"It's the way you fell in love," she said under her breath.
Madame de Moidrey rose abruptly, as though a sudden shaft of pain had pierced her. Then, walking over to her sister, she dropped one hand on her dark head; stroked the thick, lustrous hair gently, absently; stood very silent, gazing into space.
When Peggy stood up the Countess encircled her waist with one arm. They walked together slowly toward the southern terrace.
A million stars had come out in the sky; there was a scent of lilies lingering above the gardens. Sounds from distant bivouacs came to their ears; no camp fires were visible, but the Recollette glittered like snow in the white glare of searchlights.
"That boy," said Peggy, "--wherever he is riding out there in the night--out there under the stars--that boy carries my heart with him.... I always thought that if it ever came it would come like this.... I thought it would never come.... But it has."
Halkett, returning from a conference with Warner and Gray, came out on the terrace to take his leave. They asked him to return when he could; promised to visit the sheds and see the Bristol biplane.
Part way down the steps he turned and came back, asked permission to leave his adieux with them for Sister Eila from whom he had not had an opportunity to take his leave, turned again and went away into the night, using his flashlight along the unfamiliar drive.
Ethra de Moidrey went into the house to keep her promise to Gray, and found him tired but none the worse for his participation at dinner.
Philippa and Warner had come in to visit him; the Countess found the book from which she had been reading to him since his arrival. He turned on his pillow and looked at her, and she seated herself beside the bed and opened the book on her knees.
"Do you remember where we left off?" she asked, smiling.
"I think it was where he was beginning to fall in love with her."
The Countess de Moidrey bent over the book. There was a slight color in her cheeks.
"I had not noticed that he was falling in love," she observed, turning the pages to find her place.
Philippa said to Warner:
"Could we walk down and see the searchlights? They are so wonderful on the water."
"Probably the sentinels won't permit us outside our own gates," he replied. "I know one thing; if you and I were not considered as part of the family of the Chateau, the military police would make us clear out. It's lucky I left the inn to come up here."
The Countess had begun reading in a low, soft voice, bending over her book beside the little lamp at the bedside, where Gray lay watching her under a hand that shaded his pallid face.
Something in her attitude and his, perhaps--or in her quiet voice--seemed subtly, to Philippa, to exclude her and the man with her from a silent entente too delicate, perhaps, to term an intimacy.
She touched Warner's arm, warily, not taking it into her possession as had been her unembarrassed custom only yesterday--even that very day.
Together they went out into the corridor, down the stairway, and presently discovered Peggy on the southern terrace gazing very earnestly at the stars.
That the young girl was wrapped, enmeshed, in the magic of the great web which Fate has been spinning since time began, they did not know.
Still stargazing, they left her and walked down the dark drive to the lodge where, through the iron grille, they saw hussars en vedette sitting their horses in the uncertain luster of the planets.
Overhead the dark foliage had begun to stir and sigh in the night breeze; now and again a yellowing leaf fell, rustling slightly; and they thought they could hear the Recollette among its rushes--the faintest murmur--but were not sure.
He remembered her song, there in the river meadow:
Hussar en vedette
What do you see?--
And thought of the white shape on the bank--a true folk song, unfinished in its eerie suggestion which the imagination of the listeners must always finish.
Yet he said:
"Was he killed--that vedette on the Recollette, Philippa?"
She knew what he meant, smiled faintly:
"Does anybody see Death and live to say so?"
"Of course I knew," he said.
They turned back, walking slowly. He had drawn her arm through his, but it rested there very lightly, scarcely in contact at all.
"What a fine fellow Halkett is!" he said.
"Your friends should be fine, Jim. Our friends ought to reflect our own qualities and mirror our aspirations.... That was written in one of my school-books," she added with that delicate honesty which characterized her.
"You reflect my aspirations," he said, unsmiling.
"Oh, Jim! I? Do you imagine I believe that?"
"You might as well. It's true enough. You have just mirrored for me my hopeless aspiration toward that perfect and transparent honesty which I haven't attained, but which seems always to have been a part of you."
Sister Eila passed them in the starlight, her young head bent over the rosary in her hands, moving slowly across the lawn.
Their passing on the drive did not seem to arouse her from her meditation; she seated herself on a stone bench under a clump of yews; and they moved on in silence.
As they reached the terrace a shot sounded down by the river; another echoed it; the rattle of rifle fire ran along the valley from, north to south; a rocket rose, flooding the hill beyond the quarry road with a ghastly light.
Peggy Brooks, white as death, came over to Philippa and took her hands into both of hers.
She had begun to learn what love meant, with the first blind shot in the dark, and all the passion and fear within her was concentrated in wondering where those leaden messengers of death had found their billets.
She said in a ghost of a voice:
"Is there going to be a battle here?"
"Not now," replied Warner. "Probably it's nothing at all--some nervous sentry waking up his equally nervous comrades.... What a horrible light that rocket shed!"
The shots had died away; there was no more firing.
Vignier had come around; he was an old soldier, and Warner spoke to him.
"Perhaps a cow," he said with a shrug, "--the wind in the bushes--a hedgehog rustling. Young soldiers are like that in the beginning. And still, perhaps they have caught a prowler out there--an Uhlan, maybe, or a spy. One never knows what to expect at night."
"Do you think that our valley will see any fighting, Vignier?"
"Does that not depend, Monsieur, on what is to happen beyond the Vosges? They have dug line after line of trenches across the valley and the plateau as far as Dreslin. Those are positions being prepared in advance, to fall back upon in case of disaster in the east."
"I thought that was what this trench digging meant."
