The Girl Philippa

"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 Récollette… 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 Récollette, 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 à 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.

But the spectacle on the Ausone road below was ominous enough. The northern countryside was in flight; towns and villages were emptying themselves southward; and the exodus had merely begun.

He went back to his room, shaved, bathed, dressed in knickerbockers and Norfolk, and, scribbling a note for Madame de Moidrey, pinned it to his door as he closed it behind him.

On his way through the lower hall, somebody called him softly, and he saw Philippa in the music room, carrying a tray.

"Did you think I was going to let you go out without your breakfast?" she asked, smiling. "I have prepared coffee for us both, you see."

He thanked her, took the tray, and carried it out to the terrace.

There, as the sun rose above the bank of mist and flashed out over miles of dewy country, they had their breakfast together – a new-laid egg, a bowl of café-au-lait, new butter and fresh rolls.

"May I go with you?" asked the girl.

"Why – yes, if you care to – "

She said seriously:

"I don't quite like to have you go alone on that road, with so much confusion and the air heavy with the cannonade – "

His quick laughter checked her.

"You funny, absurd, sweet little thing!" he said, still laughing. "Do you expect to spend the remainder of your life in seeing that I don't get into mischief?"

"If you'll let me," she said with a faint smile.

"Very well, Philippa; come along!" He held out his hand, laughing; the girl clasped it, a half humorous, half reproachful expression in her grey eyes.

"I don't mind your laughing, as long as you let me be with you," she said.

"Why, Philippa!" he said gayly. "What possesses you to be afraid that anything is likely to happen to me?"

"I don't know what it is," she replied seriously. "I seem to be afraid of losing you. Let me be with you – if it does not annoy you."

"You dear child, of course it doesn't annoy me. Only I don't want you to become morbid over the very nicest and frankest of friendships."

They were passing the garage now; he dropped her hand, asked her to wait for him a moment, turned into the service drive, went toward the stable. A sleepy groom responded to the bell, unlocked the doors, and fetched the key to the harness room.

Warner said to the groom:

"Give that fellow in there his breakfast and turn him loose. Tell him I'll kill him if I ever again catch him hanging around here."

The groom grinned and touched his cap, and Warner turned on his heel and rejoined Philippa.

They had to awaken the old lodge keeper, who pulled the chain from where he lay in bed.

Through the wicket and across the road they went, over a stile, and out across country where the fields flashed with dew and the last shreds of mist drifted high among the trees of the woods which they skirted.

Philippa wore her peasant dress – scarlet waist and skirt with the full, fine chemisette; and on her chestnut hair the close little bonnet of black velvet – called bonnet à quartiers or bonnet de béguin– an enchanting little headdress which became her so wonderfully that Warner found himself glancing at her again and again, wondering whether the girl's beauty was growing day by day, or whether he had never been properly awake to it.

Her own unconsciousness of herself was the bewitching part of her – nothing of that sort spoiled the free carriage of her slender, flexible body, of the lovely head carried daintily, of the grey eyes so clear, so intelligent, so candid, so sweet under the black lashes that fringed them.

"Very wonderful," he said aloud, unthinking.

"What?" asked Philippa.