drew her into the office of the inn, which was really the inner café
and bar.
"Stay here," he said. "Those men outside might open fire on us at any
moment. Don't go near a window. Do you promise?"
The girl seated herself obediently and began to stroke the cat, her eyes
serenely fixed on Warner.
Halkett had gone to the floor above to lurk by one of the windows
giving on the garden. When Warner came up with a box of cartridge clips,
the Englishman, filling his pockets, remarked quietly:
"They're over the wall already, and dodging about among the fruit trees
—four of them. There were two others. Perhaps you had better keep an eye
on the front door, if you really insist on being mixed up with this mess I'm
in."
"Do you suppose those fellows will be silly enough to attack the
house?" asked the American incredulously.
Halkett nodded:

"They are desperate, you see. I can understand why. They know that
war is likely to be declared within the next few hours. If they don't get me
now they won't stand much chance later. That's why I'm prepared for
anything on their part."
Warner walked swiftly back toward the front, cutting the cords of the
latticed window blinds in every room, so that they fell full length.
"No lights in the house!" he called down over the banisters; "and keep
away from the windows, everybody! Philippa, do you hear me?"
"I understand; I shall tell them to light no candles," came the
untroubled voice of Philippa.
"Are you all right down there?"
"Yes, I am. But the cat is still quite frightened, poor darling."
In spite of his anxiety, Warner laughed as he reloaded.
Outdoors there still remained sufficient light to see by. Flat against the
wall, pistol in hand, he cautiously reconnoitered the dusky roadway in front
of the house, then, leaning further out, he ventured to look down between
lattice and sill at the doorstep below. A mound of dry hay had been piled
against the door.
"Get out of there!" he shouted, catching a glimpse of two shadowy
figures skulking toward the doorway arch.
His reply was a red flash which split the dusk, another, and another;
the window glass above him flew into splinters under the shower of bullets;
the persiennes jerked and danced.
But the men who stood pouring bullets in his direction had been
obliged to drop double armfuls of faggots. One of these men, still firing as
he ran, took cover behind a poplar tree across the road; the other man
flattened himself against the wall of the house, so far under the door arch

that no shot could reach him from an upper window unless the marksman
exposed himself.
Standing so, he lighted a chemical match and tossed it, flaring, on the
heap of hay piled high against the door; and almost at the same instant a
boilerful of hot water splashed through the bars of the lower window beside
him, scalding and soaking him; and he bounded out into the road with a yell
of astonishment and pain.
The hay, instantly on fire, sent a cloud of white thick smoke billowing
along the façade of the house, then burst into flame; but Linette and Magda
dashed water on it from the lower windows, and the red blaze leaped and
died.
Then, from the rear of the house, the dry rattle of Halkett's automatic
broke out, and the pattering racket of pistol shots redoubled when other
automatics crackled from the garden. Thick as hailstones pelting a tin roof
the bullets clanged on the iron rear door, filling the house with deafening
dissonance.
Halkett, peering out through his lattice into the dusk, ceased firing. A
few moments longer the door reëchoed the bullets' impact; then all sound
ceased, the silence still vibrating metallic undertones.
Prowling from window to window, Warner, pistol lifted, peered warily
from the shelter of the lowered lattice blinds.
One man still crouched behind the poplar tree; the other, he thought,
was lying in the long grass of the roadside ditch.
"Are you all right, Halkett?" he called back through the stinging fumes
of the smokeless powder which filled the hallway.
"Quite fit, thanks. How is it with you?"
"Still gayly on the job. I didn't hit anybody. I didn't try to."

"Nor I. Did you ever see such obstinacy and determination? Very
German, isn't it?"
"Perfectly.... They're keeping rather too quiet to suit me. What do you
suppose they're up to?"
But neither he nor the Englishman could discover any movement or
hear any sound around the house. And it had now become too dark to see
anything very clearly.
Philippa appeared mounting the stairs, looking for Ariadne who had
scrambled out of her arms during the fusillade.
Warner nodded to her from where he was standing guard. She came up
quietly behind him, stood for a moment with both hands around his left arm
—a silent figure in the dusk, friendly as a well-bred dog, and as winningly
unconscious of self. Her cheek, resting lightly against her hands, where they
clasped his arm, pressed a trifle closer before she went away.
And while he stood there, perplexedly conscious of this youthful
affection, and listening to every slightest sound, suddenly he heard her
voice, startled, calling out to him from a bedroom on the east side of the
house.
As he entered the room, running, a man outside on a garden ladder
kicked in the window panes, drew back his heavy foot, sent it crashing
again through the wooden frame, and lurched forward across the sill, only
to be held there, fighting, in the grasp of Philippa.
Behind them another man on the ladder was already struggling to fling
his leg over the sill; the head and shoulders of a third appeared just behind
him, menacing with uplifted pistol any interference.
Already Philippa had been dragged headlong half-way through the
shattered window, and the man whom she had seized was endeavoring to
fling her down in the flower bed below, when Warner, leaping forward, hit

him heavily in the face and caught the girl's shoulders, jerking her back into
the room as her assailant's grasp on her waist relaxed.
The man with the pistol had not been able to use it; he staggered, his
weapon fell, and he clung with both hands to the rungs as Philippa's
assaulter went tumbling down the ladder, carrying with him the man
directly behind him. And the next moment Warner had upset the ladder,
sprung back, and pulled Philippa with him down on the floor.
A hurricane of bullets swept through the shattered window above
them; Halkett, from his latticed vantage, was firing, too.
The girl lay panting beside him, silent, her head across his arm.
"Are you hurt?" he whispered.
"Are you?"
"No; answer me!" he repeated impatiently.
"He was—very rough. I don't think I am hurt," she breathed.
"You plucky little thing!"
She pressed her cheek against his arm.
"Are you contented with me?" she whispered.
The shots had ceased. After a long interval of quiet, Warner ventured
to creep to the window and look through a corner of the ragged lattice blind.
Little by little he raised himself to his knees, peered out and finally over.
The ladder lay there just below in the garden path; the men were gone.
And, even as he looked, the staccato noise of departing motor cycles broke
out like a startling volley of rifle fire in the night.
For an hour he stood on guard there, with the girl Philippa crouching
beside him on the floor. From time to time he called cautiously:
"All well here!"
And the Englishman from the front windows always answered:
"All well here!"

Finally:
"Halkett!" he called. "I believe they've cut away for good!"
Halkett presently appeared in the hallway, coming from the front of the
house, as Philippa rose to her knees and stood up, a trifle dazed.
"Warner," he whispered, "a dozen horsemen have just ridden up in
front of our house. They look like French gendarmes to me, but it's so dark
outside that I am not quite certain. Will you take a look at them?"
Warner ran to the front and gazed out. The road below was filled with
mounted gendarmes, their white aiguillettes plainly visible in the dark.
Two had already descended from their horses, and while one held an
electric torch the other was busily nailing a big placard to the front door of
the inn. His hammer strokes rang out sharply in the darkness.
It took only a moment for him to complete his business; the electric
torch shifted, flashed upward, was extinguished.
"Mount!" came the quick order from the shadowy peloton of
horsemen; up on their high saddles popped the two troopers; there came a
trample of hoofs, the dull clank of sabres, and away they galloped into the
darkness.
Warner turned slowly, looked hard at Halkett, who merely nodded in
reply to the silent question.
Philippa slipped downstairs in front of them and began to unlatch the
door, as Linette and Magda appeared from the kitchen carrying lighted
candles.
Then, when the front door had swung open, the little group gathered in
front of it and read on the placard, by flickering candlelight, the decree of
the Government of Republican France.
It was the order for general mobilization.
The nation was already at war.

CHAPTER XIII

A pale streak of daybreak along the eastern hills, a blackbird piping, then
that intense stillness which heralds the sun.
In mid-heaven the last star-drops melted, washed out in the grey silver
of the sky; a light breeze sighed through the trees, and, sighing, died.
Then, above earth, a sudden misty glory of gold and rose; and through
it, as through a veil, the sword-edge of the celestial scimitar curved up,
glittering.
Thus dawned the year of war on Saïs.
But the awakening world of summer did not seem to comprehend; the
yellow-haired lad who drove his cows to pasture halted to read the placard
on the door of the inn, then, whistling his dog to heel, ran forward after his
slowly moving herd.
The miller of Saïs drove by on his way to the mill, drew rein to read
the placard, looked up at the bullet-shattered window above, then jogged
on, his furrowed features unaltered, his aged eyes fixed on his horse's ears.
One or two washerwomen on the way to the meadow pool stood
gracefully regarding the poster, flat baskets of clothes balanced on their
heads; then moved on through the golden sunrise, still graceful, unhurried,
exchanging leisurely comments on life and death as they walked.
In the kitchen of the Golden Peach, Magda was astir, and presently
Linette appeared, very sleepy. As they went about the routine business to
which they had been bred, they too exchanged tranquil views concerning
emperors and kings and the mortality of all flesh. Also they took counsel
together regarding the return of Madame Arlon, the ultimate necessity of

summoning a glazier from Ausone, the damage done in the garden by the
ladder.
The door of Philippa's bedroom remained closed; Warner's door also.
But Halkett, his hands in his pockets, was out at sunrise, pacing the road in
front of the inn, sometimes looking up at the shot-riddled windows, or at the
placard on the front door, or along the road at the telephone wires which
appeared to be intact as far as he could see.
But somewhere they had been cut, and communication still remained
interrupted.
Deeply worried over the non-appearance of Gray, the cutting of the
telephone wires now became a matter of serious concern to him. He
scarcely knew how to act in his sudden isolation, and, though his
instructions held him at Saïs until further orders, the decree for general
mobilization would have started him off for Paris except for one thing. That
was the continued absence of Gray and the possibility that something
alarming had happened to him.
He could not take his envelope and start for England until he had met
Gray or some authorized messenger from Gray. He had not explained this to
Warner.
But the truth was that what plans he carried were useless without the
interlocking plans carried by Gray. All the eggs had not been trusted to a
single basket. And, vice versa, the information carried by Gray was of no
practical account until supplemented by the contents of the long, thin
envelope.
Gray's papers and his, taken together, were of vital importance to
England or to any enemy of England; separate they could be of no use to
anybody, enemy or ally.

The determined attack on him the night before proved that others
besides himself understood this. And it also made him realize the more
clearly that since he had parted from Gray in Antwerp, the latter had been as
open to such attacks as had he. The question now was: had they caught
Gray? If so, it must have occurred within the last thirty-six hours, because
he had talked over the telephone to Gray the evening of his own arrival at
Saïs.
But since that conversation, which ended with the understanding that
Gray should set out on his motor cycle for Saïs, not a word had he heard
concerning his colleague, except that his cap had been found on the road
south of Saïs, and that the condition of the roadside bank, and a few drops
of blood, gave evidence of an accident—if, indeed, it had been an accident.
Nor had Halkett any idea who it was that had called him up on the
telephone to tell him this.
As he stood there, looking down the road, terribly perplexed and filled
with keenest apprehensions concerning his colleague, far away through the
vista of poplars and telephone poles something white glimmered in the
sunlit road.
It was the white cornette of a Sister of Charity; after a few minutes
Halkett recognized the advancing figure and walked forward to meet her.
The color of early morning freshened her youthful cheeks, framed by
the snowy wimple. She extended a friendly hand to him in salutation, as he
came up and uncovered.
"At such an hour, Monsieur, only birds and Sisters of Charity are
supposed to be on the wing. Is it curiosity that has awakened you to see
how the sun really looks when it rises?"
But as she spoke she detected the deep anxiety which his smile
masked, and her own face became responsively serious.

"Have you had bad news?" she asked gently.
"Worse—I have had no news at all. Are you going to the inn?"
"Yes."
"May I help you gather your flowers?" he asked.
"Thank you—if you care to."
They walked on in silence, skirted the garden wall westward, then
north to the bullet-splintered green door.
Immediately she noticed the scars of the fusillade, gazed at them
curiously for a moment, then laid a questioning forefinger across a bullet
hole.
And while she stood so, he told her in a few words what had occurred
the night before—told her everything, including the posting of the notice
ordering a general mobilization.
She listened, her finger still resting over the shot hole, her calm face
raised to his. And, when he ended:
"Then it is war already," she said quietly.
"War has not been declared.... Yes, it is virtually war. Why not say so?"
She nodded; he pushed open the heavy little door, and Sister Eila bent
her white-coiffed head and stepped lightly into the garden.
For a while she moved slowly along the flower-bordered paths, as
though uncertain what to choose from among the perfumed thickets, then,
setting her ozier basket on the edge of the walk, she knelt down before the
white clove pinks; and Halkett dropped on his knees beside her.
They worked there together, exchanging scarcely a word, slowly filling
the basket which lay between them.
Ariadne came up with a cheery mew of greeting, and after marching
around and rubbing herself against Halkett, mounted to his shoulders and
settled down, purring like a teakettle beside his ear.

When the basket was filled, Sister Eila stood up and straightened her
shoulders, and Halkett rose too, the cat still perched on his shoulder.
He lifted the flower-heaped basket and set it in the shade of the arbor;
Sister Eila seated herself and Halkett sat down on the stone steps at her feet.
After a silence, made resonant with Ariadne's loudly cadenced purring,
Sister Eila clasped her hands in her lap and looked steadily down at the
heap of flowers in the green ozier basket.
"What is going to happen?" she asked in a low voice. "If there is to be
a war, it will come here, I suppose."
"I am afraid so."
"Yes; Saïs cannot escape."
"The Vosges are too near," he nodded. "So is Ausone. So is the Rhine,
for that matter." He glanced up at her from where he sat caressing Ariadne.
"Belgium also is too near, Sister Eila."
"You believe they will arrive that way?"
"I feel very certain of it. And this means that England moves."
"Where?"
"To the firing line."
"With France?"
"Yes, Sister."
She said quietly:
"That is as it should be, Mr. Halkett. The two great wardens of
European liberty should stand together in its defense."
"They've got to stand for each other," he said, "—whatever else they
stand for."
"Alsace—Lorraine—I think this is to be a very holy war—for France,"
she murmured to herself.

He said nothing. He was not very clear concerning the exact amount of
holiness involved, but he knew that war had now become a necessity to
England, if she meant to retain the autocracy of the seas.
"We're bound to go in," he remarked, stroking Ariadne; "there's
nothing else left for us to do. And if they don't give us an excuse by
invading Belgium, we'll go in anyway. That's the meaning of all this! It has
only one real meaning. The 'Day' they've been drinking to so long is—
Today! This entire matter has got to be settled once and for all. And that's
the truth, Sister Eila."
He sat for a while silent, gazing out across the quiet garden. Then,
again:
"As for Saïs, if there is an invasion of France, it must pass this way: if
the Vosges are to be defended, Saïs will see war."
"That will be very sad for us," she said. "It seems as though there were
already enough violence and misery in the quarries—enough of
wretchedness and poverty. If the quarrymen are called to the colors with
their classes, and if the quarries and cement works close, I don't know what
is to become of our school."
"You said that it is a free school."
"Yes, but the children live elsewhere, and are clothed and fed
elsewhere. Except at noontime, we do not feed them. If we had money to
provide beds and food, the school is large enough to shelter the children.
However, I suppose we shall hear from the rue de Bac—the mother house,
you know?"
She rose, picked up her basket of flowers, and Halkett also stood up.
"Good-by," she said. "Thank you for helping.... I—I suppose you do
not remain very long in Saïs?"
"I don't know how long."

