The Girl Philippa

CHAPTER XXX

It was still very early as Warner walked up to the Golden Peach, but Magda and Linette were astir and a delicious aroma of coffee floated through the hallway.

Warner surveyed his most recent acquisition with a humorous and slightly disgusted air. As it appeared impossible to get rid of Asticot, there seemed nothing to do but to feed him.

So he called out Linette and asked her to give some breakfast to the young voyou; and Linette showed Asticot into the bar and served breakfast with a scorn and aloofness which fascinated Asticot and also awed him.

None of the leering impudence, none of the easy effrontery of the outer boulevards, aided Asticot to assert himself or helped him toward any attempt at playfulness toward this wholesome, capable, business-like young woman.

She served him with a detached and supercilious air, placed cover and food with all the nonchalance of serving a house cat with its morning milk. And Asticot dared not even look at her until her back was turned; then only did he venture to lift his mousy eyes to study the contemptuous girl who had provided him with what he spoke of as the "quoi d'boulotter."

As for Warner, he had sauntered into the kitchen, where Madame Arlon greeted him heartily, and was prettily confused and flattered when he seated himself and insisted on having breakfast with her.

Over their café-au-lait they discussed the menace of invasion very quietly, and the stout, cheery landlady told him that she had concluded to keep the inn open in any event.

"What else is there for me to do?" she asked. "To leave my house is to invite robbery; perhaps even destruction, if the Prussians arrive. I had rather remain and protect my property if I can. At any rate, it will not be for long, God willing!"

"I do not believe it will last very long, this headlong rush of the Germans into France," he said thoughtfully. "It seems to me as though they had the start of us, but nothing more serious. I'm very much afraid we are going to see them here in the Récollette Valley before they are driven back across the frontier."

Linette's cheeks grew very red.

"I had even rather serve that frightful voyou in there than be forced to set food before a Prussian," she said in a low voice.

"Wait a bit longer," said Warner. " – A little patience, perhaps a little more humiliation, but, sooner or later, surely, surely the liberation of the Vosges – the return of her lost children to France, the driving out of German oppression, arrogance, and half-cooked civilization forever… It's worth waiting for, worth endurance and patience and sacrifice."

"It is worth dying for," said Magda simply.

"If," added Linette, "one only knew how best to serve France by offering one's life."

"It is best to live if that can be accomplished honorably," said Madame Arlon. "France is in great need of all her children."

The three women spoke thoughtfully, naturally, with no idea of heroics, expressing themselves without any self-consciousness whatever.

After a silence Warner said to Linette with a smile:

"So you don't admire my new assistant, Monsieur Asticot?"

"Monsieur Warner! That dreadful voyou in yourservice!"

Warner laughed:

"It seems so. I didn't invite him. But I can't get rid of him. He sticks like a lost dog."

"Send him about his business – which doubtless is to pick pockets!" cried Linette. "Monsieur has merely to whisper 'Gendarmes!' to him, and he does not stop running until he sights the Eiffel Tower!"

Madame Arlon smiled:

"He really is a dreadful type," she said. "The perfume of Paris gutters clings to him. Monsieur Warner had better get rid of him before articles begin to be missed."

"Oh, well," remarked Warner, "he'll probably scuttle away like a scared rabbit when the Germans come through Saïs. I'm not worrying. Meanwhile, he carries my field kit and washes brushes – if I ever can make up my mind to begin painting again… That heavy, steady thunder from the north seems to take all ambition out of me."

"It affects me like real thunder," nodded Madame Arlon. "The air is lifeless and dead; one's feet drag and one's head grows heavy. It is like the languor which comes over one before a storm.

"Do the guns seem any louder to you since last night?"

"I was wondering… Well, God's will be done… But I do not believe it is in His heart to turn the glory of His face from France… Magda, if we are to make the preserves today, it will be necessary for you to gather plums this morning. Linette, is that type still eating?"

"He stuffs himself without pause," replied the girl scornfully. "Only a guinea pig can eat like that!"

She went into the bar café and bent a pair of pretty but hostile eyes upon Asticot, who stared at her with his mouth full, then, still staring, buttered another slice of bread.

"Voyons," she said impatiently, "do you imagine yourself to be at dinner, young man? Permit me to remind you that this is breakfast – café-au-lait – not a banquet at the Hôtel de Ville!"

"I am hungry," said Asticot simply.

"Really?" she retorted, exasperated. "One might almost guess as much, what with the tartines and tranches you swallow as though you had nothing else to do. Come, stand up on what I suppose you call your feet. Your master is out in the road already, and I don't suppose that even you have the effrontery to keep him waiting."

Asticot arose; a gorged sigh escaped him. He stretched himself with the satisfaction of repletion, shuffled his feet, peeped cunningly and sideways out of his mousy eyes at Linette.

"Allons," she said coldly, "it's paid for. Fichez-moi le camp!"

There was a vase of flowers on the bar. Asticot shuffled over, sniffed at them, extracted the largest and gaudiest blossom – a yellow dahlia – and, with a half bold, half scared smirk, laid it on the table as an offering to Linette.

The girl was too much astonished and incensed to utter a word, and Asticot left so hurriedly that when she had recovered her power of speech he was already slouching along down the road a few paces behind Warner.

The latter had hastened his steps because ahead of him walked Sister Eila; and he meant to overtake and escort her as far as the school, and then back to the Château, if she were returning.

As he joined her and they exchanged grave but friendly greetings, he suddenly remembered her as he had last seen her, kneeling asleep by the chapel pillar.

And then he recollected what she had murmured, still drowsy with dreams; and the memory of it perplexed him and left his face flushed and troubled.

"How is your patient, Sister?" he inquired, dropping into step beside her.

"Much better, Mr. Warner. A little care is all he needs. But I wish his mind were at rest." She glanced behind her at Asticot, plainly wondering who he might be.

"What worries Gray?" inquired Warner.

"The prospect of being taken prisoner, I suppose."

"Of course. If the Germans break through from the north they'll take him along. That would be pretty hard luck, wouldn't it? – To be taken before one has even a taste of battle!"

Sister Eila nodded:

"He says nothing, but I know that is what troubles him. When I came in this morning, I found him up and trying to walk. I sent him back to bed. But he tells me he does not need to use his legs in his branch of the British service, and that if he could only get to Chalons he would be fit for duty. I think, from things he has said, that both he and Mr. Halkett belong to the Flying Corps."

Warner was immensely interested. Sister Eila told him briefly why she suspected this to be true, then, casting another perplexed glance behind her, she asked in a low voice who might be the extremely unprepossessing individual shuffling along the road behind them. And Warner told her, humorously; but she did not smile.

Watching her downcast eyes and grave lips in the transparent shadow of her white coiffe, he thought he had never seen a human face so pure, so tender – with such infinite capacity for charity.