Part 28

Vignier had come around; he was an old soldier, and Warner spoke to him.

"Perhaps a cow," he said with a shrug, "--the wind in the bushes--a hedgehog rustling. Young soldiers are like that in the beginning. And still, perhaps they have caught a prowler out there--an Uhlan, maybe, or a spy. One never knows what to expect at night."

"Do you think that our valley will see any fighting, Vignier?"

"Does that not depend, Monsieur, on what is to happen beyond the Vosges? They have dug line after line of trenches across the valley and the plateau as far as Dreslin. Those are positions being prepared in advance, to fall back upon in case of disaster in the east."

"I thought that was what this trench digging meant."

"That is what it means, Monsieur Warner. They tell me that our soldiers are going to operate the cement works day and night to turn out material for platforms and emplacements. I know that they have gone into our western woods with loads of cement and crushed stone. The forest is full of _fantassins_ and _chasseurs-a-pied_. It is certain that some general will make our Chateau his headquarters _en passant_."

He had scarcely spoken when, far away in the darkness, a noise arose. It came from the direction of the lodge gate, grew nearer, approaching by the drive.

The Countess, reading to Gray, heard it, laid down her book to listen. Gray listened too, raising himself on his pillows.

"Cavalry have entered the grounds," he said quietly.

"I shall have to go down," she said. At the door she paused: "Will you remember where we left off, Captain Gray?"

"I shall remember. It is where he has completely fallen in love with her."

The Countess de Moidrey met his calm gaze, sustained it for a moment, then with a smile and a nod of adieu she turned and went out into the corridor. As she descended the stairs she placed both hands against her cheeks, which burned slightly.

The hall below was already crowded with officers of somebody's staff; the pale blue tunics of chasseurs and hussars were conspicuous against the darker dress of dragoons. The silver corselet of a colonel of cuirassiers glittered in the lamplight; twisted gold arabesques glimmered on crimson caps and sleeves; the ring of spur and hilt and the clash of accouterments filled the house.

As the Countess set foot in the hall, a general officer wearing the cross of the Legion came forward, his red cap, heavy with gold, in his gloved hand.

"Countess," he said, bending over the hand which she smilingly extended, "a thousand excuses could not begin to make amends for our intrusion----"

"General, you honor my roof. Surely you must understand the happiness that I experience in reminding you that the house of De Moidrey belongs to France and to the humblest and highest of her defenders."

The General, whose clipped mustache and imperial were snow-white, and whose firm, bronzed features denied his years, bent again over the pretty hand that rested on his own.

Then, asking permission to name himself, in turn he presented the members of his military family.

Included was a thin blond man of middle height, with a golden mustache twisted up, cinder-blond hair, and conspicuous ears. He wore a monocle, and was clothed in a green uniform. General of Division Delisle presented him as Major-General Count Cassilis, the Russian Military Observer attached to division headquarters.

For a few moments there was much bending of tight-waisted tunics in the yellow lamplight, much jingling of spurs and sabers, compliments spoken and implied with a gay smile and bow--all the graceful, easy formality to be expected in such an extemporized gathering.

Peggy and Philippa appeared, followed by Warner; presentations were effected; servants arranged chairs and brought trays set with bottles of light wine and biscuits, preliminary to an improvised supper which was now being prepared in the kitchen.

General Raoul Delisle had known Colonel de Moidrey; he and the Countess formed the center of the brilliant little assembly where half a dozen officers surrounded Peggy and Warner.

But the effect of Philippa on the Russian Military Observer, General Count Cassilis, was curious to watch.

From the instant he laid eyes on her, he had continued to look at her; and his inspection would have had all the insolence of a stare had he not always averted his gaze when hers moved in his direction.

When he had been named to her, he had bowed suavely, and with characteristic Russian ceremony and empressement; but the instant her name was pronounced the Russian Observer had straightened himself like a steel rod released from a hidden spring, and his fishy blue eyes widened so that his monocle had fallen from its place to swing dangling across the jeweled decorations on his breast.

And now he had managed to approach Philippa and slightly separate her from the company, detaining her in conversation, more suave, more amiably correct than ever.

