The Girl Philippa

"Warner," he said, "this war will not really begin until next spring. And there will be a million dead men under ground by that time."

Dinner that evening at the Château des Oiseaux was a most cheerful function. The passing of an army for miles and miles through the country around them was a relief and a reassurance which brought with it a reaction of gayety slightly feverish at moments.

The Countess de Moidrey gave her arm to Gray, tall, slim, yellow-haired, and most romantically pale: Captain the Vicomte d'Aurès took out Peggy Brooks – they turned to each other with the same impulse, as naturally as two children coming together – and the words designating them to other partners remained unspoken on Ethra's lips.

Philippa, in an enchanting gown of turquoise, looked up at the Countess, flushed and expectant, but the elder woman, much amused, designated Halkett, and the girl took the arm he offered with a faint smile at Warner, as though to reassure him concerning matters temporarily beyond her own control.

The Countess saw it, stood watching Warner, who had drawn Sister Eila's arm through his own, and was taking her out – saw Halkett and Philippa halt and draw aside to let them pass; saw the expression in Sister Eila's face as her glance met Halkett's, wavered, and passed elsewhere.

Before she and Gray had moved to close the double file, the Curé of Dreslin was unexpectedly announced, and she turned to receive him, asking him to support Gray on the other side. Always Father Chalus was a welcome guest at the Château; every house, humble or great, from Dreslin to Saïs, was honored when this dim-eyed old priest set foot across the threshold.

The dinner was lively, gay at times, and always cheerful with the excitement lent by the arrival of the army – an arrival verging closely on the dramatic, with the echoes of the cannonade still heavy among the northern forests, the evening sky still ruddy above Ausone, and the August air tainted with the odor of burning.

Through the soft candlelight servants moved silently; the Countess, with the old Curé on her right, devoted herself to him and to Gray.

As though utterly alone in the center of some vast solitude peopled only by themselves, young D'Aurès and Peggy Brooks remained conspicuously absorbed in each other and equally oblivious to everything and everybody else on earth.

"How is Ariadne?" inquired Halkett of Philippa,

"Poor dear! I have not seen her since she soiled a whisker in Jim's ultramarine!"

Sister Eila's lowered eyes were lifted; she tried to smile at Halkett.

"I saw Ariadne the other day," she said. "The cat is quite comfortable in the garden of the Golden Peach."

Halkett said lightly:

"Ariadne introduced me to Sister Eila. Do you remember, Sister?"

But Sister Eila had already turned to Warner, and perhaps she did not hear.

Later Warner bent toward Philippa:

"You are enchanting in that filmy turquoise blue affair."

"Isn't it a darling? Peggy would make me wear it. It's hers, of course… Do I please you?"

"Did you ever do anything else, Philippa?"

She colored, looked up at him confused, and laughed:

"Oh, yes," she said, "I have annoyed you too, sometimes. Do you remember when I ran away from Ausone and told you about it in the meadow by the river? Oh, you were very much annoyed! You need not deny it. I realize now how much annoyed you must have been – "

"Thank God you did what you did," he said under his breath.

"What else could I do?"

"Nothing… I must have been blind, there in Ausone, not to understand you from the first moment. And I must have been crazy to have gone away and left you there… When I think of it, it makes me actually ill – "

"Jim! You didn't know."

"I should have known. Any blockhead ought to have understood. That was the time I should have heard the knocking of opportunity! I was deaf. That was the time I should have caught a glimpse of that clean flame burning. I seemed to know it was there – words are cheap! – but my eyes were too dull to perceive a glimmer from it!"

"Jim! You saw a girl with painted lips and cheeks insulting the sunlight. How could you divine – "

"I couldn't; I didn't. I was not keen enough, not fine enough. Yet, that was the opportunity. That was the moment when I should have comprehended you – when I should have stood by you – taken you, held you against everybody, everything – Good God! I went away, smug as any Pharisee, and with a self-satisfied smile left you on the edge of hell – smiling back at me out of those grey, undaunted eyes – "

"Please! You were wonderful every minute from the beginning – every minute – all through it, Jim – "

"You were! I know what I was. Halkett knows, too. I was not up to the opportunity; I did not measure up to the chance that was offered me; I was not broad enough, fine enough – "

"What are you saying! – When you know how I feel – how I regard you – "

"How can you regard me the way you say you do?"

"How can I help it?" She looked down at her glass, touched the slender stem absently.

"Out of all the world," she said under her breath, "you alone held out a comrade's hand. Does anything else matter? … Think! You are forgetting. Remember! Picture me where I was – as I was – only yesterday! Look at me now – here, beside you. – here under this roof, among these people – and the taste of their salt still keen in my mouth! Now, do you understand what you have done for me – you alone? Now, do you understand what I – feel – for you? – For you who mean not only life to me, but who have made possible for me that life which follows death?"

Her cheeks flushed; she turned breathlessly toward him.

"I tell you," she whispered, "you have offered me Christ, as surely as He has ever been offered at any communion since the Last Supper! … That is what you have done for me!"

CHAPTER XXXIV

Dinner was ended.

Gray had retired to his room, persuaded by Madame de Moidrey, who bribed him by promising to read to him when he was tired of talking shop to Captain Halkett.

Sister Eila had returned to the east wing, which was convenient to her business as well as to her devotions.

Also, she had need of Father Chalus, who had come all the way from Dreslin on foot. For it was included in the duty of the parish priest to confess both Sister Eila and Sister Félicité; only the sudden perils and exigencies of home duties in Dreslin had detained him since the war broke out.

He was old, lean, deeply worn in the service of the poor – a white-haired man who looked out on the world through kindly blue eyes dimmed by threescore years of smoky candlelight and the fine print of breviaries – a priest devotedly loved in Dreslin, and by the household of the Château, and by every inhabitant of the scattered farms composing the little hamlet called Saïs.

It appeared that Sister Eila had great need of Father Chalus, for they had gone away together, into the eastern wing of the house. And the Countess, noticing their departure, smiled to herself; for, like everybody else, she was skeptical regarding the reality of any sins that Sister Eila might have to confess.

The young Vicomte d'Aurès had taken his leave with all the unspoiled, unembarrassed, and boyish cordiality characteristic of his race; also he departed in a state of mind so perfectly transparent to anybody who cared to notice it that Madame de Moidrey retired to the billiard room after his departure, looking very serious. She became more serious still when Peggy did not appear from the southern terrace, whither she had returned to mention something to Monsieur D'Aurès which she had apparently forgotten to say to him in the prolonged ceremony of leavetaking.

When fifteen minutes elapsed and no Peggy appeared, Madame de Moidrey rose from her chair, flushed and unsmiling. But before she had taken a dozen steps toward the southern terrace her younger sister reappeared, walking rapidly. When she caught sight of the Countess advancing, she halted and gazed at her sister rather blankly.

"Well, Peggy?"

"Well?"

"I am not criticising you or that boy, but perhaps a little more reticence – repose of manner – reserve – "

"Ethra," she said in an awed voice, "I am in love with D'Aurès."