The Girl Philippa

"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."