Already in her inexperience with a world where such men are to be expected, the girl found herself vaguely embarrassed, subtly on the defensive--a defensive against something occult which somehow or other seemed to menace her privacy and seemed to be meddling with the natural reticence with which, instinctively, she protected herself from any explanation of her past life.

Not that Count Cassilis had presumed to ask any direct question; she was not even aware of any hint or innuendo; yet she was constantly finding herself confronted with a slight difficulty in responding to his gay, polite, and apparently impersonal remarks. Somehow, everything he said seemed to involve some reference on her part to a past which now concerned nobody excepting herself and the loyal friends who comprehended it.

And, from the beginning, from the first moment when this man was presented to her, and she had looked up with a smile to acknowledge the introduction, she experienced an indefinite sensation of meeting somebody whom she had seen somewhere years before--years and years ago.

As he conversed with her, standing there by the table with the lighted lamp partly concealed by his gold-slashed shoulder, the vague impression of something familiar but long forgotten came at moments, faded, returned, only to disappear again.

And once, a far, pale flicker of memory played an odd trick on her, for suddenly she seemed to remember a pair of thin, conspicuous ears like his, and lamplight--or perhaps sunlight--shining behind them and turning them a translucent red. It came and vanished like the faint memory of a dream dreamed years and years ago. As she looked at Count Cassilis, the smile died out in her eyes and on her lips, and the slightest feeling of discomfort invaded her.

Toasts were offered, acknowledged, compliments said, glasses emptied.

The General of Division Delisle spoke diffidently of quarters for himself and his military family, and was cordially reassured by the Countess.

There was plenty of room for all. It was evident, too, that they had ridden far and must be hungry. Servants were summoned, rooms in the east wing thrown open to the air; the kitchen stirred up to increased activity for the emergency; the officers piloted to the rooms assigned them.

Down on the drive a shadowy escort of hussars waited until an orderly appeared, shining, with his breast torch, the path to the stables.

Then three sky-guns jolted up out of the darkness and halted; a company of infantry tramped by toward the garage; the horses of the staff were led away by mounted gendarmes; and three big military touring cars, their hoods and glass windows grey with dust, began to purr and pant and crawl slowly after the infantry.

Everywhere sentries were being set, taking post on every terrace, every path and road, and before the doorways of the great house.

A single candle burned in the chapel. Beside it sat Sister Eila, intent on her breviary, her lips moving silently as she bent above it.

The fifth part of the breviary, Matins, Lauds, and the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, absorbed her.

The whole of the breviary services, the duty of publicly joining or of privately reading aloud so as to utter with the lips every word, is generally incumbent upon all members of religious orders.

But Sisters of Charity, forming as they do an _active_ religious order, are excepted.

Nevertheless, they are always bound to some shorter substitute, such as the Little Office, or to some similar office. And though the hours for devotion are prescribed, the duties of mercy sometimes interrupt the schedule which must then be carried out as circumstances of necessity permit.

Philippa, entering the chapel, caught sight of Sister Eila, and knelt without disturbing her.

The girl had experienced an odd, unaccustomed, and suddenly imperative desire for the stillness of an altar, for its shelter; for that silent security that reigns beneath the crucifix and invites the meditation of the pure in heart.

How long she had been seated there in the shadows she did not know, but presently she became aware of Sister Eila beside her, resting against her as though fatigued.

The girl put her arm around Sister Eila's neck instinctively, and drew the drooping head against her shoulder.

They had not known each other well.

That was the beginning.

*CHAPTER XXXV*

The growling and muttering of German guns in the north and northeast awoke Warner in his bed.

Sunrise plated his walls and ceiling with gold; the morning air hummed with indefinite sounds and rumors, the confusion and movement of many people stirring.

He stood for a moment by his window looking down over the plateau and across the valley of the Recollette.

Everywhere cavalry, infantry, artillery, baggage trains, automobiles, bicycles, motor cycles were moving slowly eastward into the blazing eye of the rising sun and vanishing within its blinding glory.