She inclined her young head gravely.
They walked together to the green door in the wall, and again her eyes
became riveted on the bullet marks.
"Perhaps," she said, "you will have time to—to come to the school
again before you leave Saïs? ... Unless you think it dangerous——"
He looked up, then away from her.
"I'll come—to the school."
"Then—it is au revoir, I hope."
He stood uncovered, holding open the door, and, as she passed in front
of him, he took from her basket a white clove pink. She saw what he did,
and halted instinctively to give him his choice. Suddenly, without any
reason, her cheeks flushed brightly; she bent her head and stepped quickly
through the archway, leaving him standing there with the dull color
deepening in his sun-tanned face.
Warner discovered him still standing where she had left him, the white
blossom hanging from his clenched fist.
"Well," he said, "how did you sleep after that villainous business of
last night?"
"Thanks, I slept," replied Halkett, rousing himself.
They went into the arbor together, and presently Linette came out of
the house carrying their coffee.
"Where is your little friend Philippa?" inquired the Englishman with an
effort.
"In bed, I fancy. Linette has just taken up her café-au-lait. I think the
child is feeling the reaction."
"No wonder. Plucky little thing!"
"Yes. But what on earth am I going to do with her, Halkett? Ought I to
wait until that old scoundrel Wildresse comes here or telephones? Ought I

to try to persuade her to go back to that cabaret? Ought I to telephone that
she is safe here?"
"The wires are cut."
"I know. Somebody will fix them, though. Do you think I'd better try
to persuade Philippa to let me drive her over to Ausone in the trap? If I'm to
keep her, I ought to have an interview with Wildresse, or she and I will get
into trouble."
"Oh, Lord!" said Halkett. "That's your affair. Listen, Warner, I'm so
worried about Gray I can't think of anything else. Something serious
certainly has happened to him. And until those wires are repaired, I shan't
know what to do. Is there any other way we can communicate with
Ausone?"
"None that I know of, unless somebody goes over to Ausone. I can do
that if you like. I can drive over in the trap. Of course the telephone people
already know that there's a break on the line, and no doubt they're out now
looking for it. We'll be in communication with Ausone by noon, I expect."
For a little while they exchanged views concerning the attack of the
previous night, and Halkett was of the opinion that the order for
mobilization would now restrain any further violence on the part of those
who had been following him, if, indeed, it did not entirely clear them out of
France. And he expressed a desire for the envelope.
So Warner went into the house, lifted the partly hardened skin of white
lead from the canvas, disinterred the envelope, wiped it clean, and brought
it out to Halkett. The Englishman put it into his breast pocket.
"It was perfectly safe where it was," remarked the other. "It's an
invitation to murder where it is now."
"Yes, but it's no good to anybody unless Gray turns up. I wish I knew
what had become of that man. I think I'll try the telephone again——"

He rose and walked swiftly toward the house, Ariadne trotting at his
heels. Even as he approached, he heard the telephone bell ringing, and
hastened his steps toward the house.
But as he entered, the girl Philippa stepped into the hallway, and he
caught a glimpse of a slim, barefooted figure, holding with one hand the
folds of a shabby chamber robe around her, and with the other the receiver.
"What?" she cried in answer to a question. "Yes, I am Philippa.... Oh!
It's you. I thought so.... What do you desire of me?"
What Wildresse desired of the girl Philippa intimately concerned
Halkett. He coolly remained to listen.
"No!" she said in her clear, emotionless voice. "I shall not come back!
... Very well; if the Government agents want me, they can find me here....
You may threaten me with arrest by the Government if you choose, but I
know that you are more afraid of the Government than I am.... Why
shouldn't I say it! Yes, I know quite well that we are going to have war....
You say that the Germans are already across the Duchy? Skirmishing before
Longwy? Very well; why don't you inform one of your Governments? ...
No, I won't keep quiet! No, no, no! ... What you say does not frighten me....
I refuse to return! ... Because I am now in an honest business for myself....
Yes, it is an honest business. I am permitted to pose for an artist of great
distinction.... What you say does not frighten me; but what you are does
cause me some apprehension. And knowing as much as I do know about
you, I seriously advise you to leave France.... No, I haven't said such a thing
to anybody else, but I am likely to, so you had better hasten to leave for
America. Yes, I will tell you why, if you wish. It is because there are always
two millstones when anything is to be crushed. War is now beginning to
bring those two stones together. The mill wheel already is turning! When
the two millstones meet, the little meal worm that has remained between

them so long in safety is going to be crushed.... Oh, yes, you do know what
I mean! You also know whom I mean. Very well, then, if you don't I'll tell
you this much: double wages never are paid by a single master. I learned
that yesterday when you gave me the wrong paper to forward to Paris with
the others. Fortunately for you, I read it. I then burnt it to ashes and took my
clothes and my punt and my departure! I might have continued to endure
what you had accustomed me to. But two masters! Faugh! The horror of it!
... Fear? If you really think that of me, then you have never really known
me. It was disgust and shame that drove me toward liberty.... Yes, this that I
say is final.... You dare not interfere! ... Then I'll say this: if you do not
leave France now, at once, in this moment of her peril, I will tell what I
know to the first soldier of France who crosses my path! ... I am not afraid
of you, I tell you.... Believe me, you are well rid of me.... I warn you, in
God's name, to let me alone!"
She hung up the receiver, turned, and mounted the stairs with flying
feet, but at the top landing Halkett's quiet voice halted her.
"I was listening, Philippa. What that man says or does may cost me
dear. What did he want of you?"
"Mr. Halkett," leaning swiftly toward him over the handrail above
—"he is the most ignoble of creatures! And after five years I learned only
yesterday that he sells his filthy secrets in two markets!—Three, perhaps; I
don't know how many! And I no longer care! It ceases to interest me!"
"Wait! It interests me!"
"But I can't say any more to you than I have——"
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Can I? You know better than I. But I don't wish to
betray anybody, even such a man as—as——"
"Wildresse?"

"Yes."
"Is he also betraying France?"
"I—I don't know. I suppose it is that. I haven't yet tried to comprehend
it——"
"What was the paper you started to forward, then read, and finally
burned?"
"It was a letter directed to a Mr. Esser. He is a German."
"The head of the Esser Cement Works?"
"Yes."
"What was in the letter?"
"A list of the guns in the Ausone Fort and a plan of the emplacements
on tissue paper.... Perhaps I am stupid, but I could guess what a German
wanted with a plan of a French fort! It was enough for me! I took my punt
and my effects and I departed!"
"You burnt the letter?"
"In my candle. Also, I wrote on a piece of paper, 'You damned traitor!'
and I pinned it on his door. Then I went out by the garden door with my
leather trunk on my head!"
"Come down when you are dressed," said Halkett, and walked back
through the hallway to the garden.
"Warner," he said, "this old spider, Wildresse, is certainly a bad lot. I'd
have him arrested by French gendarmes if I were certain that England is
going in. But I dare not chance it until I'm sure. Perhaps I dare not chance it
at all, because if he has had anything to do with Gray's disappearance, as I
am beginning to suspect, it would not do to have the French authorities
examine my papers."
"Why?"

"Because—if they have already seized Gray's papers, they will secure
military information which perhaps my Government might not care to have
even an ally possess. I don't know whether Gray is living or dead; I don't
know who has Gray's papers at this instant. That's the trouble. And I'm
hanged if I know what to do! I'm stumped, and that's the devilish truth!"
He took a few quick, uncertain steps along the flower beds, turned,
came back to the arbor where Warner was seated:
"It's a mess!" he said. "Even if agents employed by Wildresse have
robbed Gray—murdered him, perhaps, to do it—I don't know what
Wildresse means to do with Gray's papers."
"What!"
Halkett nodded:
"Yes, he's that kind! Pleasant, isn't it? If he has Gray's papers, it may
be France that will pay him for them; it may be that Germany has already
bought and paid for them. In either case, carrying the papers I carry, I
hesitate to ask for his arrest. Do you understand?"
"Very clearly. If there is any way you can think of to get hold of this
scoundrel, I'll be glad to help. Shall we drive over to Ausone and try?"
"You're very kind, Warner. I don't know; I want to think it over——"
He turned and walked back to the house, entered the hallway, unhooked the
telephone, and finally was given a connection—not the one he had asked
for.
A voice said curtly:
"During mobilization no private messages are transmitted." Click! And
the connection was severed. Again and again he made the attempt; no
further attention was paid to his ringing. Finally he hung up the receiver and
started to go out through the front doorway.

As he crossed the threshold, a young man in tweeds rode up on a
bicycle, stepped off, and, lifting his cap to Halkett, said politely:
"Monsieur Halkett, if you please? Is he still residing here at the Golden
Peach?"
Halkett's right hand dropped carelessly into the side pocket of his coat.
When he had cocked his automatic, he said pleasantly:
"I am Mr. Halkett."
The young man said smilingly, in perfect English:
"Do you expect a friend, Mr. Halkett?"
"Perhaps."
"Possibly you expect a Mr. Reginald Gray?"
"Possibly."
"He has been injured."
"Really?"
"Yes, rather seriously. He lost control of his motor cycle two nights
ago. He was on his way to join you here."
"Indeed?"
"So he told me before he became unconscious."
"Is he still unconscious?"
"No, but he is too weak to move."
"Where is he?"
"At my house, in Bois d'Avril. I was motoring that evening, and I
found him in the road, insensible. So I lifted him into my car, slung his
motor cycle on behind, and went top speed for home. He's in my own house
in Bois d'Avril. The physician thinks he will recover."
"What is your telephone number?" asked Halkett bluntly.
The young man gave it, adding that the transmission of private
messages had, unfortunately, been suspended during mobilization. Which

Halkett knew to be true.
"Very well," he said, "I shall go to Bois d'Avril at once——"
"It is not necessary; I have a message for you, and some papers from
Mr. Gray."
"Really?"
The young man smiled, drew from his inner pocket a long, thin
envelope, and handed it to Halkett. The latter held it in his hand, looking
steadily into the stranger's pleasant face for a full minute, then he coolly
opened the envelope.
Inside were the missing papers concerning the Harkness shell,
complete.
There could be no doubt concerning their identity; he recognized them
at a glance. A deep sigh of relief escaped him.
He said:
"There's no use trying to thank you——"
"It's quite all right," interrupted the young man smilingly. "If you don't
mind offering me a drink—the road over was rather dusty——"
"Leave your wheel there and come in!" exclaimed Halkett cordially,
stepping aside in the doorway.
The young man laid his bicycle against the steps, turned with a smile,
and entered the doorway.
As he passed, he turned like lightning and struck Halkett full between
the eyes with his clenched fist.

CHAPTER XIV

The terrific impact of the blow sent Halkett reeling across the threshold.
Partly stunned, he caught at the banisters, groping instinctively for the
pistol. And already he had contrived to drag it clear of his side pocket when
another blow sent him staggering back against the stair rail; the pistol flew
out of his hand and went spinning down the hallway over the polished floor.
As Halkett crashed into the banisters and fell full length, Philippa, in
her red skirt and bodice, appeared on the stairs above.
The young man, who had dropped on his knees beside Halkett, and
who had already torn open his coat, caught sight of the girl as she flew past
him down the stairs; and he leaped to his feet to intercept her.
On the newel-post stood a tall, wrought-iron lamp. As he blocked her
way she hesitated an instant, then threw all her weight against the heavy
metal standard, pushing with both hands; and the iron lamp swayed forward
and fell.
As the young man leaped clear of the falling fixture, Philippa vaulted
the stair rail into the hallway below. He saw instantly what she was after;
both sprang forward to snatch the pistol.
As she stooped for it and seized it, he caught her arm; and she twisted
around on him, beating his head and breast with her free hand while he
strove desperately to master the outstretched arm which still clutched
Halkett's pistol.
To and fro they swayed over the slippery floor of the hallway, until he
forced back her arm to the breaking point. Then the pistol clattered to the
floor.
Instantly she kicked it under a tall secretary, where the register was
kept. Holding her at arm's length with one hand, he managed to drag the
heavy piece of furniture on its casters away from the wall far enough to
uncover the pistol.

As he stooped for the weapon, she tore herself free, kicked it away
from beneath his fingers, which already touched it, and, wrenching a
framed engraving from the wall behind her, hurled it at him with both
hands.
He leaped nimbly aside to avoid it, but another picture followed, and
then a mantel clock and two vases went smashing against the secretary
behind which he had taken shelter. And suddenly she seized the secretary
itself, and with one supreme effort tipped it over toward him, driving him
again from cover and from the vicinity of the weapon they both were
fighting to secure.
As the big oak secretary fell, and the glass doors crashed into splinters,
she stooped, snatched Halkett's pistol from the floor, and crept forward
along the base of the staircase. But the young man had whipped out a
revolver of his own, and was now standing astride of Halkett's body,
panting, speechless, but menacing her with gesture and weapon.
She shrank aside and crouched low under the staircase, resting there,
disheveled, bleeding, half naked, struggling for breath, but watching his
every movement out of brilliant, implacable eyes.
Every time he ventured to bend down over Halkett, or make the
slightest motion toward the fallen man's breast pockets, Philippa stopped
his operations with leveled pistol, forcing him to spring to his feet again.
Suddenly, behind him in the doorway, appeared Magda and Linette,
coming from the meadow across the road, carrying between them a basket
of freshly washed linen. Like a flash he turned on them and drove them
back and out of doors at the point of his weapon, then whirled about, aimed
full at Philippa, slammed and bolted the front door behind him, and,
covering her with his revolver, ran forward to the foot of the stairs, where
his victim still lay unconscious. Catching the senseless man by the sleeve,

he strove desperately to rip the coat from the inert body, while keeping his
revolver pointed at Philippa's hiding place under the stairs.
As he stood there, tugging furiously at the fallen man's coat, into the
rear of the hallway ran Warner, his automatic lifted. Both men fired at the
same instant, and the intruder dropped Halkett's arm. Then he ran for the
stairway. Up the stairs he leaped, shooting back at Warner as he mounted to
the landing above; and the American sped after him, followed by Philippa,
as far as the foot of the stairway.
Here Warner hesitated for a few moments, then he began cautiously to
negotiate the stairway, creeping step by step with infinite precaution.
When at last he had disappeared on the landing above, Philippa,
listening breathlessly below, heard Halkett stir and then groan.
As she turned, the Englishman lifted himself on one elbow, fumbled
instinctively in his breast pockets, and drew out two envelopes.
"Take them to Sister Eila!—Hurry, Philippa——" He passed a shaking
hand across his eyes, swayed to a sitting posture, caught at the stair rail, and
dragged himself to his feet.
"Give me that pistol," he muttered. She handed it to him; he groped in
his pockets for a few moments, found a clip, reloaded, and, reeling slightly,
walked with her aid as far as the front door. Philippa opened it for him.
"Where is this man?" he asked vaguely.
"Mr. Warner followed him upstairs."
He pressed his hand over his battered head, nodded, extended the two
envelopes to her.
"Sister Eila," he repeated.
Philippa took the papers; he straightened his shoulders with a visible
effort; then, steadying himself by the handrail, he started to ascend the
stairs.

The girl watched him mount slowly to the landing above, saw him
disappear, stood listening a moment longer.
Magda and Linette came stealing into the hallway; Philippa pointed to
the telephone.
"Call the gendarmes at Ausone!" she whispered. "I must go to——"
A shot from above cut her short. All three women stood gazing up at
the landing in startled silence.
"Quick—the telephone! The gendarmerie!" cried Philippa.
Magda ran to the box; and at the same instant a man climbed over the
stair well, dropped to the hallway below, swung around on Magda, pushed
her violently from the telephone, and, seizing the receiver, ripped it out by
the roots.
Philippa had already turned and slipped through the doorway, both
envelopes tightly clutched in her hand. Directly in her path stood the
intruder's bicycle; and she seized the handles, righted it, and leaped into the
saddle before he could reach the front door.
He ran up the road behind her for a little distance, but she had already
found her balance and was increasing her speed over the smooth, white
highway. Then the young man halted, carefully leveled his revolver,
steadied his aim with his left elbow, and, standing in mid-road, he
deliberately directed a stream of lead after the crouching fugitive.
The last bullet from his magazine sent her veering widely from her
path; the machine sheered in a half-circle, staggered, slid down into the
grassy ditch, flinging the girl off sideways among the weeds.
Philippa got up slowly, as though dazed or hurt. The young man
hurried forward, reloading his weapon as he ran, but a shot from behind
warned him away from the trail of the limping girl, who was now trying to
escape on foot.

