The Girl Philippa

"What!"

"Also, I have learned how to stretch toiles and make chassis. I have served in Biribi. My lieutenant amused himself by painting pictures of camels and palms and the setting sun, very red and as full of rays as a porcupine – "

"I don't want you, Asticot! It is noon, now. I shall tell them at the stables to give you a crust and a bowl of soup. After you have sufficiently stuffed yourself, go quietly away wherever you belong, and don't come back – "

"M'sieu'! I entertain a deep affection for M'sieu' – "

"Go to the devil!" said Warner wearily, and walked back to the house. Here he gave the footman culinary instructions to transmit to the kitchen-maid, who, in turn, should see that something to eat was sent to the stables for Asticot.

Then he walked through the house to the northern terrace, where Philippa and Peggy sat sewing and looking out across the valley toward the smoky panorama in the north. His field glasses lay on the parapet, and he picked them up and adjusted them to his vision.

"Isly is burning, and Rosales, and the great farm of Le Pigeonnier," remarked Peggy.

"Who says so?"

"Mathilde. The postman told her. He heard it in Ausone from the soldiers. That is where the fighting is, at Isly. The trains leaving Ausone are loaded with soldiers going north. It appears that matters are progressing very well for us."

Warner said nothing. With two French towns burning on the horizon, the great farm of Le Pigeonnier on fire, and the cannonade steadily becoming more distinct, he was not at all certain that everything promised well for Ausone and Saïs and the valley of the Récollette.

Through his glasses he could see the beautiful spire of Sainte Cassilda in Ausone. Beyond, where the wooded, conical hill rose from the rolling plain as though it were an enormous artificial mound, nothing of the fort was visible.

But farther away, beyond the river, he could see trains crawling across the landscape – see smoke trailing from locomotives; farther still only the green and gold of woods and grain fields stretched away, growing vaguer and dimmer until the wall of smoke obscured them and blotted the earth from view.

Madame de Moidrey appeared at the doorway behind them.

"They have just telephoned from Ausone to ask whether we can take in wounded, if necessary," she said calmly. "They are to send material for fifty beds this evening. Sister Eila and Dr. Senlis have offered to remain for the present. I think everybody will have to help."

Philippa, who had risen, came toward her.

"I don't mind where I sleep," she said, "if I can only be of any use – "

"You are not going to be disturbed, dear – not at present, anyway." And to Peggy: "I have told them to open the east wing and air the gallery and the rooms on both the upper floors. There is room for two hundred beds in the east wing. Vignier has gone to turn on the water, and I shall have the parquet and windows thoroughly cleaned and the stair carpets taken out of storage and laid down."

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Warner.

"Nothing for any of us to do so far. When the beds arrive, I shall have them set up and ready, that's all. Peggy, if the servants require any further instructions, tell them what to do. Sister Eila is inspecting the east wing and I must return to Mr. Gray."

"How is Gray?" asked Warner.

"Very much afraid that he is making us extra trouble. He is so patient, so considerate – really a most charming man.

"I have an idea that the cannonade is making him very restless. He tries not to show it. He lies there very quietly, asking for nothing, most grateful for the slightest attention. I have been giving him the medicine Dr. Senlis prescribed and reading the paper to him between doses."

"Couldn't I do that?" began Peggy, but Madame de Moidrey shook her pretty head hastily and went away to inspect her Englishman, for whom luncheon was being prepared on a tray.

Luncheon was served on the terrace for the others. It was a rather silent affair: they ate with the distant rumble of cannon in their ears and their eyes turning ever toward the north where that impenetrable wall of smoke masked the horizon from east to west.

"I think I shall go over to Ausone," remarked Warner.

Philippa looked up in silence.

"Why?" inquired Peggy.

"Because," he replied, "I have a couple of dozen pictures and sketches in storage at the Boule d'Argent, and I think I might as well get them and ship them to my Paris studio."

"Do you really suppose there is any danger that – "

"No," he interrupted, smilingly, "but you know how finicky and panicky a painter is. I think I'll take a stroll after luncheon and bring back my canvases – " he turned to Philippa – "if I may take your punt for the purpose?"

"Certainly. I'll pole you up to Ausone – "

"You will do nothing of the sort, thank you!" he retorted, laughing.

"Is there any danger?" asked Peggy.

"Not the slightest. But I had rather that Philippa remained here."

Peggy passed her arm around Philippa's shoulders.

"He doesn't want you, darling, but I do! Remain where you're appreciated and I'll take you up presently to see that exceedingly nice-looking Englishman."

Philippa's smile was a little forced; she looked up at Warner every now and then, curiously, questioningly, even reproachfully.

When he had pretended long enough not to be aware of it, he turned and looked at her and laughed. And after Peggy had risen and entered the house, he said:

"Philippa, I don't care to have you any nearer that wall of smoke out yonder than you are at present. That's the only reason I don't want you to go to Ausone in the punt with me."

"You know," she said, "that I might just as well be where you are all the time."

"Why?"

"Is it necessary for me to tell you that if anything happens to you it might as well happen to me at the same time?"

"Nonsense, Philippa – "

"You know it is so," she said quietly.

He looked at the smoke, glanced at her, rose and walked to the door, and, turning abruptly, came back to where she was seated.

"That won't do," he said bluntly. "Nobody should be as vital to you as that. Life and happiness are beginning for you. Both must be independent of circumstances and individuals. Everything already lies before you, Philippa – youth, attainment, the serenity and the happiness of opportunity heretofore denied you. Fulfillment does not depend on others; the interest in living and the reason for living depends on personal faith, resolution, and endeavor, not on what accidents affect other lives around you. Life should be lived thoroughly and completely to the end, industriously, vigorously, and with a courage for enjoyment never faltering. Your life is yours. Live it! Find in it the sheer happiness of living. No matter what befalls others, no matter who these others may be, it is your business in life to go on living, to go on discovering reasons for living, to go on desiring to live, and to find in living the highest happiness in the world – the satisfaction of a duty thoroughly accomplished!"

He was smiling and rather flushed when he ended his emphatic sermon. The girl beside him had listened with drooping head, but her grey eyes were raised to his from time to time.

And now that he had finished expounding his strenuous and masculine logic, she turned away and leaned on the parapet looking down at the tops of the forest trees below.

He came over and rested on the stone balustrade beside her.

"Am I not right?" he asked.