Part 20

"I had _nobody_. Do you understand? I seem to know right from wrong, but I don't know how I know it. Yet, I am old in some things--old and wearied with a knowledge which still, however, remains personally incomprehensible to me. It's just a vast accumulation of unhappy facts concerning life as it is lived by many.... I always knew there were such people as you--as these dear and gentle friends of yours; I never saw them--never saw even any young girls after I left school--only the women, young and old, who came to the cabaret, or who came and went through the Ausone streets, or who sat knitting and gossiping under the trees on the quay."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next moment he halted, rigid, astounded.

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

*CHAPTER XXV*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vignier met Warner at the stable door.

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

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

"He _is_ conscious, then?"

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

"What?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

He half rose from his chair, and Asticot shrieked.

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

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

"What information?--You rat!"

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

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

"T-t-to f-find out if _l-la fille_, Philippa, had taken refuge with M-madame la Comtesse----"

"Who wants that information?"

"I s-swear to you----"

"Quick! _Who_ wants it!"

"Monsieur Wildresse----"

"Why?"

"_Je n'en sais rien_----"

"You lying Apache! _Why_?"

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

"He _does_ mean to seize her, then?"

"Alas----"

"_Does_ he?"

Asticot's entire body jerked from sheer fright.

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

"Be quiet!"

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

"Serve _me_? Why?"

"Mon Dieu, M'sieu', have I not been most horribly beaten by M'sieu'? I, Asticot, who am not unacquainted with the _Boxe_ and the _Savate_--I have been rendered insensible! With weapons? No! _Without_ weapons! Yes, with the empty hands of M'sieu'. Why should I not admire? Why should I not experience gratitude that I am alive? Am I an imbecile to court further destruction? _Non, alors_; I am not crazy. God forbid I should ever again experience the hand of M'sieu' upon my coat collar! And if----"

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

"Mon Dieu, M'sieu'----"

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

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

"All right; La Nouvelle----"

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

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

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

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

"M'sieu' doubtless knows."

"Never mind what I know. Answer!"

"Le vieux----"

"_Who?_"

"Le Pere Wildresse--he has taken to the woods----"

"Where?"

"Le foret d'Ausone."

"Why?"

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

"Go on!"

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

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

"Blackmail him?"

"Naturally."

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

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

Warner got up from his chair.

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

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

"Really?"

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

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

"M-m'sieu'!"

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

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

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

Vignier knocked at the door. Behind him came a stableboy with a tub.

"Take care of that rat," said Warner briefly; and went out into the night.

His hands were slightly discolored, and one had bled at the knuckles. He went directly to the room, changed his linen, made a careful toilet with a grimace of retrospective disgust, then adjusting and brushing out his crumpled attire, took a look at himself in the glass and discovered no incriminating evidence of his recent pugilistic activity.

But when he went downstairs he discovered that the family had retired; lights flickered low in the west drawing-room, a lamp remained burning in the staircase hall, but the remainder of the house was dark.

As he stood at the drawing-room door, undecided whether to carry the hallway lamp to the library and find a book, or to return to his room and bed, a slight noise on the stairway attracted his attention.

Philippa, in boudoir robe and slippers, her chestnut hair in two braids, sat on the carpeted stairs looking down at him through the spindles.

"What on earth are you doing there?" he demanded, smiling up at her.

"You have been away over two hours!"

"I know it: I'm so sorry----"

"You said you were going to find a wrap for me. You didn't return."

"I'm sorry, Philippa. I was detained at the garage--a matter which had to be arranged with Vignier.... You should go back to bed."

"I was in bed."

"Why did you get up?"

"I wished to find out whether you had come in."

"But, Philippa," he protested laughingly, "you don't feel that you have to sit up for me, do you?--As though we were ma----" He checked himself abruptly, and she caught him up where he had stopped.

"Yes, I do feel that way!" she said emphatically. "When the only man a girl has in the whole world goes out and doesn't return, is it not natural for that girl to sit up until he does return?"

"Yes," he said, rather hastily, "I suppose it is. Speak low, or people can hear you. You see I'm all right, so now you had better go to bed----"

"Jim! I don't want to go to bed."