Whirling in his tracks, he stood for a second glaring at Halkett and
Warner, who were advancing, shooting as they came on; then, with a savage
glance at Philippa, he fired at her once more, turned, mounted the roadside
bank in a single leap, and ran swiftly along the hedge, evidently looking for
an opening into the field beyond.
When he found one, he wriggled through and was off like a hare,
across the fields and headed for the river, before Halkett and Warner could
discover his avenue of escape. Checked for a few moments, they ranged the
thorny hedge up and down, like baffled beagles. They had overrun the trail.
Warner was already within speaking distance of Philippa when the girl
hailed him.
"Are you hurt?" he called across to her, where she stood knee-deep
among the roadside weeds, trying to draw together the points of her torn
bodice, to cover her throat and shoulders.
"The tire burst. I have a few scratches!"
"Did he get the papers?" shouted Halkett.
She drew both envelopes from her bosom, and shook them high with a
gesture of defiance. Then, replacing them, she made a funnel of her hands
and called out to them:
"He crawled under the hedge by that third telephone pole behind you!
You have come too far this way! No—the other pole! Wait a moment, Mr.
Warner——"
Still calling out her directions in her clear, calm voice, she started to
limp down the road toward them; and Warner glanced back at her for a
moment; then he suddenly flung up his arm and shouted:
"Philippa! Look out for that car behind you!"
The girl turned, saw the automobile coming, stepped aside into the
ditch as a cloud of white dust obscured her.

Before she realized that the car had stopped, three men had jumped out
into the ditch and caught hold of her.
Warner heard her cry out; started to run toward her; saw her flung
struggling into the car; saw Wildresse rise and strike her with his great fist
and knock her headlong across the back seat, where she lay, her disheveled
head hanging down over the rear of the tonneau. Then the car started. As
she hung there, blood dripping from her mouth, she reached blindly toward
her breast, drew out the envelopes, and dropped them in the wake of the
moving car.
They fluttered along behind it for a moment, drawn into the dusty
suction, then they were whirled away right and left into the roadside
ditches.
Evidently nobody in the car except Philippa knew what she had done,
for the car, at top speed, dashed on toward the north.
Halkett ran up and found Warner gazing vacantly after the receding
machine, pistol leveled, but not daring to shoot. Then they both saw
Wildresse jerk the half senseless girl upright, saw him strike her again with
the flat of his huge hand so heavily that she crumpled and dropped back
into the corner of the seat.
"God!" whispered Halkett at Warner's elbow. "Did you see that?"
Warner, as white as death, made no reply. The ear had vanished, but he
still stood there staring at the distant cloud of dust settling slowly in the
highway. Presently Halkett walked forward, picked up the two envelopes,
pocketed them, and returned swiftly to where the American still stood, his
grim features set, the red stain from his bitten lip streaking his chin.
"Warner?"
"Yes?" he answered steadily.
"We'd better start after that man at once."

"Certainly."
Halkett said:
"Have your horse hooked up as soon as you can.... I think——" His
voice trembled, but he controlled it. "I am horribly afraid for that child....
He would cut her throat if he dared."
Warner turned a ghastly visage to his companion:
"Why do you say that?"
"Because she knows enough about him to send him before a firing
squad," said Halkett. "That's the trouble, Warner."
They turned and walked rapidly toward the inn.
Warner spoke presently in an altered voice, but with the mechanical
precision of a man afraid of emotion and any wavering of self-control.
"I'm going to Ausone at once to find her.... Wherever I find her I shall
take her.... It makes no difference to me who objects. She is going to have
her chance in life.... I shall see to that."
Halkett drew a deep breath:
"Did you ever hear of such a plucky battle as she gave that rascal after
he got me? I never shall forget what she has done."
They entered the front door of the inn, almost running; Warner
continued on toward the garden and the stable beyond; Halkett halted at the
telephone, gazed grimly at the ruined instrument, realized that he was again
isolated, and called impatiently to Linette who, with Magda, was gathering
up and sweeping aside the debris of the wrecked furniture.
"Linette," he said, "would you do something to help me?"
"Willingly, Monsieur."
"Go to the school; say to Sister Eila that I am in real need of her. Ask
her if she could come here at once, because I cannot go to her."

The girl nodded, turned, and went out rapidly by the front way. Halkett
hastened upstairs to his room.
When again he returned, the dogcart had just driven up, and Warner sat
waiting in silence, reins and whip in hand.
But Halkett had a letter to write before he could start; and it was slow
work, because the letter must be written in a cipher, the key to which was
the solar spectrum and the three metallic symbols.
He had scarcely completed his letter when Sister Eila and Linette
entered the hallway together.
The Sister of Charity caught sight of him through the doorway as he
rose from his seat in the empty dining-room; and she instantly went to him.
He thanked Linette, closed the door, and turned to Sister Eila.
"There's nobody else I can trust," he said. "Will you help me?"
"You know I will."
He drew the two envelopes from his breast pocket and handed them to
her in silence. Then he laid on the table the letter which he had just, written.
"I am obliged to go to Ausone," he said. "It will take me several hours,
I suppose, to go, attend to my business, and return. Could you remain here
at the inn until I can get back?"
"Yes. Sister Félicité is with the children."
"Then this is what you must know and prepare for. If, while I am away,
a man should come here and ask for me, you will show him this letter lying
on the table, and you will say to him that I left it here for a man whom I
have been expecting. You will stand here and watch him while he is reading
this letter. If he really can read it, then he will ask for pen and ink, and he
will change the punctuation of what I have written on the envelope: 'Ibis,
redibis non, morieris in bello.' As I have punctuated it, it means: 'Thou shalt
go, thou shalt not return, thou shalt die in battle.'

"So if he can read what is inside the envelope, he will erase the comma
after the word non, and insert a comma after the word redibis. And the
translation will then read: 'Thou shalt go, thou shalt return, thou shalt not
die in battle.' Is all this quite clear to you, Sister?"
"Perfectly."
"Then, if a man comes here and asks for me, and if you see that he
really has understood the letter which is written in cipher, then, after he has
repunctuated what I have written, give him the other two envelopes which I
have entrusted to you.
"Will you do this for—France, Sister Eila?"
"Yes"—she lifted her grave young eyes—"for France."
Through the open dining-room window Sister Eila watched his
departure, smiling her adieux as the two men turned toward her and
uncovered.
Then she seated herself by the window sill and rested her cheek on her
palm, gazing out at the blue sky with vague, enraptured eyes that saw a
vision of beatitude perhaps, perhaps the glimmering aura of an earthly
martyrdom, in the summer sunshine.
And possibly a vision less holy invaded her tranquil trance, for she
suddenly straightened her young shoulders, picked up the crucifix at her
girdle, and gazed upon it rather fixedly.
The color slowly cooled in her cheeks till they were as white as the
spotless wimple that framed them in its snowy oval.
After a while rosary and crucifix fell between her relaxing hands, and
she looked up at the blue foothills of the Vosges with bluer eyes.
The next moment she sprang to her feet, startled. Over the sparkling
hills came sailing through the summer sky a gigantic bird—the most

enormous winged creature she had ever beheld. A moment later the high
clatter of the aëroplane became audible.

CHAPTER XV

Wheeling in spirals now above the river meadow, the great, man-made bird
of prey turned and turned, hanging aloft in the sky like a giant hawk,
sweeping in vast circles through the blinding blue, as though searching
every clump and tussock in the fields below for some hidden enemy or
victim.
Louder and louder came the rattling clatter from the sky, nearer
swooped the great plane on wide-stretched wings, until, close to the earth, it
seemed to sheer the very grass blades in the meadow, and the deafening
racket of its engines echoed and reëchoed, filling the world with outrageous
and earsplitting noise.
Sister Eila had gone to the front door; Magda and Linette stood behind
her. And they saw the aëroplane alight in the meadow and a hooded figure,
masked in glass and leather, step out, turn its goblin head toward the inn,
then start rapidly toward them across the fields.
He was a tall thin man, and as he crossed the highroad and came
toward them, he lifted the glass and leather mask and drew it back above his
closely-fitting hood.
When he saluted Sister Eila's habit, he came to a full halt and his heels
clicked together. Then he spoke in French, pleasantly, perfectly:
"Mr. Halkett, if you please, Sister. Is he still residing here?"
"Monsieur Halkett has left."

"Oh, I am sorry. Was not Monsieur Halkett expecting a messenger?"
"Have you a message for Monsieur Halkett?"
The airman twisted his pointed, blond mustache:
"I expected that Monsieur Halkett would have a packet for me. Did he
leave none?"
"He left a letter," said Sister Eila.
He bowed ceremoniously:
"Would you be kind enough?"
"Will you not enter?"
"I thank you. If I may be permitted to remain here——" He had kept
continually glancing up and down the road while speaking; and it was
evident that he preferred to remain where he could watch the highway both
ways.
So Sister Eila brought the letter to him, and he bowed again with tight-
waisted ceremony, pocketed it, and asked again for the packet.
"Wait, if you please," she said. "The letter was to be read in my
presence."
"A thousand pardons! I had not understood——"
He drew the sheets of paper from the unsealed envelope, glanced
sharply up and down the highroad, then unfolded the letter.
Sister Eila's eyes were fixed on his face, but his features exhibited no
emotion whatever.
Every few moments he looked up and down the road, then bent his
pleasantly expressionless face again over the sheets in his gloved hands.
Presently he looked up with a smile:
"I have read it and I understand it. Would you be kind enough to give
me the packet which Monsieur Halkett writes that he has left for me?"

"Please read first what is written on the envelope of this letter," said
Sister Eila very calmly.
He turned over the envelope, read the inscription in Latin, smiled as he
read it.
"Rather an ominous message, is it not, Sister?"
"Do you think so?"
He glanced sharply to right and left, then, still smiling, he read aloud:
"Thou shalt go, thou shalt not return, thou shalt die in battle——"
He turned his head with a jerk and gazed down the road as though
suddenly startled; at the same instant Sister Eila snatched the letter from his
fingers, sprang inside the house, and slammed the door.
As she bolted it, he threw his weight against it for a moment, then
turned and ran for the meadow where the aëroplane stood.
From a window Sister Eila saw him climb aboard; saw the machine
move, run over the ground like a great beetle, and rise from the grass,
pointing upward and eastward as it took wing and soared low over the river.
And down the highway, pell-mell, galloped a dozen gendarmes in a
storm of dust and flying pebbles, wheeled in front of the inn, put their
superb horses to the ditch and the cattle gate beyond, and, clearing both,
went tearing away across the fields after the rising aëroplane.
Over the river bank they galloped, straight into the water, their big,
powerful horses wading, thrashing, swimming across; then they were up the
opposite bank and over and away, racing after the ascending aëroplane.
From it was coming a redoubled rattle now; machine and machine gun
were both spitting fiercely as the winged thing fought upward toward the
blue zone of safety.
The gendarmes drew bridle now and began to shoot upward from their
saddles, then spurred on across the fields, taking ditches and hedges as they

came, until the strange chase was hidden by a distant rise of ground and the
quarry alone remained visible, high winging, still rising, still pointed
eastward toward the Rhine.
Then, far away across the hills, a heavier shot set the August air
vibrating—another, another, others following.
Faster and faster cracked the high-angle guns on the Barrier Forts,
strewing the sky with shrapnel; the aëroplane soared and soared, leaving
behind it a wake dotted with clots of fleece which hung for a while quite
motionless against the intense blue, then slowly dissolved and vanished in
mid-air.

From the Ausone Fort the gunners could hear, far to the southeast, the sky-
cannon banging away on the Barrier Forts; and the telescopes on their
signal towers swung toward the sky line above the foothills of the Vosges.
But in the town below the fortressed hill no echo of the cannonade
penetrated. Ausone, except in the neighborhood of the railroad and the
office of the Petit Journal d'Ausone, lay still and almost deserted in the
August sunshine: a few children played under the trees by the bridge; a few
women sat knitting along the river quay; one or two old men nodded, half
asleep, fishing the deeper pools below the bridge; the market square
remained empty except for a stray dog, tongue lolling, padding stolidly up
the street about his business.
But before the office of the Petit Journal d'Ausone a crowd stood,
covering the sidewalks and overflowing beyond the middle of the street.
Young men and old, women and young girls, were clustered there quietly
watching the bulletin boards.
There was no excitement apparent, no loud talking, no gesticulation:
voices were calm, tones were low; there was almost no movement in the

crowd except when people joined the throng or silently departed.
On one of these bulletin boards was nailed the order for general
mobilization; on the other a terse paragraph announced that on Sunday,
August 2, German soldiers had entered the city of Luxembourg, crossed the
Grand Duchy, and were already skirmishing with Belgian cavalry around
Liége and with French troops before Longwy. In other terms, the Teutonic
invasion had begun; German troops were already on French soil; for
Longwy is the most northern of the Republic's fortifications.
Another paragraph reported that King Albert of Belgium had appealed
to England, and that Sir Edward Grey, in the House of Commons, had
prepared his country for an immediate ultimatum to Germany.
Still a third paragraph informed the populace of Ausone that the British
battle fleet had mobilized and sailed, and that the Empire's land forces were
already preparing to cross the Channel.
And Germany had not yet declared war on either France or Belgium,
nor had England declared war on Germany, nor had Austria, as yet,
formally declared war on Russia, although Germany had.
But there seemed to be no doubt, no confusion in the minds of the
inhabitants of Ausone, concerning what was happening, what had already
happened, and what Fate still concealed behind a veil already growing
transparent enough to see through—already lighted by the infernal flashes
of German rifle fire before Longwy.
Everybody in Ausone knew; everybody in France understood. A great
stillness settled over the Republic, as though the entire land had paused to
kneel a moment before the long day of work began.
There was no effervescence, no voice raised, no raucous shout from
boulevard orators of the psychological moment, no attitudes, no complaints.

Only, amid the vast silence, as the nation rose serenely from its knees,
millions of flashing eyes were turned toward Alsace and Lorraine—eyes
dimmed for an instant, then instantly clear again—clear and steady as the
sound and logical minds controlling them.
There was no sonnerie from the portcullis, no salvo from parapet or
bastion, no fanfare blared at midday in square or stony street. No bands of
voyous went yelling through boulevards, no seething crowds choked the
cafés or formed a sinister maelstrom around embassies or government
offices.
Down at the Gare de Chalons another crowd had gathered to watch the
young men of Ausone depart. They came alone, or two by two, or in groups
—sticks, bundles, suitcases, valises swinging—with serious, unruffled
features intent upon the business of the long, long business day that was
beginning for them at last.
Some were accompanied by parents, some by wives and children,
some by sweethearts: many had said good-by at home and were walking to
the station with brother or friend, saluting acquaintances en route.
But the mobilizing youths were undemonstrative, chary of gesture—
shy, serious young fellows preoccupied with the business on hand,
conscious that their term of service had equipped them for it—and in their
bearing was that modesty and self-respect which discounts self-
consciousness and self-assertion.
For there was no longer any excuse for France to be either noisy or
dramatic when she went about her business—no reason for posturing, for
epigrams, for attitudes, or for the loud laugh and the louder boast to bolster
faith with mutual and riotous reassurance in the face of an unknown
business venture concerning the conduct of which the entire nation was
excited, ignorant, and unprepared.