Two French aeroplanes had taken the air. They came soaring over the valley from the plateau, filling the air with the high clatter of their machinery; pale green ribbons of smoke fell from them, uncoiling like thin strips of silk against the sky; flag signals were being exchanged between officers gathered on the terrace below and a group of soldiers at the head of the nearest pontoon across the river.

Poles supporting field telephone and telegraph wires stretched across the lawn, running south toward the lodge gate. Another line ran east, another west.

Parked on the lawn were a dozen big automobiles, the chauffeurs at the wheels, the engines running. Behind these, soldier cyclists and motor cyclists sat cross-legged by their machines, exchanging gossip with a squadron of hussars drawn up on the other side of the drive.

There were no tents visible anywhere, but everywhere in the open soldiers were erecting odd-looking skeleton shelters and covering them with freshly cut green boughs from the woods. Under one of these an automobile was already standing, and under others hussars stood to horse.

Across the rolling country, stretching over valley and plateau, the face of the green and golden earth was striped, as though some giant plow had turned furrows at random here and there, some widely separated from the rest, others parallel and within a few yards of one another. A few dark figures appeared along these furrows of raw earth, moved about, disappeared. It was evident that the trenches of these prepared positions were still in process of construction, for carts were being driven to and from them and men were visible working near some of them.

Warner had completed his toilet when a maid brought cafe-au-lait. He ate, listening to the grumble of the northern cannonade and watching the movement of the columns along dry roads, where unbroken walls of dust marked every route, seen or unseen, across the vast green panorama.

He had finished breakfast and was lighting a cigarette in preparation for descending to the terrace, when the noise of an altercation arose directly under his window; and, looking out, he beheld Asticot in dispute with the sentry stationed there, loudly insisting that he was a servant of the establishment, and demanding free entry with every symptom of virtuous indignation.

He was a sight; his face and hands were smeared with black--charcoal, it looked like--his clothes were muddy and full of briers, his beloved lovelocks, no longer plastered in demicurls over each cheekbone, dangled dankly beside his large, wide ears.

Over his shoulder he carried a sack, and to this he clung while he flourished his free hand in voluble and impassioned argument.

Warner spoke sharply from the window above:

"Asticot!"

The disheveled one looked up with a joyous exclamation of recognition; the sentry also looked up.

"He's my servant," said Warner quietly. "Asticot! What do you want?"

"M'sieu' Warner, I have something for you and for Mademoiselle Philippa----"

"Very well. Go to the harness room; make something approaching a toilet, put on the clean suit I gave you, and report to me."

"'Fait, M'sieu'!"

The sentry scowled after him as he departed, and Asticot pulled a hideous face at him and thrust his tongue into his cheek in derision.

Warner, immensely amused, reassured the soldier on guard, folded his arms and leaned on the sill to watch the interminable columns of motor lorries moving through the valley.

The scenes everywhere were so intensely interesting that he had not had enough of them when Asticot reappeared, cleansed, reclothed, his hair sleekly plastered, still lugging his sack and looking at the sentinel with the sad air of outraged innocence bestowing forgiveness.

"Let him pass, please," said Warner from the window. After a few moments a disgusted maid knocked, requesting enlightenment concerning "an individual pretending to be a servant of Monsieur Warner."

"It's true, Babette," he said, laughing. "Show him up, if you please."

Asticot entered, cap in hand, bowed, scraped the carpet with a propitiating and crablike shuffle of his right foot, and set the sack upon the floor.

There always had been something about the young ruffian which inclined Warner to mirth. He waited a moment to control the amusement which twitched at his lips, then:

"Well, Asticot, where have you been and what is in this bundle?"

"M'sieu'--may I close the door? I thank M'sieu'.... One cannot be too careful about being overheard in these miserable days of martial law."

"What? Have you been doing something you are ashamed of?"

"No; nothing that I am ashamed of," replied Asticot naively. "I have been to Ausone."

"To Ausone!"

"M'sieu', figurez-vous!--It occurred to me last evening--_tiens!_ there ought to be a few odds and ends to pick up in Ausone--a few miserable _chiffons_ which nobody wants--little fragments of no value, you understand--what with the bombardment and all those ruined houses----"

"You went _looting_!"