"Why not?" he demanded in a guarded voice.

"I am lonely."

"Nonsense, Philippa! You can't be lonely with real friends so near. Don't sit up any longer."

She sighed, gathered her silken knees into her arms, and shrugged her shoulders like a spoiled child.

"I am lonely," she insisted. "I miss Ariadne."

"We'll go and call on her tomorrow----"

"I want her now. I've a mind to put on a cloak and some shoes and go down to the inn and get her."

"Come!" he said. "You don't want the servants to hear you and see you sitting on the stairs when the household is in bed and asleep."

"Is there any indiscretion in my sitting on the stairs?"

"Oh, no, I suppose not!"

"Very well. Let me sit here, then. Besides, I never have time enough to talk to you----"

"You have all day!"

"The day is not long enough. Even day and night together would be too short. Even the years are going to be too brief for me, Jim! How can I live long enough with you to make up for the years without you!" she explained a trifle excitedly; but she subsided as he made a quick gesture of caution.

"It won't do to sit there and converse so frankly," he said. "Nobody overhearing you would understand either you or me."

The girl nodded. One heavy braid fell across her shoulder, and she took the curling, burnished ends between her fingers and began to rebraid them absently. After a moment she sighed, bent her head and looked down at him between the spindles.

"I am sorry I have annoyed you," she whispered.

"You didn't."

"Oh, I did! It wouldn't do to have people think--what--couldn't be true.... But, Jim, can't you forgive a girl who is entirely alone in the world, clinging to every moment of companionship with her closest friend? And can't you understand her being afraid that something might happen to him--to take him away--and the most blessed friendship that--that she ever even dreamed of in--in the dreadful solitude which was her youth?"

"You dear child--of course I understand.... I never have enough of you, either. Your interest and friendship and loyalty are no warmer than are mine for you.... But you mustn't become morbid; nothing is going to alter our regard for each other; nothing is going to happen to either you or me." He laughed. "So you really need not sit up nights for me, if I happen to be out."

She laughed too, framed her cheeks in her hands, and looked down at him with smiling, humorous eyes which grew subtly tender.

"You do care for me, Jim?"

"Why should I deny it?"

"Why should _I_? I don't. I know I care for you more than everything else in the world----

"Philippa!"

"Yes, Jim?"

"You know--people happening to overhear you might not understand----"

"I don't care! It's the truth!" She rose, bent over the banister to look down at him, discovered that he was not annoyed, smiled adorably.

"Good night! I shall sleep happily!" she whispered, gathering her boudoir robe around her.

At the top of the stairs she turned, leaned over, kissed the palm of one slim hand to him, and disappeared with a subdued and faintly mischievous laugh, leaving in his eyes of an artist a piquant, fleeting, and charming picture.

But upon his mind the impression she left began to develop more slowly--the impression of a young girl--"clean as a flame," as he had once said of her--a lovely and delicate personality absolutely in keeping with the silken boudoir gown she wore--in keeping with the carven and stately beauty of her environment in this ancient house.

Philippa not only fitted into the very atmosphere of such a place; it seemed as though she must have been born in it, so perfectly was she a harmonious part of it, so naturally and without emphasis.

Centuries had cooerdinated, reconciled, and made a mellow ensemble of everything within this house--the walls, the wainscot, mantels, lusters, pictures and frames, furniture and dimmed upholstery.

In the golden demi-light of these halls Philippa moved as though she had known no other--and in the sunlight of music room or terrace she belonged as unquestioned as the sunlight itself; and in lamplit spaces where soft shadows framed her, there also she belonged as certainly as the high, dim portraits of great ladies and brave gentlemen peering down at her through their delicate veils of dust.

Thinking of these things beside the open window of his bedroom, he looked out into the south and east and saw in the sky the silvery pencilings of searchlights on the Barrier Forts, shifting, sweeping in wide arcs, or tremblingly concentrated upon the clouds.

There was no sound in the fragrant darkness, not a breath of air, not a leaf stirring.