The Republic had been both instructed and prepared for the matter of
the business on hand. And was going quietly about it.
In Ausone itself there were few signs of war visible; the exodus of the
young men, the crowd before the bulletins, and the throng at the station, and
perhaps more mounted officers and gendarmes than usual riding faster than
is customary in the peaceful streets of a provincial town.
But on the roads around the fortified hill dominating the rolling green
landscape in the heart of which Ausone nestled, cavalry patrols were riding,
infantry details tramped through the white dust, military wagons and motor
vans passed under dragoon escort; bridges over the Récollette were guarded
by line soldiers and gendarmes, while sappers and miners and engineers
were busy at every bridge, culvert, and railway cut.
Above the fort slim tentacles of wireless apparatus spread a tracery
against the sky, and a signal tower swam high against the blue. From it
sparkled blinding flashes in code. Officers up there were talking business to
the Barrier Forts, and the heliographs along the Vosges brilliantly discussed
the new business deal with other forts far to the south and east, relaying
reports, rumors, and quotations as far as Paris, where the directors' meeting
was being held; and even as far as London, where stockholders and
directors were gathered to add up profit and loss, and balance policy against
ethics, and reconcile both with necessity.
In London a King, a Prime Minister, and a First Lord of the Admiralty
were listening to a Sirdar who was laying down the law by wireless to a
President and his Premier.
In St. Petersburg an Emperor was whispering to a priest while the
priest consulted the stars. Signs being favorable, they changed the city's
name to Petrograd, which imperial inspiration dealt a violent slap on the
Kaiser's wrist.

Led westward by a Grand Duke, marching Russia bent several million
reverent heads, awed by this stroke of autocratic genius, and somebody
named a brand of caviar after the Czar of all the Russias. Which holy
tribute, however, built no strategic railroads in the West.
Meanwhile, the spinning world swung on around its orbit; tides rose
and ebbed; the twin sentinels of the skies relieved each other as usual, and a
few billion stars waited patiently for eternity.

Ausone, lying in the sun, was waiting, too, amid its still trees and ripening
fields.
In the summer world around, no hint of impending change disturbed
the calm serenity of that August afternoon—no sense of waiting, no
prophecy of gathering storms. But in men's hearts reigned the breathless
stillness which heralds tempests.
Silently as a kestrel's shadow gliding over the grass, an ominous shade
sped over sunny France, darkening the light in millions of smiling eyes,
subduing speech, stilling all pulses, cautioning a nation's ardent heart and
conjuring its ears to listen and its lips to silence.
And, as France sat silent, listening, hand lightly resting on her hilt,
came the far cry from beyond the Vosges—the voices of her lost children.
Now she had risen to her feet, loosening the blade in its scabbard. But
she had not yet drawn it; she still stood listening to the distant shots from
Longwy in the north, to the noise of the western winds blowing across the
channel; and always she heard, from the east, the lost voices of her best
beloved, calling, calling her from beyond the Vosges.

As they approached Ausone, driving full speed, Warner and Halkett
encountered the Saïs omnibus returning, and drew rein.

In it was the Harem, much annoyed because not permitted to sketch in
the Ausone streets.
They had seen nothing of any touring car containing several men and a
young girl. That did not interest them. What preoccupied their minds was
that they had been sketching in the streets of Ausone, and had been politely
requested to desist by several unappreciative policemen. So they had
collectively shaken the dust of Ausone from their several and indignant feet,
and were now en route to Saïs to paint hay stacks.
Requesting to know whether they might still be permitted to paint
haystacks at Saïs, Warner offered them no encouragement, pointing out that
Saïs was in the zone of future military operations.
In the face of such an outrageous condition of affairs, there is no doubt
that Art shrieked as loudly as did Freedom when her popular hero fell.
Anyway, her devotees now protested in chorus; but Warner advised them to
pack their trunks and go to Paris while the going was good; and the Saïs
omnibus rolled away with the Harem still volubly denouncing a
government which dared to interfere with Haystack Art on any pretext
whatever.
As Warner drove forward Halkett said:
"The chances are that the military will requisition that omnibus before
evening. It wouldn't surprise me if they stopped us at the entrance to
Ausone and took your horse and cart."
And it happened as he had feared; red-legged soldiers halted them at
the town entrance; a polite but resolute young officer refused to argue the
matter, but insisted that they descend, accept an official voucher for the
temporary loan of their horse and cart, and continue their journey on foot.
As yet, however, punts, rowboats, and skiffs were not subject to
requisition by the authorities. Halkett noticed a skiff tied to the shore near a

small house on the river bank; so they climbed a stile, crossed the newly
mown hayfield, and found an old man fishing from his doorstep in the rear
of the house.
For thirty francs they bought the boat outright; the old man shuffled
into the house and returned with the home-made oars; Warner took them;
Halkett pushed off and sprang in; and they pulled away up the river,
breasting a glassy current over which swallows darted and played and
dipped, starring the calm surface with a hundred spreading circles.
Rushes swayed inshore where meadows bordered the Récollette, and
dragon flies with turquoise bodies sailed glittering into the breeze. Trees
swept the surface of the water with tender leaves still untarnished by the
ripening world of waning summer; and in shady coves the cattle stood to
their knees in the crystal flood, staring with moony eyes at the passing skiff.
Presently Warner sent the skiff inshore, and when it lay floating in the
shadow of the trees under the right bank of the stream, he rested on his oars.
"The café garden is just ahead, around that next turn," he said. "If
you'll take the oars, I'll get out on the bank and look over the situation."
"Don't you want me?"
"I don't know; I'll see what things look like first. Do you mind?"
"I'll wait if you say so. But there's a rough crowd hanging about that
café, as you know."
"I know it," said Warner grimly.
"Are you armed?"
"I certainly am, Halkett. But I don't count on any trouble, because
Wildresse can't afford to make any. If there's a row in that cabaret at such a
time as this, the police will make short work of it. I think I'll have no
difficulty in finding my little friend Philippa and in taking her out of that
miserable place."

Halkett said:
"Don't forget yourself and beat up Wildresse for what we saw him do
to Philippa. You can attend to that later: the idea now is to take the child
back to Saïs."
"I'll try to remember," said Warner with a somber glance at his friend.
Then he handed him the oars and, making his way to the stern, leaped
lightly to the grassy bank.

CHAPTER XVI

Warner entered a paved lane leading up the slope, between two high, stucco
walls. It bore the name, "Impasse d'Alcyon," painted under the rusty bracket
of a gas lamp projecting from the wall. A few chickens and a pig moved
aside to let him pass.
The Impasse d'Alcyon emerged upon the market square of Ausone to
the left of the Cabaret de Biribi; and, as Warner came out into the sunny,
deserted square, the first thing he caught sight of was a written notice nailed
up over the doorway of the Cabaret de Biribi:
AVIS IMPORTANT

The town of Ausone is proclaimed to be in a state of siege. Place and town
will remain under government of the military authorities, aided by the
municipality. Both are within jurisdiction of military headquarters in charge
of the secteur which includes place, town, and environs of Ausone.

BY ORDER OF THE MAYOR.

The Cabaret de Biribi will remain closed until further notice. For the
convenience of the public, the Café Biribi, adjoining, will remain open
between the hours of seven A.M. and nine P.M. until further notice.

The café, separated from the cabaret by a clipped privet hedge, formed the
southeastern angle of the square.
Under its orange and white awning the tables on the terrace were
crowded with people lingering over after-luncheon coffee and cognac—
quiet, serious, solid citizens, accustomed to their déjeuner at that time and
place, whose habits of long standing had not so far been altered in the
sudden and general upheaval in the accustomed order of things.
Waiters came and went as usual; men consulted the files of provincial
and Paris papers; one or two were playing dominoes inside the café.
Warner, pausing at the entrance to the terrace, summoned a waiter.
"The cabaret is closed, then?" he asked.
"Since last night, Monsieur."
"By the police?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Why?"
The waiter said respectfully:
"It is usual in time of war to close places of amusement. Besides,
music and dancing are in questionable taste at such a time as this."
"Certainly. Where is Monsieur Wildresse?"
"The Patron is absent."
"Where can I find him?"
The waiter shrugged:
"The Patron went away this morning. I do not know where. He has not
yet returned."

"Are you quite certain?"
"Perhaps Monsieur had better ask the caissière. Maybe the Patron has
returned."
So Warner entered the café. In the cool, subdued light of the interior,
he saw the cashier behind her counter—a fresh-faced, plump, dark-eyed
country girl, who returned his salute with a smile that showed her white
teeth.
"Monsieur Wildresse?" he inquired. "May I see him for a moment?"
"The Patron is absent, Monsieur."
"When do you expect him to return?"
"We do not know. Sometimes he goes to Paris and remains a week or
two."
"Do you suppose he has gone to Paris?"
"We do not know. He never tells us where he is going."
Warner thought hard for a moment, then:
"It seems that the cabaret is closed," he said.
"Locked up, Monsieur."
"I wonder if you could tell me where I might find the caissière of the
cabaret—Mademoiselle Philippa?"
The girl shook her head:
"I think she went to Paris."
"When?"
"The other day. We understood that she had gone to Paris."
"No," said Warner, "she did not go to Paris. Has she not returned to
Ausone?"
The caissière rapped with her pencil and a waiter hastened to the desk.
"Pierre, didn't you say something about Mademoiselle Philippa this
morning?"

"I said that I thought I saw her. It was somebody who resembled her,
no doubt."
Warner wheeled around:
"When?"
"It was before noon, some time——"
"Where?"
"Monsieur, they were putting up and locking the shutters of the
cabaret, and on the top floor somebody inside was lowering the lateen
shades and drawing the blue curtains.
"I thought I saw Mademoiselle Philippa—I thought I saw her face for a
moment behind one of the windows in the Patron's apartment."
"And what do you think about it now?"
"Ma foi, Monsieur, if Mademoiselle Philippa has gone to Paris, I could
not have seen her at the window."
"But you saw somebody there?"
"I thought I did."
"Could we go to the cabaret and inquire?"
"It is locked up. There is nobody now within."
"How do you know?"
"They locked and padlocked it from the outside. They even removed
the geraniums and the three cats. The place is empty, Monsieur. I know,
because I helped remove the cats and the potted plants. Everybody and
everything was transferred last night to the café. And at noon today the
police put seals on the doors."
Warner forced a smile:
"That, of course, settles it. I'm sorry. I wanted to see the Patron and
Mademoiselle Philippa. Another time will do."

He thanked the waiter, lifted his hat to the caissière, turned, and
walked over to a table by the opposite wall, where he ordered coffee and
cognac and a newspaper, as though he had just lunched.
When his coffee was brought, he opened the paper and leaned back
against the padded leather seat, pretending to read, but studying the room
and everybody in it.
It was a café typical of almost any half dead provincial town in France
—large, rather dimly lighted, shabbily furnished with marble-topped tables
ranged around the walls and two ancient billiard tables occupying the center
of the room.
In the corner near the door was the cashier's cage and desk; on the
same side of the room, in the further corner, a swinging leather door, much
battered, gave exit and entrance to the waiters as they went to or arrived
from kitchen and cellar.
And one thing occurred to him immediately: the same kitchen, and
perhaps the same cellar, had supplied both cabaret and café. Therefore,
there must still be some passage of communication between the cabaret—
which had been locked and sealed by the authorities—and the café which
the police had decreed must remain open for the convenience of the public.
Deeply perturbed by what the waiter had said concerning the glimpse
he had caught of somebody resembling Philippa, and made doubly anxious
by Halkett's sinister remark in regard to the girl's knowledge of secrets
which might send Wildresse before a platoon of execution, he studied the
gloomy room from behind his newspaper, trying to come to some
conclusion.
He did not believe that Wildresse and his companions had dared drive
into Ausone by daylight with Philippa in the tonneau, either unconscious or
resisting them.

If they had brought her to Ausone at all, they must have carried her by
boat, landed at the foot of the cabaret garden, and smuggled the child into
the house through the rear door giving on the river garden.
If they had brought her to Ausone at all, then, she must be at that
moment somewhere within the walls of the double building forming the
Café and Cabaret de Biribi. Otherwise, the grey touring car had never
entered Ausone.
To make certain on that point he presently paid his reckoning, bowed
to the cashier, and went leisurely out into the deserted square.
First of all he sauntered back to the town entrance, where the red-
legged soldiers had taken over his cart and horse. Having been obliged to
give particulars concerning himself, the soldiers were perfectly friendly.
Inquiry they readily answered; such a touring car as he described had been
halted and requisitioned by the guard about two hours before his own horse
was stopped and appropriated. There were only two people in the car, both
men.
"Friends of yours, Monsieur?" inquired the polite lieutenant in charge.
"Business acquaintances——"
Warner hesitated, then asked for the names of the two men and their
addresses. The officer on duty very obligingly looked up the information in
his leather-covered book. It appeared that the men were Adolf Meier and
Josef Hoffman, commis voyageurs, of Paris, and that they had gone for
lodging to the Boule d'Argent in Ausone.
Warner thanked the boyish officer; the officer was happy to have been
of service to an American and an artist.
But when Warner turned back into the town, he went directly to the
railroad station instead of to the hotel. There he presently discovered and
consulted the chef de gare and the ticket agent; and he learned definitely

that Monsieur Wildresse, who was perfectly well known to both of them by
sight, had not taken any train there.
Travelers who board trains at provincial railway stations cannot escape
official observation. Therefore, what the station master and ticket agent told
him was sufficient for him.
He went slowly back along the river quay, crossed diagonally in front
of the deserted cabaret, entered the Impasse d'Alcyon, and traversed it to the
river bank, where Halkett sat under the big willow tree, smoking his pipe
and letting the rowboat float by the chain which he held in his hands.
"Halkett," he said, "they're in Ausone or near it. I'm convinced of that.
Their car came in with only two men in it. The military confiscated it. The
men's names are Adolf Meier and Josef Hoffman, and they inscribed
themselves as commercial travelers from Paris. Do you happen to know
them?"
"Perfectly."
"What are they; spies?"
"They are—clumsy ones."
"By any chance are they any of the gentlemen who have been
following you?"
"Exactly. Both have had several shots at me."
"That is interesting. The address they left with the military authorities
is the Boule d'Argent.
"What I have found out is this: the Cabaret de Biribi has been closed
and sealed up by the police; the café remains open. A waiter in the café
thought he saw Philippa at the window of her apartment over the cabaret
just before noon today.
"But Wildresse, they all say, went away this morning and has not
returned. And they have no idea when to expect him.

"Now, my theory is this: Wildresse and his ruffians, realizing that their
own necks are in danger, went to Saïs to see Philippa, either to bully her
into silence or persuade her to return to duty. When they saw her by the
roadside they changed their plans and took a chance. I don't believe they
saw us. We were on our knees in the grass under the shadow of the hedge.
After they caught her they never looked around. I don't believe any of them
noticed us at all. Before the car reached Ausone they must have stopped in
some deserted place, found a boat somewhere, sent the car on ahead to
Ausone with only two men in it, and then Wildresse and the other two men
must have dragged or carried Philippa across the fields to the river and
forced her into the boat. That was the only way they could have ventured to
enter Ausone. They must have gone by boat to the garden behind the
cabaret, where nobody could see what was going on, and there they
probably let themselves into the house by the rear entrance.
"That's my theory, Halkett. I believe Philippa is there. I believe
Wildresse is there. And I feel very sure that those two choice scoundrels of
his at the Boule d'Argent will join him wherever he is. So I think we had
better tie up our boat and go to the Boule d'Argent and find these fellows,
Meier and Hoffman, and never let them out of our sight."
"I think so, too," said Halkett quietly.
He knelt down on the grass, passed the boat chain around the base of
the willow tree, linked and padlocked it, sprang to his feet, and walked
quickly after Warner, who had already started to enter the Impasse
d'Alcyon.
"You're a little flustered, old chap," he said, as he rejoined Warner in
the narrow alley. "Don't walk so fast; we ought not to attract attention."
"I'm horribly nervous," admitted the other, slackening his pace.