"M'sieu'!" he said in pained surprise. "It was nothing like _that_! No! I said to myself, '_Tenez, mon vieux_, to rake over a pile of rubbish is no crime in Paris. On peut ramasser des bouts d'cigares comme ca. Eh, bien, quoi?' I said to myself, 'Asticot, en route!'

"So I borrowed a boat----"

"Borrowed? From whom?"

"I could not find any owner, M'sieu'. So, as I say, I offered myself a boat, and I took the fishing pole which was in it, and I rowed boldly up the river.

"I suppose, seeing the fishing pole, nobody stopped me. Besides, there were a few freshly caught fish in the boat. These I held up, offering to sell to the soldiers I saw--a precaution, M'sieu', which rendered my voyage very easy."

"It's a wonder you did not get yourself shot!"

"It was dark enough after a while. And there are no troops beyond the second mill; and no vedettes disturbed me.

"At the Impasse d'Alcyon I tied my boat. The alley and the square were full of the poor people of Ausone, returning to look among the ruins for what had been their homes. Me, I said I was looking for mine, also----"

Warner said:

"That is villainous, Asticot; do you know it?"

"M'sieu'! I journeyed there only for what was rightfully mine!"

"Yours! What do you mean?"

"_Tenez_, M'sieu'; that wicked traitor, Wildresse, employed me, did he not? Bon! Would you believe it--never yet has he paid me what he owes me! M'sieu', such trickery, such ingratitude is nauseating! Besides, now that I know he has sold France, I would not touch his filthy money. No!"

He scowled thoughtfully at space, shrugged, continued:

"The question nevertheless remained: _how_ was I to reimburse myself? Tiens! An idea! I remembered that in the cellar of that cabaret my friend, Squelette, and I had discovered a safe.

"That very night, after M'sieu' had escaped us, taking with him M'amzelle Philippa, Squelette and I we drilled into that safe----"

"What!"

Asticot shrugged:

"Que voulez-vous! C'est la vie! Also, M'sieu' should trouble himself to recollect that I had not become honest and God-fearing under the merciless blows of M'sieu'. I was still full of evil in those days, alas! not yet sufficiently remote----"

"Go on," said Warner, controlling his laughter.

"M'sieu', we got the safe door open, Squelette and I, but found no opportunity to rummage. Then we were sent here, M'sieu' knows the rest--the bombardment and all.... So last night I went back to the cabaret--or what remains of it--four walls and a heap of brick. The fire was out. The cabaret was ruined, but the cafe had not been destroyed.

"And now, M'sieu', comes a real vein of luck. And what do you suppose! Face to face in the dark I came upon a pioupiou on guard as I crawl through the cafe door.

"And I thought his bayonet was in my bowels, M'sieu', when he turned his breast torch on me. One makes short work of looters--not that I can rightly be called that. No! But still I thought: 'Dieu! Je claque! C'est fini!' When, 'Tiens!' exclaims my soldier. 'C'est mon vieux co'pain! What dost thou do here, Asticot, smelling around these ruins?'

"M'sieu', I look, I expel a cry of joy, I embrace a friend! It is One Eye--my comrade in the Battalion of Biribi! I am within the lines of a Battalion of Africa!"

He licked his lips furtively, and leered at Warner.

"_Voyez-vous_, M'sieu', when old friends meet an affair is quickly arranged. I file away at full speed; I gain the cellar, I flash the safe, I pull some old sacks under me and sit down at my leisure. It was most comfortable.

"Can M'sieu' see the tableau? Me, Asticot, seated before the open safe of Wildresse, who has wronged me and my country, leisurely revenging myself by knocking off the necks of his wine bottles and refreshing myself while I examine the contents of the traitor's safe!"

He smirked, doubtless picturing to himself his recent exploit, with himself, Asticot, as the heroic center of a deed which evidently gave him exquisite satisfaction.

He reached for the sack on the floor, squatted down on the rug in front of Warner's chair, untied the sack, and drew from it bundle after bundle of papers.