His inclination was not to sleep, but to think about Philippa; and he sat there, a burned-out cigarette between his fingers, his eyes fixed so persistently on the darkness that after a while he became conscious of what his concentration was delicately evoking there--her face, and the grey eyes of her, shadowy, tender, clear as a child's.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

Warner awoke with a start; somebody was knocking on his door. As he sat up in bed, the solid thudding of the cannonade filled the room--still very far away, but deeper and with a heavier undertone which set the windows slightly vibrating.

The knocking on his door sounded again insistently.

"All right!" he called, throwing on a bathrobe and finding his slippers.

The rising sun had not yet freed itself from the mist that lay over hill and plain; wide, rosy beams spread to the zenith and a faint glow tinged the morning fog, but the foreground of woods and fields was still dusky and vague, and his room full of shadows.

He tied the belt of his robe and opened the door. In the semi-obscurity of the corridor stood Philippa, hair disordered, wrapped in her chamber robe.

"Jim," she said, "the telephone in the lower hall has been ringing like mad. It awoke me. I lay and listened to it, but nobody seemed to hear it, so I went down. It's a Sister of Charity--Sister Eila--who desires to speak to you."

"I'll go at once--thank you, Philippa----"

"And, Jim?" She was trotting along beside him in her bare feet and bedroom slippers as he started for the stairs. "When you have talked to her, I think you ought to see what is happening on the Ausone road."

"_What_ is happening?" he demanded, descending the stairs.

She kept pace with him, one hand following the stair rail:

"There are so many people and carts and sheep and cattle, all going south. And just now two batteries of artillery went the other way toward Ausone. They were going at a very fast trot--with gendarmes galloping ahead to warn the people to make room----"

"When did you see this?"

"Now, out of that window as I stood knocking at your door."

"All right," he said briefly, picking up the telephone. "Are you there, Sister Eila? Yes; it is Warner speaking."

"Mr. Warner, where can I communicate with Captain Halkett?"

"I don't know, Sister."

"Could you find out?"

"I haven't any idea. He has not written me since he left."

"He left no address with you?"

"None. I don't imagine he knew where he could be found. Is it anything important?"

"Yes. I don't know what to do. There is an Englishman--a soldier--who has been hurt and who says he must send word to Captain Halkett. Could you come to the school?"

"Of course. When?"

"Just as soon as you can. I am so sorry to awaken you at such an hour----"

"It's quite all right, Sister. I'll dress and go at once.... And tell me, are there a lot of people passing southward by the school?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Warner, ever since dawn. Everyone is leaving Ausone and the villages along the Recollette.... I must not use the telephone any longer. I had permission to use it only because the business was of a military nature. Come as soon as you can----"

The connection was abruptly broken--probably by some officer in control.

Warner rose; Philippa had vanished. He walked out to the music room, opened the long windows, and stepped through them to the south terrace.

The muffled roll of the cannonade filled his ears. Except for that dominating and unbroken monotone, the sunrise world was very still, and mist still veiled the glitter in the east.

But below in the valley of the Recollette, the road lay perfectly distinct in the clear, untinted and transparent light of early dawn.

Along it people and vehicles swarmed, moving south--an unending stream of humanity in pairs, in family groups, their arms filled with packages, parcels, bundles tied up in sheets, and bedquilts.

Peasant carts piled with dingy household effects bumped and jolted along; farm wagons full of bedding, on which huddled entire families clasping in their arms cheap wooden clocks, earthen bowls, birdcages, flowerpots, perhaps a kitten or a puppy; and there was every type of vehicle to be seen--the _charrette a bras_, the _tombereau_ dragged by hand, dilapidated cabriolets, wheelbarrows, even baby carriages full of pots and pans.

Here and there some horse, useless for military purposes, strained under a swaying load, led by the head; sometimes a bullock was harnessed with a donkey.

Companies of sheep dotted the highway here and there, piloted by boys and wise-looking, shaggy dogs; there were dusty herds of cattle, too, inclined to leisurely straying but goaded continually into an unwilling trot by the young girls who conducted them. On the river, too, boats were passing south, piled with bedding and with children, the mother or father of the brood doing the rowing or poling.

The quarry road on the other side of the river was too dusty and too far away to permit a distinct view of what was passing there. Without the help of his field glasses, Warner merely conjectured that cavalry were moving northward through the dust that hung along the river bank.