"We'll have to keep pretty cool about this affair. It won't do to scare
those scoundrels."
"Why?"
"Because if they really have her locked up in that cabaret. I'm afraid to
guess what they might do to her if they thought their own skins were in
danger."
"I know it," said Warner hoarsely. "I'm worried sick, I tell you!
Wildresse has the worst face I ever looked at. There is only one word to
characterize that countenance of his—bestial!"
"He's a bad lot and he looks it. The military authorities would make
short work of him if Philippa should ever hint at what she has found out
about his rather complicated business affairs. That's what I am afraid of—
that he may take some terrible precaution in order to anticipate any danger
from her——"
"What?"
"He is capable of doing anything to prevent her from speaking.
Keeping her locked up is the precaution that I dread least. What I'm afraid
of is that he may kill her."
Warner turned a bloodless visage to his comrade:
"That's what I'm afraid of, too," he said steadily enough. "I think we
had better notify the police at once——"
"It won't do, old chap!"
"Why? On your account?"
"No, no! My papers are safe enough now. But I tell you, Warner,
French temper is on a hair trigger, in spite of all this gravity and silence.
The very word 'spy' would be the match to the magazine."
"But what of it?"

"Suppose Wildresse denies his treachery and makes a counter-
accusation against Philippa?"
"What? How can he?"
"Suppose he declares that she betrayed him? Suppose already he has
arranged documents to prove it? Suppose he had long ago taken such a
precaution against any chance of her denouncing him? He is an old rat,
grown grey in the business. He must have been perfectly aware that
Philippa is honest—that it even went against her to do the dirty work that
her own Government required of her. He must have known that if she ever
discovered his double treachery, she would at least desert him, perhaps
denounce him. No, no, Warner; that crafty old sewer rat left nothing to
chance.
"If that girl now has an opportunity and the desire to denounce him,
you can be absolutely certain that long ago he has foreseen and prepared
himself for just such an event!"
"Do you believe that?"
Halkett smiled:
"I am certain of it."
"Why?"
"What does a young girl know about treachery? How many papers has
Philippa ignorantly and innocently signed which might exculpate Wildresse
and send her before a peloton of execution in the first caserne available?
That's the way such rats as he protect themselves!
"No, Warner. It's a filthy business at best, and I admit, sadly enough,
that I know more about it than you ever could know.
"Listen, old chap! It's no good stirring up the police until Philippa is
outside French territory. Then, and then only, may we dare to let loose the
police on this nest of rats in Ausone!"

"Very well," said Warner quietly. "I'll act as you think best, only I'll
——" He stopped to regain control of himself. And when he had himself in
hand again: "Only—it will be a—a bad mistake if Wildresse—if—if any
harm comes to that child."
"Oh, in that event," said Halkett quietly, "we need not scruple to kill
him where we find him."
Warner said unsteadily:
"I shall not hesitate a second——" But Halkett suddenly checked him
with a touch on his elbow, and drew him back behind the wall of the
Impasse d'Alcyon, from which alley they were on the point of emerging
into the town.
Two men were crossing the almost empty market square toward the
Café Biribi, moving without haste over the sunny pavement.
"Hoffman and Meier," whispered Halkett. "There go our promising
young rodents straight toward the old rat's nest! It won't do for them to
catch sight of me.... Wait a moment! There they go—into the Café Biribi!
Follow them—they don't know you. Keep your eye on them.
"I'll stroll over to the quay and dangle my legs on the river wall. If you
need me, come out on the café terrace and beckon."
"Would it do to hand over that pair to the police? They are German
spies, are they not?"
"They are. But at present they are likely to be useful. If Wildresse is in
the café or the cabaret, they are sure to reveal the fact to us. Better go in and
keep your eye on them. If you want me, I shall be smoking my pipe on the
river wall across the street."
He nodded and strolled over toward the little tree-shaded quay, filling
his pipe as he sauntered along. Warner continued on to the café, entered,
seated himself against the shabby wall, picked up an illustrated journal,

ordered bitters, and composed himself to enjoy the preprandial hour sacred
to all Frenchmen.
Without looking he was aware that the two men, Meier and Hoffman,
seated at a table near the cashier's desk, had noted his arrival and were
steadily inspecting him.
But he did not look in their direction; he turned the pages of the
illustrated paper, leisurely, until the waiter brought his Amer Picon and a
chilled carafe. Then he measured out his water with the unstudied
deliberation of an habitué, stirred the brown liquid, sipped it, and, turning to
another page of his paper, let his eyes rest absently on the two men
opposite.
By that time neither of them was even looking at him. They were
drinking beer; their heads were close together and they had turned so that
they were facing each other on the padded leather wall settee.
It was impossible to hear what they were saying; they spoke rapidly
and in tones so low that only the vibration of their voices was audible in the
still room.
Guarded but vigorous gesticulations marked the progress of their
conference; now and then both became mute while the waiter replenished
their glasses with beer and added another little saucer to the growing pile on
the marble table.
For an hour Warner dawdled over the café papers and his glass of
bitters. The men opposite still faced each other on the leather settee, still
conversed with repressed animation, still guzzled beer. Once or twice they
had looked up and across the room at him and had taken a swift,
comprehensive survey of the few other people in the café, but the
movement had been wholly instinctive and mechanical. Evidently they felt
entirely secure.

The plump, dark-eyed caissière had caught Warner's eye once or twice.
Evidently she remembered him, and her quick smile became almost an
invitation to conversation.
It was what he wanted and he hesitated only because he was not sure
how the men opposite might regard his approach toward their vicinity.
But he did it very well; and both men, looking up sharply, seemed
presently to realize that it was merely a flirtation, and that the young man
lounging before the cashier's counter, smiling, and being smiled upon, could
safely be ignored.
"To be the prettiest girl in Ausone," Warner was saying, "must be a
very great comfort to that girl. Don't you think so, Mademoiselle?"
"To be the most virtuous, Monsieur, would be far more comforting."
"Have you then both prizes, Mademoiselle? I was sure of it!"
"Prizes, Monsieur?"
"The golden apple and the prix de la sagesse?"
She laughed and blushed, detaching from her corsage a rosebud.
"Accept, Monsieur, the prize for eloquence and for impudence!" And
she extended the rosebud to Warner.
He took it, lifted it to his lips, looking smilingly at her, and listening
with all the concentration he could summon to the murmuring conversation
at the neighboring table.
Only a word or two he could catch—perhaps merely a guess at
—"Patron," and "nine o'clock," and "cellar"—at least he imagined he could
distinguish these words. And all the time he was up to his ears in a breezy
flirtation with a girl very willing, very adept, and perfectly capable of
appreciating her own desirability as well as the good points of any casual
suitor whom Heaven might strand upon her little, isolated island for an hour
or two.

Being French, she was clever and amusing and sufficiently grateful to
the gods for this bit of masculine flotsam which had drifted her way.
"There are boats," she said, "and the evening will be beautiful."
Having made this clear to him, she smiled and let matters shape their
course.
"What pleasure is a boat and a beautiful night to me," he said, "if
nobody shares both with me?"
"Alas, Monsieur, have you no pretty little friend who could explain to
you the planets on a summer night?"
"Alas, Mademoiselle!"
"What a pity.... Because I have studied astronomy a little. And I
recommend it to you as a diversion. They are so high, so unattainable, the
stars! It is well for a young man to learn what is attainable, and then to
address himself to its pursuit. What do you think, Monsieur?"
"That I should very much like to study astronomy if in all the world
there could be discovered anybody amiable enough to teach me."
"How pathetic! If I only had time——"
"Have you no time at all?"
"It wouldn't do, mon ami."
"Why?"
"Because I should be seen going to a rendezvous with you."
"Isn't there any way into the cabaret garden except through the
cabaret?" he asked.
She shook her head, laughing at him out of her brown eyes.
He waited a moment to control his voice, but there was a tremor in it
when he said:
"Is there no way through the cellar?"

She noticed the tremor and liked it. In the lightest and airiest of
flirtations the ardent and unsteady note in a man's voice appeals to any
woman to continue and finish his subjugation.
"As for the cellar," she said, "it is true that one can get into the cabaret
garden that way. But, Monsieur, do you imagine that a dark, damp, ghostly
and pitch-black cellar appeals to any woman?"
"Is the cellar so frightful a place, Mademoiselle?"
"Figure it to yourself!—Some twenty stone steps from the pantry
yonder"—She nodded her head toward the battered swinging door of
leather.—"And then more steps, down, down, down!—Into darkness and
dampness where there are only wine casks and kegs and bottles and
mushrooms and rats and ghosts——"
"What of it—if, as you say, the stars are shining on the river——"
"Merci! A girl must certainly be in love to venture through that cellar!
And a man, too!"
"Try me. I'll go!"
The girl laughed:
"You! Are you, then, in love already?"
"I should like to prove it. Where is that terrible cellar?"
"Behind the door, there." She waved her hand airily. "Try it. Show me
how much you are in love! Perhaps then I'll believe you."
"Will the waiters interfere if I go into the cellar?"
"See how you try to avoid the test!"
"Try me!"
"Very well. The washroom is there. If you choose to wash your hands,
you are at liberty to do so. And then if you can't slip down into the cellar
while the waiters are looking the other way, all I can say is that you are not
in love!"

He looked at her smilingly, scarcely trusting himself to speak for a
moment, for the face of Philippa rose unbidden before his eyes and a shaft
of fear pierced him.
"You are wrong," he said steadily enough. "I am in love.... Very
honestly, very innocently.... It just occurred to me. I didn't know how deeply
I felt.... I really am in love—as one loves what is fearless, faithful, and
devoted."
"A dog is all that, Monsieur."
"Occasionally a human being is, also. Sometimes even a woman."
Her smile became a little troubled.
"Monsieur, are you, then, in love with some woman who possesses
these commendable virtues?"
"No. I am in love with her virtues, Mademoiselle."
"Oh! Then she might even be your sister!"
"Exactly. That is the quality of my affection for her."
The pretty caissière laughed:
"You were beginning to make me sad," she said. "I—I am really
willing to teach you astronomy, if you truly desire a knowledge of the
stars."
"I do, ardently."
"But I am sincerely afraid of the cellar," she murmured. "It is ten
o'clock before I am released from duty, and the knowledge that it is ten
o'clock at night makes that cellar doubly dark and terrible. I—I don't want
to give you a rendezvous down there; and I certainly don't propose to
traverse the cellar alone. Monsieur, what on earth am I to do?"
"To study the stars on the river, and to reach a rendezvous without
being noticed, makes it necessary for you to slip out through the cellar, does
it not?"

"Alas!"
"Haven't you the courage?"
"I don't—know."
"Yes, you have."
"Have I?" She laughed.
"Certainly. I'll go to the washroom now, and get into the cellar
somehow, and make myself acquainted with it.... I suppose I ought to have
a candle——"
She said:
"When I walk home alone at night I have a little electric torch with me.
Shall I lend it to you?"
She opened the desk drawer, drew it out concealed under her
handkerchief, and he managed to transfer it to his pocket. It clinked against
the loaded automatic pistol; nobody noticed the sound.
But for a moment he thought the two men, Meier and Hoffman, had
noticed it, because they both got up and came over directly toward him.
However, they merely wished to pay their reckoning with a hundred-
franc note, and Warner moved aside while they crowded before the pretty
cashier's desk, offering hasty pleasantries and ponderous gallantries, while
she dimpled at them and made change.
Then, after tipping the waiter, they went out into the late afternoon
sunshine.
Warner, looking after them, could see that they were crossing the
square toward the Boule d'Argent; and he knew that Halkett must have seen
them and that he would manage to keep them in view.
Now was his time to investigate the cellar, and he said so to the brown-
eyed girl behind the cage, who had been inspecting him rather pensively.
"I ought not to do this," said the pretty caissière.

"Of course not. Otherwise we should not find each other agreeable."
She smiled, looking at him a little more seriously and more attentively.
"It is odd, is it not," she said under her breath, "how two people from
the opposite ends of the earth chance to meet and—and find each other—
agreeable?"
"It is delightful," he admitted smilingly.
"I don't even know your name," she remarked, playing with her pencil.
"James."
"Tchames?"—with a pretty attempt to imitate his English.
"Jim is easier."
"Djeem?"
"Perfect!"
"Djeem," she repeated, looking musingly at the tall, well-built
American. "C'est drôle, ce nom là! Djeem? It is pleasant, too.... My name is
Jeanne." She shrugged her youthful shoulders. "Nothing extraordinary, you
see.... Still, I shall try to please you, Monsieur Djeem."
"I dare not hope to please you——"
She laughed:
"You do please me. Do you suppose, otherwise, I should dare enter
that frightful cellar?"
Under cover of her desk, she deftly detached a key from the bunch at
her belt, covered it with her hand, palm down, and let it rest on the counter
before him.
"Do you promise to keep away from the wine bins?" she asked lightly.
"I promise solemnly," he said, and took the key.
"Very well. Then you may go and look at this dreadful cellar at once.
And when you behold it, ask yourself how great a goose a girl must be who

ventures into it at ten o'clock at night merely because a young man desires
to take a lesson in astronomy on the river Récollette."

CHAPTER XVII

He had little difficulty in gaining the cellar from the washroom. Both doors
opened out of the pantry passage; he had only to watch the moving figures
silhouetted through the pantry doorway, and when they were out of sight for
the moment, he stepped out, unlocked the cellar door, closed it gently
behind him, flashed his electric torch, and started down the broad stone
steps.
It was one of the big, old-time cellars not unusual in provincial towns,
but built, probably, a century before the café and cabaret had been erected
on its solid stone foundations.
Two rows of squatty stone pillars supported the low arches of the roof;
casks, kegs, bins, empty bottles, broken bottles, and row after row of
unsealed wine bottles lined the alleyways leading in every direction through
the darkness.
On either side of the main central corridor stood wine casks of every
shape and size, some very ancient, to judge from the carving and quality of
the wood, some more or less modern, some of today. Almost all were
hoisted on skids with bung and bung starter in place and old-time jugs and
measures of pewter or glass at hand; a few lay empty amid the cellar debris,
where the salts born of darkness and dampness dimly glimmered on wall
and pavement, and a rustling in unseen straw betrayed the lurking place of
rats.
Warner, playing his flashlight, walked swiftly forward, traversing the
three principal alleys in succession. The third round included the little dark

runways twisting in and out among the bins, turning sudden angles into
obscurity, or curving back in a blind circle to the point of entrance.
And as he stood resting for a moment, trying to get his bearings and
shifting his electric torch over the labyrinth within which he had become
involved, a slight but distinct sound broke the silence around him.
It came from the cellar steps: somebody had opened the door above.
Instantly he extinguished his torch; the blackness walled him in,
closing on him so swiftly that he seemed to feel a palpable pressure upon
his body.
Listening, every nerve on edge, he heard footsteps falling cautiously
upon the stone stairway; a white radiance spread and grew brighter at the
far end of the vaulted place; and in a moment more the blinding star of an
electric torch dazzled his eyes, where he stood looking out between the
cracks of the piled-up boxes which made of the alley in which he had halted
a rampart and an impasse.
Two men were advancing, shining the way before them, turning their
heads from side to side with curiosity, but without apparently any suspicion.
They seemed to know the place and to be entirely familiar with every
alley, for, just before they passed the runway where he crouched behind the
boxes, they turned aside, played their light over the dusty banks of bottles,
chose one, coolly knocked off its neck, and leisurely drained it between
them.
Then, exchanging a few comments in voices too low to be understood,
they resumed their course, passed the entrance to the alley where Warner
lay hidden, and continued on a few paces.
He could see them as black shapes against the flare of light; saw them
halt a few paces from where he stood, saw them reach up and take hold of a
huge tun which blocked their progress.