"His!" he remarked. "All private. I think, M'sieu', that a few of these will do away with any necessity for ceremony when we catch Wildresse."

He passed the packages of papers to Warner, who laid them on the table, looking very serious.

What Asticot did not extract from the sack he had already removed and hidden in the straw under his blanket in the harness room--a bag of Russian gold coins and a bag of French silver money.

Now, however, he produced a pillowcase. There were old, rusty stains on it, and in the corner of it a heraldic device embroidered.

Asticot deftly untied it and dumped out of it upon the floor a strange assortment of things--toys, and picture books in French, articles of clothing, ribbons, tiny slippers, the crumpled frocks and stockings of a little girl, and fragments of a little cloak of blue silk edged with swansdown, and a little hat to match.

"What in the world----" began Warner, when Asticot opened one of the picture books and silently displayed the name written there--"Philippa."

"M'sieu', because you are fond of M'amzelle, when I discovered her name in these books I brought everything as I found it--tied up in this pillowcase--toys, clothing, all, just as I discovered it in the safe--thinking perhaps to please M'sieu', who is so kind to me----"

"You did right! What are those things--photographs? Give them to me----"

"M'sieu', they are the pictures of a little child. To me they resemble M'amzelle Philippa."

Warner examined the half-dozen photographs in amazement. They were more or less faded, not sufficiently to prevent his recognizing in them the child that Philippa had once been. He was absolutely certain that these photographs represented Philippa somewhere between the ages of five and seven.

One by one he studied them, then turned them over. On every one was written "Philippa," and the age, "four," "five," "six," on the several pictures. All were written in the same flowing feminine handwriting. The name of the photographer was the same on every picture, except on that one where the age "six" was written. That photograph had been taken in the city of Sofia in Bulgaria. The others bore the name of a photographer in the French city of Tours.

Asticot, squatting on the floor cross-legged, watched him in silence.

Finally Warner said:

"Thank you, Asticot. You have behaved with intelligence. I double your wages."

"M'sieu' is contented with his Asticot, grateful and devoted?"

"Indeed, I am!"

"Will M'sieu' permit me to go now?"

"Certainly. Do they feed and lodge you properly at the inn?"

Asticot murmured that it was heavenly, and hastily took his departure, burning with anxiety concerning the safety of the treasure he had concealed under the straw and blanket in the harness room.

As for Warner, he was intensely interested, excited, and perplexed. Here, apparently, in this old, stained pillowcase which Asticot had found in the private safe of Wildresse, were the first clews to Philippa's identity that anybody, excepting Wildresse, had ever heard of.

These photographs were without doubt photographs of Philippa as a child, two taken in Tours, one in Sofia.

And the girl's name was Philippa, too----

Suddenly it occurred to him that, according to Wildresse, Philippa had been left at his door as a Paris foundling--as an infant only a few weeks old. So Wildresse himself might have named her. Perhaps his wife had written Philippa's name on these pictures. And yet--how had Philippa come to be in the Bulgarian city of Sofia? Was it possible that Wildresse could ever have taken the child there?

He looked down at the toys, at the clothing. Had they belonged to Philippa as a child?

Between his room and Gray's there was a pretty sitting room. He put everything back into the pillowcase, went out into the corridor, found the sitting room door open and the room full of sunlight.

A maid, who sat sewing in the corridor, went to Philippa's room with a request from Warner that she dress and come to the sitting room.

Warner emptied the pillowcase on the center table, then, folding it, gave it to the maid, who returned to say that Philippa was dressed and would come immediately.

"Take this pillowcase to Madame la Comtesse," he explained. "Say to Madame that there is a device embroidered on the case, and that I should be infinitely obliged if Madame la Comtesse would be kind enough to search for a similar device among such volumes on the subject as she possesses."

The maid went away with the pillowcase, and a moment later Philippa appeared, fresh, dainty, smiling, an enchanting incarnation of youth and loveliness in her thin, white morning frock.

She offered her hand and withdrew it immediately, as though this slight, new shyness of hers in his presence forbade that contact with him which, before that day when he painted her, had never seemed to embarrass her.