The Girl Philippa

"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.