Their torch was shining full upon it; he could follow minutely
everything they were doing.
One of the men stretched his arms out horizontally and grasped the
edges of the immense cask. Then he threw his full weight to the right; the
cask swung easily outward, leaving a passageway wide enough for a man.
And there, full in the blaze of brilliant light, was a door, scarcely ten feet
away from where he was standing.
The man who had turned the cask went to the door, slid aside a panel,
reached in and unbolted it, and had already opened the door when a big
bulk loomed up in front of him; a gross, vibrant voice set the hollow echoes
growling under the arches of stone and mortar; Wildresse barred their way.
He stood there, the torchlight falling full on his round, partly bald and
smoothly shaven head; his wicked little ratty eyes were two points of black,
his wicked mouth was twisted with profanity.
"Sacré tas de bougres!" he roared. "I told you to come at nine o'clock,
didn't I? What are you doing here, then? You, Asticot, you are supposed to
have more sense than Squelette, there! Why do you interrupt me before the
hour I set?"
The man addressed as Asticot—a heavy, bench-legged young man
with two favoris pasted over his large wide ears—shuffled his shoes most
uncomfortably.
Squelette, tall, frightfully thin, with his long, furrowed neck of an
unclean bird swathed in a red handkerchief, stood sullen and motionless
while the glare of his torch streamed over Wildresse.
"Nom de Dieu!" shouted the latter. "Aim at my belly and keep that
light out of my face, you stupid ass!"
Squelette sulkily shifted his torch; Asticot said in the nasal, whining
voice of the outer boulevards:

"Voyons, mon vieux, you have been at it for six hours, and the Skeleton
here and I thought you might require our services——"
"Is that so!" snarled Wildresse. "Also, they may require your services
in La Roquette!"
"They do," remarked Squelette naïvely.
"You don't have to tell me that!" retorted Wildresse. "You'll sneeze for
them, too, some day!" He turned savagely on Asticot: "I don't want you
now! I'm busy! Do you understand?"
"I understand," replied the Maggot. "All the same, if I may be so bold
—what's the use of chattering if there's a job to finish? If there's work to do,
do it, and talk afterward. That's my idea."
Wildresse glared at him:
"Really! Very commendable. Such notions of industry ought to be
encouraged in the young. But the trouble with you, Asticot, is that you
haven't anything inside that sucked-out orange you think is a head.
"Whatever mental work is to be done, I shall do. Do you comprehend
me, imbecile? And I don't trouble to consult your convenience, either. Is
that clear? Now, take your friend, the Skeleton, and take your torch and
yourself out of this cellar. Get out, or I'll bash your face in!—You dirty little
bandy-legged, blood-lapping cockroach——"
His big, pock-pitted, hairless face became frightful in its concentrated
ferocity; both men made simultaneous and involuntary movements to the
rear.
"You'll come at nine o'clock, do you hear!" he roared. "And you'll
bring a sack with you and enough weight to keep it sunk! You, Maggot;
you, Skeleton, do you understand? Very well, clear out!"
The young ruffians made no response; Asticot turned and made his
way through the narrow passage; the Skeleton shuffled on his heels, shining

his torch ahead.
Halfway down the central corridor they helped themselves to two more
bottles of Bordeaux, pocketing them in silence, and continued on their
course.
Listening, Warner could hear them ascending the stone stairs, could
hear the door click above as they left the cellar. But his eyes remained fixed
on Wildresse, who still stood in the door, darkly outlined against the dull
gaslight burning somewhere in the room behind him.
Once or twice he looked at the great cask which the two voyous had
not troubled to close into its place behind them. And Wildresse did not
bother to go out and swing the cask back into place, but, as soon as he
caught the sound of the closing cellar door, stepped back and shut his own
door.
He must either have forgotten, or carelessly neglected, to close the
open panel in it, for the lighted square remained visible, illuminating the
narrow passage after Warner heard him bolt the door on the inside.
His retreating footsteps, also, were audible for some distance before
the sound of them died away; and Warner knew then that the door belonged
to the cabaret, and that behind its bolted shutters and its police seals
Wildresse had been lurking since his return from Saïs.
There was no need to use his torch as he crept out of his ambush and
entered the narrow lane behind the big cask.
With infinite precautions, he thrust his arm through the open panel, felt
around until he found the two bolts, slid them noiselessly back.
The door swung open, inward. He went in softly.
The place appeared to be a lumber room littered with odds and ends.
Beyond was a passage in which a gas jet burned; at the end of it a stairway
leading up.

The floor creaked in spite of him, but the stairs were carpeted. They
led up to a large butler's pantry; and, through the sliding door, he peered out
into the dim interior of the empty cabaret.
Through cracks in the closed shutters rays from the setting sun pierced
the gloom, making objects vaguely distinct—tables and chairs piled one
upon the other around the dancing floor, the gaudy decorations pendent
from the ceiling, the shrouded music stands, the cashier's desk where he had
first set eyes on the girl Philippa——
With the memory his heart almost ceased, then leaped with the
resurgence of his fear for her; he looked around him until he discovered a
leather swinging door, and when he opened it a wide hallway lay before
him and a stairway rose beyond.
Over the thick carpet he hastened, then up the stairs, cautiously,
listening at every step.
Somewhere above, coming apparently from behind a closed door, he
heard the heavy vibration of a voice, and knew whose it was.
Guided by it along the upper passageway, he passed the open doors of
several bedrooms, card rooms, private dining-rooms, all empty and the
furniture covered with sheets, until he came to a closed door.
Behind it, the heavy voice of Wildresse sounded menacingly; he
waited until it rose to a roar, then tried the door under cover of the noise
within. It was locked, and he stood close to it, listening, striving to think out
the best way.
Behind the locked door Wildresse was shouting now, and Warner heard
every word:
"By God!" he roared in English. "You had better not try to lie to me!
Do you want your neck twisted?"
There was no reply.

"I ask you again, what did you do with that paper I gave you by
mistake?" he repeated.
Suddenly Warner's heart stood still, as Philippa's voice came to him,
low but distinct:
"I burned it!"
"You burned it? You lie!"
"I never lie," came the subdued voice. "I burned it."
"You slut! How dared you touch it at all?"
"You handed it to me," she said wearily.
"And you knew it was a mistake, you treacherous cat! My God! Have I
nourished you for this, you little snake, that you turn your poisonous teeth
on me?"
"Perhaps.... But not on my country."
"Your country! You miserable foundling, did you suppose yourself
French?"
"France is the only country I have known. I refuse to betray her."
"France!" he shouted. "France! A hell of a country to snivel about! You
can't tell me anything about France—the dirty kennel full of mongrels that
it is! France? To hell with France!
"What has she done for me? What has she done to me? Chased me out
of Paris; forced my only son into her filthy army; hunted us both without
mercy—finally hunted my son into the Battalions of Biribi—me into this
damned pigpen of Ausone! That's what France has done to me and mine!—
Blackmailed me into playing the mouchard for her—forcing me to play spy
for her by threatening to hunt me into La Nouvelle!
"By God! I break even, though! I sell her every chance I get; and what
I sell to her she has to pay for, too—believe me, she pays for it a hundred
times over!"

There came a silence, then Wildresse's voice again, rumbling,
threatening:
"Who was that type you went to visit in Saïs at the Golden Peach?"
No answer.
"Do you hear, you little fool?"
"I hear you," she said in a tired voice.
"You won't tell?"
"No."
"Why? Is he your lover?"
"No."
"Oh, you merely got your wages, eh?"
No answer.
"In other words, you're launched, eh? You aspire to turn cocotte, eh?"
"I am employed by him quite honestly——"
"Very touching. Such a nice young man, isn't he? And how much did
you tell him about me, eh?"
No reply.
"Did you inform him that I was a very bad character?" he sneered.
"Did you tell him what a hard time you had? Did you explain to him that a
pious Christian really could not live any longer with such a man as I am?
Did you? And that is the way you feel, isn't it?—That you are too good for
the business in which I have taken the trouble to educate you?"
"To be compelled to seek information for my Government has made
me very unhappy," she said. "But to betray that Government—that is not in
me to do. I had rather die.... I think, anyway, that I had rather not—live—
any longer."
"Is that so? Is that all the spirit you have? What are you, anyway—a
worm? Have you no anger in you against the country which has kicked you

and me out of Paris into this filthy kennel called Ausone? Have you no
resentment toward the Government that has attempted to beggar us both—
the Government which bullies us, threatens us, blackmails us, forbids us
entry into the capital, keeps us tied up here like dogs to watch and bark at
strangers and whine away our lives on starvation wages, when we could
make our fortunes in Paris?"
"I don't know what you did."
"What of it? Suppose I broke a few of their damned laws! Is that a
reason to kick me from place to place and finally tie me up here?"
"I—don't know."
"Oh, 'don't know'!" he mimicked her. "You ungrateful slut, if you had
any gratitude in your treacherous little body, you'd stick to me now! You'd
rejoice at my vengeance! You'd laugh to know that I am paying back in her
own coin the country which insulted me! That's what you'd do, instead of
sniveling around about 'treachery' and 'betraying France.'
"And, by God!—now that war has come, you'll see your beloved
France torn into pieces by the Bosches! That's what you'll see—France
ripped into tatters!
"Yes, and that sight will repay me for all that has been done to me—
that revenge I shall have—soon!—just as soon as they sweep up that stable
litter of Belgians over there!
"Then we'll see! Then perhaps I'll get my recognition from the
Bosches!
"What do I care for France or for them, either? I'm of no nation; I'm
nothing; I'm for myself! The Bosches were the kinder to me, and they get
what I don't need, voilà tout!"
There came a long pause, and then Wildresse's heavy tones once more:

"I'll give you your chance. Yes, in spite of your treachery and your
ingratitude, I'll give you your chance!
"You have a brain—such as it is. It's a woman's brain, of course, but it
can figure out on which side the bread is buttered.
"Listen: I ought to twist your neck. You've tried to put mine into the
lunette. You could have sent me up against a dead wall if you had given that
paper you burned to the flics. No, you didn't. You enjoyed a crisis of nerves
and you burned it. I know you burned it, because I admit that you tell the
truth.
"Bon! Now, therefore, I do not instantly twist your neck. No! On the
contrary, I reason with you. I do not turn you over to the sergots. I could!
Why? Voyons, let us be reasonable! I was not hatched yesterday. No! Do
you suppose I have trusted you all these years without having taken any
little precautions? Tiens, you are beginning to look at me, eh?
"Well, then, listen: if in future you have any curiosity concerning
lunettes and dead walls, let me inform you that you are qualified to
embellish either.
"Tiens! You seem startled. It never occurred to you to ask why I have
had certain papers written out by you, or why I have had you affix your
pretty signature to so many little documents which you could not read
because the ink was invisible.
"No. You have never thought about such matters, have you? But, all
the same, I have all I require to make you sneeze into the basket, or to play
blindman's buff between a dead wall and a squad of execution.
"And now!—Now that you know enough to hold your tongue, will you
hold it in future and be honest and loyal to the hand that picked you out of
the gutter and that has fed you ever since?"
There was a silence.

"Will you?" he repeated.
"No!"
A bull-like roar burst from Wildresse:
"I'll twist your neck for you, and I'll do it now!" he bellowed. "I'll snap
that white neck of yours——"

CHAPTER XVIII

The next instant Warner struck the door such a blow with his doubled fist
that the jarring sound silenced the roar of rage that had burst from Wildresse
at Philippa's answer, and checked the heavy scuffle of his great feet, too.
Already Warner had drawn back, pistol lifted, gathered together to
throw his full weight against the door and hold it the moment it was opened
from inside.
The sudden stillness which followed his blow lasted but a few seconds;
heavy steps approached the door, halted; approached irresolutely, stopped
short. Then ensued another period of quiet; and Warner, listening, could
hear the breathing of Wildresse on the other side of the door.
Minute after minute passed; Wildresse, still as a tiger, never stirred,
and even his suppressed breathing became inaudible after a while.
Warner, pistol in hand, ready to throw himself against the door the
instant it moved on the crack, bent over and placed his ear close against the
paneling. After a while he detected the sound of footsteps cautiously
retreating, and realized that Wildresse did not intend to open the door.
He knocked again loudly: the steps continued to recede; somewhere
another door was unbolted and opened; and the stealthy, retreating footsteps

continued on beyond earshot.
Again he knocked heavily with the butt of his pistol; waited, listened,
then drew back and fairly hurled himself against the door. It scarcely even
creaked; he might as well have attempted to push over the retaining wall of
the corridor itself.
"Philippa!" he called. "Philippa!"
A low cry answered him; he heard her stir suddenly.
But as he grasped the door knob and shook it in his excitement and
impatience, over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of a gross, hairless face
slyly peering around the further corner of the corridor. It disappeared
immediately.
"Open the door, Philippa!" he cried. "Open quick!"
"Warner, mon ami, I can't! He took the key——" she called through to
him. "Oh, Warner! What am I to do?"
"All right! Wait there!" He turned and ran for the further end of the
corridor, sprang around the corner without hesitating, sped forward, now
fiercely intent on the destruction of Wildresse. But the Patron had fled. He
ran forward, turned another corner in the dim light of locked shutters, but
found no trace of the bulky quarry he hunted, heard nothing, halted,
breathing fast and hard, trying to establish his bearings.
A stair well plunged downward into shadowy depths just ahead; he
stole forward and looked over; carpeted steps vanished into the darkness
below.
Doors, all locked, faced him everywhere; he ran along them, trying
each as he passed; came to an angle of solid wall, stepped around it, pistol
extended; and it was a miracle he was not startled into pulling trigger when
a door was torn open in his very face, and a figure, dark against the fiery
sunset framed by a window, sprang forward.

"Warner, mon ami! Me voici!" she cried joyously, flinging both arms
around his neck; but he stood white and trembling with the nearness of her
destruction at his hands, holding the shaking pistol wide from her body and
unable to utter a word.
And as he stood there, one arm around her thin body, somewhere
below and behind him a door burst open and there came a muffled rush of
feet up the stairway from the darkness below.
He pushed her violently away from him, but before he could turn and
spring to the stairhead, three men leaped into the passage, their weapons
spitting red flashes through the dusky corridor; and he jumped backward
dragging Philippa with him into the room behind them, slammed the door,
and bolted, chained, and locked it.
Outside, Asticot, Squelette, and Hoffman stood close to the door and
poured bullets through it at close range. The stream of lead tore the papered
plaster wall, opposite to tatters; but the door was as massive as the one he
had tried to force with his shoulder; two great bars of metal bolted it, a
heavy chain further secured it, and the key remained in the lock.
But steel-jacketed bullets still pierced the wood, stripping splinters
from the inside and mangling the opposite wall until the gay wall paper
hung in strips, and the whole room swam in a haze of drifting white dust.
Edging along, his body flattened against the north wall of the empty
room, and drawing Philippa after him, he cautiously approached the door
which he had tried to force; and heard Wildresse whispering to somebody
outside. No wonder he had not been able to force it; the bolts and chains
that held it were exactly like those which secured the other door.
He placed his lips close to Philippa's ear:
"Where are we?" he breathed; and bent his head to the child's bruised
mouth, which was still swollen and cut from the blow dealt her by

Wildresse that morning in the car.
"We are in the Patron's private office, where he used to lock himself
in," she whispered. "They've taken out the desk and chairs. His bedroom is
next; mine is the next beyond that."
He looked anxiously toward the window and saw tree tops and
glimpses of rolling country sparkling in the lilac-tinted haze of approaching
twilight.
"Where does that window face?" he whispered, softly.
"On the garden and river."
"How far a drop is it?"
"Too far, mon ami. The stone terrace is below."
"Is it thirty feet?"
"I don't know. The roof and chimneys are above us. We are in the top
story of the house."
"There are only two stories above the cellar, as I remember."
"Two, yes."
Still holding himself and her flat against the wall, he turned his head
cautiously from side to side, searching the empty room. There was
absolutely nothing there except bare floor and walls, and, in the fireplace, a
huge iron grate weighted with cannel coal.
Outside, from the two corridors the firing had ceased; but he could
distinguish the low vibration of heavy voices, carefully subdued, catch the
sound of stealthy movements on the carpeted floor close to both doors.
Lifting his pistol he fired through one door, wheeled, and fired through the
other. When the deafening racket in the room had ceased, he bent toward
her and whispered:
"Philippa, will you obey me?"
"Yes, mon ami."

