The Girl Philippa

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.