"Flatten yourself closer against the wall and don't stir."
The girl spread out both arms, palms against the wall, and shrank
closer against it with her slim body.
Warner dropped cautiously to the floor, crept across it, dragging
himself by his hands, grasped the sill of the window, drew his head up with
infinite precaution, and looked out and finally down.
Below lay the flagstones and potted flowers of the garden terrace, not
more than twenty-five feet, he thought. Beyond these, the grass sloped
down to the Récollette, where rowboats still floated under the trees.
Reconnoitering, he could not discover a soul in sight, and, satisfied, he
crept back to where Philippa stood.
As he looked up at her, a faint smile touched the girl's bruised lips, and
her steady grey eyes seemed to say: "Me voici, mon ami, toujours à vos
ordres!"
"We must try to leave by the window," he whispered. "Both doors are
guarded. And this man means murder—for you, anyway——"
"Yes.... It does not matter much now.... Since I have seen you again."
"You dear child—you dear, brave little thing!"
"Oh, mon ami—if you truly are content with me——"
"Little comrade, you have been very wonderful and very true! Halkett
has recovered his papers.... Can you imagine how I felt when that
murderous brute struck you!"
"It was nothing—I don't care, now——" She looked at his face,
extended one finger along the wall, and touched his arm, trying to smile
with her disfigured lips.
He looked at her very intently for a moment, unsmiling. Then:
"Little comrade! Listen attentively."
"Yes, Warner."

"It's too far for us to drop. It is twenty feet, anyway, and probably
more. You would break your legs on the stones.... How many of your
clothes can you spare to make a rope?"
"My—clothing?"
"Yes. You see there is not a thing in this room, not even a shred of
carpet. I can spare my coat, waistcoat, shirt, tie, two handkerchiefs, collar,
belt—and both shoe laces. I have a heavy, sharp pocketknife with a four-
inch blade, which will cut cloth into strips. Help me all you can, Philippa.
We shall need every inch of cloth and linen we can spare.... And I think we
had better hurry about it, because I don't know what they are planning to do
outside those two doors."
She hesitated an instant, then:
"If you wish it.... Will you please turn your head?"
"Of course, you dear child! What can you spare?"
"I can spare my chemisette and underskirt and petticoat, and my velvet
hairband and my shoe laces.... And a handkerchief and my stockings.... It
leaves me my red velvet bodice, which I can lace tightly, my red velvet
skirt, and my shoes.... Will it be enough to give you?"
"I hope so; we must try." He turned, stripped to his undershirt and
trousers, opened the long-bladed knife, and began to cut out strips from the
materials.
Presently she was ready to contribute to the projected rope, and
together they ventured to seat themselves noiselessly at the base of the wall
and begin serious work on the business before them.
The sound of linen or of cotton being ripped would certainly have set
on the alert the men outside and directed a murderously inclined gentleman
or two to the garden.

So they parted the stuffs with every precaution to avoid any noise,
using the knife constantly, and easing the various fabrics apart little by
little.
Warner was confident that Wildresse, knowing the utter nakedness of
the room in which they were locked, and knowing that death or broken
bones must result from a drop into the terrace flowerpots, was not
concerning himself to guard that quarter. Working steadily, easing, parting,
picking out or cutting threads, ripping and tearing with greatest caution, the
growing dusk in the room began to impede their operations. But he dared
not use his electric torch, lest they be seen from outside.
Already the girl's slender fingers were flying as she picked up strip
after strip of fabric and twisted them into the quadruple braid, bending
closer over her task as the light became dimmer and dimmer.
Her bare feet in her laceless shoes were extended and crossed in front
of her; the slender neck and shoulders and arms were exquisite in the
delicate loveliness of immaturity; she worked swiftly, intensely absorbed,
unconscious, unembarrassed in her preoccupation.
Now and then she lifted the braided cord and, stretching it, tested it
with all her youthful strength. Once she handed it to him and he threw his
full strength into the test, nodded, passed it back to her, and went on with
his cutting and ripping.
Before the cord was finished, a tremendous crash shook the door on
the left; and Warner, seated flat on the floor, fired two shots through the
panels.
Then they both went on with their cutting, ripping, knotting, and
braiding. The fumes from the cartridges set them coughing, but the smoke
filtered out of the open window very soon.

It was dark when the cord was ready—some eighteen feet of it, as far
as Warner could judge by measuring it across his outstretched arms.
Everything was in it except his leather belt, and this he buckled around
Philippa's body.
There seemed to be no way he could test the cord except, inch by inch,
using main strength; and, looking at the slender girl beside him, he
concluded that it was going to hold her anyway.
The only light left in the room came from the stars; by this he crept
across to the fireplace, lifted the heavy, iron grate with difficulty, set it at
the foot of the window, fastened one end of the cord to it, turned and
beckoned to Philippa.
She came creeping through the dusk on hands and knees; he pushed
the pistol into one hip pocket, the electric torch into the other, fastened the
rope to his leather belt which she wore, motioned her to mount the sill.
"But—you?" she whispered.
"Listen! I shall follow. If I fall, try to find Halkett in the square and tell
him."
"Warner—I am afraid!"
"I won't let you fall——"
"For you, I mean!"
"Don't be afraid. I could almost drop it without any cord to help me.
Now! Are you ready?"
"If you wish it."
"Then sit this way—there! Now, turn and take hold of the sill with
both hands—that way! ... Now, you may let go——"
Her full weight on the cord frightened him; he braced his knees and
paid out the rope which crushed and threatened to cut his hands in two.

Down, down into the dusk below he lowered her; his arms and back
and ribs seemed turned to steel, so terrible was the fear that he might let her
drop.
There remained yet a coil or two of rope when the cord in his
staggering hands suddenly slackened. A shaft of fright pierced him; he bent
shakily over the sill and looked down. She had not fallen; she stood on the
terrace, unknotting the rope from her leather belt.
A moment later he drew it up, the belt dangling at the end. With
trembling and benumbed hands he tested the knot tied to the grate; then,
twisting the cord around both hands, he let himself over the sill, clung there,
and lowered the window, hesitated, let his full weight hang, heard the iron
grate drag and catch, then, blindly, twisting the cord around his left leg, he
let himself down foot by foot, believing every moment that the cord would
part or that the iron grate would be dragged up and over the sill, carry away
the sash, and crush him.
And the next instant his feet touched the stone flagging and he turned
to find Philippa at his side.
"Be silent," she breathed close to his ear. "A boat has just landed."
"Where?"
"At the foot of the garden. Two men are getting out!"
He knew that the rope would be discovered; he seized it and tried to
break it loose. It held as though it had been woven of wire.
"There is a way into the cellar," whispered Philippa. "Can you lift this
grating? It is only a drop of a foot or two!"
He bent down beside her in the shadows, felt the bars of the narrow
grating overgrown with herbage, pulled upward and lifted it easily from its
grassy bed. Philippa placed her hand flat on the dewy turf, and vaulted
down into darkness. He balanced himself on the edge of the hole, turned

and pulled the grating toward him, and dropped. The grating fell with a soft
thud on the damp and grassy rim of the manhole. Philippa caught his hand.
"I know my way! Come!" she breathed, and he followed into the
pitchy darkness.
How far they had progressed he had no idea, when she halted and drew
him close to her.
"I've lost my way; I thought I could find the main corridor. Have you a
match?"
"I have a flashlight."
He pulled it from his pocket and drew his pistol also. Then he snapped
on the light.
For a moment the girl stood dazzled and perplexed, evidently
unfamiliar with what she was gazing at, bewildered.
But Warner knew. There, in front of him, stood the great tun, swung
open like a gate, and between it and the next cask ran the secret alley
blocked by the door from which Wildresse had driven Asticot and
Squelette.
"I know the way now!" he said. "But we'll have to pass through the
café——"
He sprang back with the words on his lips as the door opened violently
and Wildresse lurched out, followed by Asticot and another man.
But the glare of the torch in their eyes checked them and they recoiled,
stumbling over each other in the narrow doorway.
Step by step Warner backed away, keeping Philippa behind him and
focussing the blinding light on the men huddled in the doorway.
"Who are you?" demanded Wildresse hoarsely. "What are you doing in
my cellar?"

He made a motion toward his breast pocket; Asticot was quicker, and
he fired full at the flashlight which Warner was holding wide of himself and
Philippa.
The bullet struck the light; startling darkness buried them, instantly all
a-flicker again with pistol flashes.
"The grating again! Can you find it, Philippa?" he whispered.
She turned her head as she retreated, caught a glimpse of the faint spot
of starlight behind, took his hand and drew him around.
Evidently Wildresse dared not use any light; his friends were shooting
wildly and at hazard for general results; the racket in the vaulted place was
deafening; but the flashes from their own pistols must have obscured their
vision, for if they could have distinguished the far, pale spot of light under
the manhole, they evidently did not see the dim figures crouching there.
Warner reached up, grasped the iron bars, lifted them, swung them
open. Then he dragged himself up and over, and, flat on the grass, held
down his arms for Philippa.
Beside him, panting on the grass, she lay flat under the dim luster of
the stars, while they searched the dusk for any sign of the two men who had
landed from the rowboat.
And all at once the girl's eyes fell upon a ladder leaning against the
house, and she silently touched Warner on the arm.
It became plain enough now; the rope was gone; the men had mounted
to the room, found it empty, had unbolted both doors, and started Wildresse
and his crew toward the cellar—the only egress to the street—where lay
their only chance of successful pursuit.
Bending low above the grass, gliding close to the shrubs and bushes,
Warner, with Philippa's hand clasped in his, stole down the slope and into
the shadow of the shoreward trees.

A boat, with both oars in it, lay there, pulled up into the sedge; the girl
stepped in; Warner pushed off and followed her, shipped the oars, swung
the boat, and bent to his work.
"You are taking the wrong way!" whispered Philippa.
"Halkett is waiting on the quay."
Already they had rounded the bank in sight of the ancient arch of the
bridge; the quay wall rose above them in the starlight. At the foot of the
narrow flight of steps he checked the boat; Philippa took the oars, and he
sprang out and ran up the stone incline.
"Halkett!" he called sharply.
A figure seated on the wall turned its head, jumped to the pavement,
and came striding swiftly.
"Have you discovered her whereabouts? Good heavens! Where are
your clothes, Warner?"
"I've found Philippa. She's waiting below in a boat——"
They ran down the steps while they were speaking, and Philippa cried:
"Is it you, Halkett? I am happy again!" And stretched out her slender
bare arm to him, excited, trembling a little from the nervous reaction which
now suddenly filled her eyes and set her disfigured mouth quivering.
"Awf'lly glad," said Halkett heartily, clasping her offered hand in his
firm cool grip; and if he was astonished at her negligee he did not betray it,
but took the oars with decision and sent the boat shooting out into mid-
current.
"Philippa," he said, pulling downstream with powerful strokes through
the darkness, "I don't know what has happened; Warner got you out of the
mess, whatever it was; but what I do know is that you behaved like a brick
and I shall never forget it! A soldier's thanks, little comrade, for what you
did!"

"I—I am—happy——" she faltered; and her voice failed her. She slid
from the stern down against Warner's knees, and buried her face in her bare
arms against them.
"Do you think you could spare her your coat, old fellow?" asked
Warner in a low voice.
"Of course!" Halkett stripped off his coat and passed it over; then he
gave his waistcoat to Warner.
"Lucky it's a warm night," he said cheerfully, while Warner spread the
coat over Philippa, where she lay exhausted, tremulous, and close to tears.
The girl who had never whimpered when fear, timidity, and indecision
meant instant disaster, now lay huddled against his knees, shaking in every
limb, crushing back the tears that burned her eyes and her throat, striving to
master the nerves that clamored for relief.
Warner bent over her, close, touching her disheveled hair:
"It's all right now," he whispered. "I shall not let you go again until you
want to.... It's all right now, Philippa. I'll stand your friend always—as long
as you need me—as long as you—want me.... Don't worry about a home;
I'll see to it. You are going to have your chance."
One of her crossed hands groped blindly for his, closed over it
convulsively, and her breath grew hot with tears.
"It's a long way to Tipperary," remarked Halkett cheerily. "Tell me
about it when you're ready, old chap."

CHAPTER XIX

About seven o'clock the next morning Halkett knocked at Warner's door,
awakening him.
"The cavalry are passing, if you'd care to see them," he said.
Warner got out of bed, found his slippers and a bathrobe, and opened
the door. Halkett, fully dressed in the field uniform of a British officer,
came in.
"Hello!" exclaimed the American in surprise. "What does this mean?"
"It means that we've gone in, old chap."
"England!"
"Yes, we're in it! And I'm off." He made a gesture for silence. "Hark!
Do you hear that?"
Warner listened: from the distance came a confused, metallic sound,
growing more and more distinct, filling the room with a faint ringing,
jarring harmony.
"Come to the window; it's worth seeing," said Halkett.
It was worth seeing. Through the still morning sunshine, from the
southward came an immense sound wave; the rustle and clash of steel, the
clink-clank of iron-shod hoofs.
Leaning from the window, Warner looked down the road. A high
column of white dust stretched away into perspective as far as he could see.
Under it, emerging from it, rode the French heavy cavalry, the morning sun
a blinding sheet of fire on their armor.
On they came at a leisurely walk, helmets and breastplates blazing
silvery fire under a perpendicular forest of lances canopied by the white
dust.
They were terribly conspicuous; a cloudless sky exposed every detail
of their uniforms—the gold epaulets of their officers, the crimson epaulets

and breeches of the troopers, the orange-red whalebone plumes that flew
like the manes of horses from the trumpeters' helmets.
On they came, riding at ease, accompanied by dust and by a vast and
confused volume of assorted noises—the tintinnabulation of their armor, the
subdued clash of sabers, the rattle and clash of equipments, the solidly
melodious trample of thousands of horses.
But Warner looked down at them with anxious eyes and lips
compressed.
"Good God!" he said under his breath to Halkett. "Are they going into
battle dressed that way? I thought they had learned something since 1870!"
"War has caught France unprepared in that particular matter," said
Halkett gravely.
"I didn't know it. I understood that Detaille had designed their
campaign dress. It's a dreadful thing, Halkett, to send men into fire dressed
in that way!"
"It is. But look, Warner. Is there anything more magnificent when in
mass formation than a brigade of French cuirassiers?"
As they rode clanging under the windows of the inn, officers and
troopers looked up curiously at the man in his bathrobe, in friendly surprise
at the young man in the British field uniform; but when the upturned,
sunburned faces caught sight of the next window beyond, a quick, gay
smile flashed out, and dark blue sleeves shot up in laughing greeting and
salute.
"It's Philippa," whispered Halkett. "Look!"
Warner turned: Philippa, wearing the scarlet and black peasant dress of
a lost province, sat sideways on her window sill, knitting while she watched
the passing cavalry below.

The velvet straps and silk laces of her bodice accented a full
chemisette of finest lawn; a delicate little apron of the same was relieved by
the scarlet skirt; the dainty, butterfly headdress of black silk crowned her
hair, which hung in two heavy braids.
And, as the cavalry column passed, every big cuirassier, looking up
from the shadow of his steel helmet, saw Alsace itself embodied in this
slender girl who sat knitting and looking down upon France militant out of
quiet, proud eyes.
There was no fanfare, no shouting, no boasting, nothing theatrical. The
troopers looked up from their saddles and rode by, still looking; the girl
knitted quietly, her steady eyes gazing gravely over the needles. And it was
as though Alsace herself were speaking a silent language from those clear,
grey eyes:
"I am waiting; I have been waiting for you more than forty years. Take
what time you need, but come. You will always find me waiting."
Every officer understood it; every giant rider comprehended, as the
squadrons trampled past through a thickening veil of dust which grew
denser, dulling the sparkle of metal and subduing the raw, fierce colors to
pastel tints.
The brigade passed up the valley leisurely, without halting; dust hung
along the road for many minutes after the last cuirassier had walked his big
horse out of view.
Philippa, who had been seated on the window sill with her back toward
Warner's window, left her perch; and Warner turned back into his room to
bathe and dress.
"How long have you been up?" he asked Halkett, who had dropped on
a chair by the window.

"Since sunrise. Madame Arlon is back. She behaved very nicely about
the damage. She doesn't wish me to pay for it, but I shall. Did you know
that your Harem left in a body for Paris yesterday afternoon?"
"Very sensible of 'em," said Warner with a sigh of relief. "How about
you, Halkett?"
"I don't know yet. I'm expecting orders at any moment now."
"How do you know that your country has gone into this war?"
"I learned it last night at the Boule d'Argent. The news had just come
over the wire.
"That precious pair, Meier and Hoffman, whom I had followed to the
Boule d'Argent, were seated there in the café reading the newspapers when
the telegram was posted up.
"They got up from their chairs with the other guests who had clustered
around the bulletin to read what had been posted up. I watched their faces
from behind my newspaper, and you should have seen their expressions—
utter and blank astonishment, Warner! Certainly Germany never believed
until the last moment that we had any real intention of going in."
"I didn't, either, to tell the truth."
Halkett smiled:
"It was inevitable from the very beginning. The hour that Austria flung
her brutal ultimatum into the face of Servia, every British officer knew that
we were going in. It took our politicians a little longer to realize it, that's
all."
Warner finished dressing, and they went downstairs together and
across the grass to the arbor in the garden, where Philippa sat knitting and
talking under her breath to Ariadne, who gazed at her, brilliant-eyed,
purring.

The girl had her back toward them and they made no sound as they
advanced across the turf which bordered the flowers.
"She's talking to the cat; listen!" murmured Halkett.
"—And after many, many years," they heard Philippa saying, "the sad
and patient mother of the two lost children sent out for her five million
servants. 'Go,' she said, 'and search diligently for my little daughters who
were stolen by the fierce old giant, Bosche. And when you come to where
they are imprisoned, you shall know the place, because there is no place on
earth so beautiful, no mountains so tender a blue, no fields so green and so
full of flowers, no rivers so lovely and clear.
"'Also, you shall recognize my little children when you discover them,
because they dress as I am dressed today, in red and black and wearing the
black butterfly. So when you see them behind the bars of their prison, you
shall call to them by name—you shall call out, Alsace! Lorraine! Be of
good courage! Your mother has sent us here to find you and deliver you
from the prison of the Giant Bosche!
"'Then you shall draw your broad, bright bayonets and fix them; and
you who are mounted shall unsling your long, pointed lances; and you who
feed the great steel monsters that roll along on wheels, shall make ready the
monsters' food; and others of you who put on wings and who mount
clattering to the clouds, shall wing yourselves and mount; and you others
who look out over oceans from the tops of tall, steel masts shall signal for
all the anchors to be lifted.
"'Thus you shall prepare to encounter the Giant Bosche, who will come
thundering and trampling and flaming across the horizon, with his black
banners like storm clouds, and advancing amid a roaring iron rain.
"'Thus you shall meet him and hold him, and turn him, and drive him,
drive him, drive him, back, back, back, into the fierce, dark, shaggy places

from whence he crept out into the sun and stole away my little children.
"'And when that is done, you shall bring me back my children who
were lost, and you shall be their servants as well as mine, dwelling with us
as one family forever, in happiness and honor, dedicating ourselves to
generous and noble deeds as long as the world shall last!' ...
"That, minette, is the fairy story which I promised you if you would be
a good cat and wait patiently for breakfast. And you have done so, and now
I have kept my promise——"
She lifted her eyes from her knitting, turned her head over her
shoulder, and saw Warner and Halkett gravely listening.
"Oh," she said, blushing. "Did you hear the story I have been telling to
Ariadne?" She held out her hand to Warner and then to Halkett, inspecting
the latter critically, much interested in his uniform.
"You saw our cuirassiers?" she asked, as they seated themselves at the
table. "So did I. Also, they saw me. I wished them to see me because I was
dressed in this dress. We understood each other, the 'grosse cavalerie' and
I."
"We saw what was going on," said Halkett. "I should say that about
two thousand suitors have been added to your list this morning, Philippa."
She turned shy and a little grave at that, but seeing Warner laughing,
laughed too.
"If I were a great lady," she said, "you might be right. Only from the
saddle could any man dare hope for a smile from me now."
Linette, with the bright color of excitement still brilliant in her cheeks,
brought out the breakfast tray.
"On the quarry road, across the river," she said, "our fantassins are
marching north—thousands of them, messieurs!—and the dust is like a high
white wall against the hills!"

So they hastened with their coffee and rolls; Warner fetched the garden
ladder and set it against the east wall, and all three mounted and seated
themselves on the coping.
What Linette had reported was true: across the Récollette a wall of
white dust ran north and south as far as they could see. Under it an
undulating column tramped, glimmering, sparkling, flowing northward—an
endless streak of dusty crimson where the red trousers of the line were
startlingly visible through the haze.
Watching the stirring spectacle from a seat on the wall beside Philippa,
Warner turned to her presently:
"Do you feel all right this morning?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Your lip is still a trifle swollen."
"I feel quite well." She looked up at him out of her honest grey eyes.
"It is the happiest morning of my life," she said in a low voice.
"Why?"
"For two reasons: I am to remain with you, that is one reason; I have
lived to see what I am looking at yonder, that is the other reason."
"You have lived to help what is going on yonder," remarked Halkett.
She turned, the question in her eyes; and he answered seriously:
"We British are your allies, now."
"Since when, Monsieur?"
"Since yesterday. So what you did for me when you saved my papers,
you did for a friend to France."
Her sudden emotion left her silent; she bent her head and looked down
at her knitting, and leisurely resumed it, sitting so, her legs hanging down
from the wall, the sun striking her silver shoe buckles.

"Do you hear, Philippa?" asked Warner, smiling. "You have added
reason to be proud of the wound on your lip."
She flashed a look at him, laughed shyly, and became very busy with
her knitting and with watching the passing column across the river.
Halkett had unslung his field glasses to inspect them at closer range.
The dusty fantassins were swinging along at a smart route step, rifles slung,
red képis askew, their bulky luggage piled on their backs and flopping on
their thighs—the same careless, untidy, slipshod infantry with the same
active, tireless, reckless, rakish allure.
Their smartly mounted officers, smartly booted or gaitered, wearing
the smart tunics and gold-laced caps of their arm of the service, seemed
merely to accent the gayly dowdy, ill-fitting uniforms of the little
fantassins.
No British officer could, on his soul and conscience, subscribe to such
flapping, misfitting, fag-ends of military accouterments; and as Halkett
watched them a singularly wooden expression came over his pleasant,
youthful features; and Warner, glancing sideways at him, knew why.
"They're very picturesque if a painter handles them properly," he
remarked, amused. "You know what De Neuville did for them."
Philippa, not comprehending, continued to knit and to gaze out of her
lovely grey eyes upon her beloved fantassins.
Ariadne, seeing her three friends aloft, presently mounted to the top of
the wall beside them, and sat gravely blinking into space through slitted
eyes.
A glazier had come across the fields from some neighboring hamlet,
bringing with him under his ragged arm some panes of glass and a bag of
implements.

He was in a hurry, because he was expecting that his class would be
called to the colors, but the spectacle of the passing infantry across the river
so fascinated him that he made but a slow job of it.
Toward noon a mounted gendarme, who seemed to know him
personally, shouted, as he rode by, that his class had been called. The little
glazier nodded, smeared the last strip of putty under the last window pane
to be replaced, climbed down from the sill, lifted his hat to the three people
on the wall—possibly including Ariadne in his politeness—and trotted
away across the fields to tie up a few possessions in a large red
handkerchief, and then trot away toward Chalons, where France needed
even the humblest and most obscure of the children she had nourished
through many years for such an hour as was sounding now.
Philippa, looking after him, was unconsciously stirred to express her
thoughts aloud:
"There must be something I can do," she said.
"You have been among the very first to do something," rejoined
Warner.
"Oh, that? That was nothing." She pursed up her lips and stared
absently at the troops across the Récollette. "I can knit socks, of course.... I
don't know what else to do.... If anybody wants me I am here."
"I want you, Philippa," said Warner.
"Mon ami, Warner——" She gave him a swift, adorable smile and laid
her hand lightly on his arm for an instant.
Such candid gratitude for friendship he had never read in any eyes
before; the quick response of this friendless girl touched him sharply.
"Of course I want you," he repeated. "Never forget, Philippa, that
where I am you are welcome—not tolerated—wanted!"

She continued to knit, looking down steadily. Halkett lowered his field
glasses and glanced at her, then with an odd look at Warner leveled the
glasses again and resumed his study of the distant column.
After a few minutes' silence the girl raised her eyes, and Warner caught
the glint of unshed tears in them.
"It is only happiness," she said in a low voice. "I am not accustomed to
it."
He did not know what to say, for the grey eyes were stirring him very
deeply, and her attitude and their new relationship touched him and
confused him, too.
The responsibility which he had assumed so impulsively, so lightly yet
warmly, began to wear a more serious aspect to him.
Every few moments some new vein of purest metal was unconsciously
revealed in her by her own transparent honesty. He began to understand that
she had not only right instincts, but that her mind was right, in spite of what
she had been since released from school—that her intelligence was of a
healthy order, that she thought right, and that, untaught or taught otherwise,
her conclusions were as direct and sane as a child's.
"I think, Philippa, we ought to have a business talk this morning," he
said pleasantly.
"To discuss our affairs," she nodded contentedly. "I have my little
account book in my trunk. Shall I get it for you?"
He smiled:
"I didn't intend to examine your financial situation——"
"Oh, but we had better be very clear about it! You see, I have just so
much saved—I shall show you exactly!—and then we can compute exactly
what economies it will be necessary for me to make in order to maintain
myself until we can find employment for me——"

"But, Philippa—" he tried to maintain his gravity—"you need not have
any concern in that regard. First of all, you are on a salary as my model
——"
"Please! I did not wish to be paid for aiding you——"
"But it is a matter of business!"
"I thought—I am happy in being permitted to return a little of your
kindness to me—I do not want anything from you——"
"Kindness!"
"You have let me find a refuge with you——"
"Dear child, I offer you employment until something more suitable
offers. Didn't you understand?"
"Yes, but I did not expect or wish you to pay me—except with
friendship. It is different between us and others, is it not?—I mean you are
my friend.... I could not take money from you.... Let it be only friendship
between us. Will you? I have enough to last until I can find employment.
Only let me be with you. That is quite enough for me, Warner."
Halkett, who had been gazing fixedly through his glasses, remarked
that the column across the river had now passed.
It was true; the wall of dust still obscured the blue foothills of the
Vosges, but the last fantassin had trotted beyond their view and the last
military wagon had rolled out of sight.
Halkett descended from the ladder and went through the house and
down the road in the direction of the schoolhouse, a smart, well-groomed,
well-set-up figure in his light-colored service uniform and cap.
Philippa gathered her knitting into one hand, placed the other in
Warner's, and descended the ladder face foremost, with the lithe, sure-
footed grace of Ariadne, who had preceded them.

"Come to my room," she said, confidently taking possession of
Warner's arm; "I want to show you my account book."
Madame Arlon, who was coming through the hallway, overheard her,
gazed at her unsmilingly, glanced at Warner, whose arm the girl still
retained.
Philippa looked up frankly, bidding the stout, florid landlady a smiling
good morning, and Madame Arlon took the girl's hands rather firmly into
her own, considered her, looked up at Warner in silence.
Perhaps she arrived at some silent and sudden conclusion concerning
them both, for her tightened lips relaxed and she smiled at them and patted
Philippa's hands and went about her affairs, still evidently amused over
something or other. She remarked to Magda in the kitchen that all
Americans were mad but harmless; which distinguished them from
Europeans, who were merely mad.
Upstairs in her bedroom, Philippa was down on her knees rummaging
in her little trunk and chattering away as gay as a linnet to Warner, who
stood beside her looking on.
And at first the pathos of the affair did not strike him. The girl's happy
torrent of loquacity, almost childish in its eagerness and inconsequential
repetition of details concerning the little souvenirs which she held up for his
inspection, amused him, and he felt that she was very, very young.
All the flimsy odds and ends which girlhood cherishes—things utterly
valueless except for the memories evoked by disinterring and handling
them, these Philippa resurrected from the confused heap of clothing in her
trunk—here a thin gold circlet set with a tiny, tarnished turquoise, pledge of
some schoolmate's deathless adoration—there an inky and battered
schoolbook with girls' names written inside in the immature chirography of
extreme youth and sentiment. And there were bits of inexpensive lace and

faded ribbons, and a blotting pad full of frail and faded flower-ghosts, and
home-made sachets from which hue and odor had long since exhaled, and
links from a silver chain and a few bright locks of hair in envelopes.
And every separate one of these Philippa, on her knees, held up for
Warner to admire while she sketched for him the most minute details of the
circumstances connected.
Never doubting his interest and sympathy, she freed her long-caged
heart with all the involuntary ecstasy of an escaped bird pouring out to the
clouds the suppressed confidences of many years.
Names, incidents, circumstances almost forgotten even in her brief
solitary life, were now uttered almost unbidden from her ardent lips; the
bright or faded bits of ribbon were held aloft, identified with a little laugh or
sigh, tossed aside, and another relic uncovered and held out to him.
On her knees before these innocent records of the past, the girl was
showing him everything she knew about herself—showing him herself, too,
and her warm, eager heart of a child.
He was no longer merely amused; he stood listening in silence to her
happy, disjointed phrases, evoked by flashes of memory equally
disconnected.
The happiness connected with her girlish souvenirs faded, however,
when they represented the period following her removal from school.
And yet, for all the loneliness and unhappiness—for all the instinctive
mental revolt, all the perplexity and impatience of these latter years—their
souvenirs she handled tenderly, describing each with that gentleness and
consideration born of intimate personal association.
And at last she discovered her account book, strapped with rubber
bands, and she rose from the floor, drew the only chair up for Warner, and
seated herself on her bed, laying the book open across his knees.

Here, under his eyes, columns of accurately kept figures told the story.
Here everything had been minutely set down—her meager salary, her few
expenses, her rigid economies, her savings during the years of her
employment by Wildresse—a record of self-denial, of rigid honesty, of
childlike perseverance.
As he slowly turned the clearly written pages on his knees, Philippa,
leaning against his shoulder, her fresh young face close to his, pointed out
and explained with her forefinger tracing the written figures.
After he had examined her accounts, she unstrapped her thin little pass
book for him. It was in order and balanced to the end of July.
He closed the books, rested his clasped hands on them, and sat
thinking. His preoccupied expression left her silent, too—or perhaps it was
the slight reaction from her joyous indulgence in loquacity. Reticence
always follows—and always this aftermath of silence is tinged with
sadness.
He was thinking, almost in consternation, how lightly he had assumed
responsibility for a young soul in the making. All of her was still in the
making; the girl was merely beginning to develop in mind and spirit; and in
body her development had not ended.
Her circumstances aside—whatever her origin, whatever her class or
position might have been—he suddenly realized that for him the
responsibility was too great.
Whatever her origin, in her were the elements and instincts of all
things upright. Whatever her place in the social scale, her intelligence could
not be questioned. And, if her recent years had been passed amid sordid and
impossible surroundings and influences, these had not corrupted her. In her
there was no hint of depravity, nothing unwholesome, nothing spoiled.

Life and endeavor and the right to hope still lay before her; a
theoretical future opened uncontaminated; opportunity alone was her
problem; and his. And he realized his responsibility and was perplexed and
troubled.
"Philippa," he said, looking up at her where she sat on the iron bed, her
cheek resting on her clasped hands, "I am not very aged yet. Do you realize
that?"
"Aged?" she repeated, puzzled.
He laughed and so did she.
"I mean," he said, "that if you and I go about together in this rather
suspicious world, nobody is likely to understand how very harmless and
delightful our friendship is."
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.