"That is what it means, Monsieur Warner. They tell me that our soldiers are going to operate the cement works day and night to turn out material for platforms and emplacements. I know that they have gone into our western woods with loads of cement and crushed stone. The forest is full of fantassins and chasseurs-a-pied. It is certain that some general will make our Chateau his headquarters en passant."
He had scarcely spoken when, far away in the darkness, a noise arose. It came from the direction of the lodge gate, grew nearer, approaching by the drive.
The Countess, reading to Gray, heard it, laid down her book to listen. Gray listened too, raising himself on his pillows.
"Cavalry have entered the grounds," he said quietly.
"I shall have to go down," she said. At the door she paused: "Will you remember where we left off, Captain Gray?"
"I shall remember. It is where he has completely fallen in love with her."
The Countess de Moidrey met his calm gaze, sustained it for a moment, then with a smile and a nod of adieu she turned and went out into the corridor. As she descended the stairs she placed both hands against her cheeks, which burned slightly.
The hall below was already crowded with officers of somebody's staff; the pale blue tunics of chasseurs and hussars were conspicuous against the darker dress of dragoons. The silver corselet of a colonel of cuirassiers glittered in the lamplight; twisted gold arabesques glimmered on crimson caps and sleeves; the ring of spur and hilt and the clash of accouterments filled the house.
As the Countess set foot in the hall, a general officer wearing the cross of the Legion came forward, his red cap, heavy with gold, in his gloved hand.
"Countess," he said, bending over the hand which she smilingly extended, "a thousand excuses could not begin to make amends for our intrusion----"
"General, you honor my roof. Surely you must understand the happiness that I experience in reminding you that the house of De Moidrey belongs to France and to the humblest and highest of her defenders."
The General, whose clipped mustache and imperial were snow-white, and whose firm, bronzed features denied his years, bent again over the pretty hand that rested on his own.
Then, asking permission to name himself, in turn he presented the members of his military family.
Included was a thin blond man of middle height, with a golden mustache twisted up, cinder-blond hair, and conspicuous ears. He wore a monocle, and was clothed in a green uniform. General of Division Delisle presented him as Major-General Count Cassilis, the Russian Military Observer attached to division headquarters.
For a few moments there was much bending of tight-waisted tunics in the yellow lamplight, much jingling of spurs and sabers, compliments spoken and implied with a gay smile and bow--all the graceful, easy formality to be expected in such an extemporized gathering.
Peggy and Philippa appeared, followed by Warner; presentations were effected; servants arranged chairs and brought trays set with bottles of light wine and biscuits, preliminary to an improvised supper which was now being prepared in the kitchen.
General Raoul Delisle had known Colonel de Moidrey; he and the Countess formed the center of the brilliant little assembly where half a dozen officers surrounded Peggy and Warner.
But the effect of Philippa on the Russian Military Observer, General Count Cassilis, was curious to watch.
From the instant he laid eyes on her, he had continued to look at her; and his inspection would have had all the insolence of a stare had he not always averted his gaze when hers moved in his direction.
When he had been named to her, he had bowed suavely, and with characteristic Russian ceremony and empressement; but the instant her name was pronounced the Russian Observer had straightened himself like a steel rod released from a hidden spring, and his fishy blue eyes widened so that his monocle had fallen from its place to swing dangling across the jeweled decorations on his breast.
And now he had managed to approach Philippa and slightly separate her from the company, detaining her in conversation, more suave, more amiably correct than ever.
Already in her inexperience with a world where such men are to be expected, the girl found herself vaguely embarrassed, subtly on the defensive--a defensive against something occult which somehow or other seemed to menace her privacy and seemed to be meddling with the natural reticence with which, instinctively, she protected herself from any explanation of her past life.
Not that Count Cassilis had presumed to ask any direct question; she was not even aware of any hint or innuendo; yet she was constantly finding herself confronted with a slight difficulty in responding to his gay, polite, and apparently impersonal remarks. Somehow, everything he said seemed to involve some reference on her part to a past which now concerned nobody excepting herself and the loyal friends who comprehended it.
And, from the beginning, from the first moment when this man was presented to her, and she had looked up with a smile to acknowledge the introduction, she experienced an indefinite sensation of meeting somebody whom she had seen somewhere years before--years and years ago.
As he conversed with her, standing there by the table with the lighted lamp partly concealed by his gold-slashed shoulder, the vague impression of something familiar but long forgotten came at moments, faded, returned, only to disappear again.
And once, a far, pale flicker of memory played an odd trick on her, for suddenly she seemed to remember a pair of thin, conspicuous ears like his, and lamplight--or perhaps sunlight--shining behind them and turning them a translucent red. It came and vanished like the faint memory of a dream dreamed years and years ago. As she looked at Count Cassilis, the smile died out in her eyes and on her lips, and the slightest feeling of discomfort invaded her.
Toasts were offered, acknowledged, compliments said, glasses emptied.
The General of Division Delisle spoke diffidently of quarters for himself and his military family, and was cordially reassured by the Countess.
There was plenty of room for all. It was evident, too, that they had ridden far and must be hungry. Servants were summoned, rooms in the east wing thrown open to the air; the kitchen stirred up to increased activity for the emergency; the officers piloted to the rooms assigned them.
Down on the drive a shadowy escort of hussars waited until an orderly appeared, shining, with his breast torch, the path to the stables.
Then three sky-guns jolted up out of the darkness and halted; a company of infantry tramped by toward the garage; the horses of the staff were led away by mounted gendarmes; and three big military touring cars, their hoods and glass windows grey with dust, began to purr and pant and crawl slowly after the infantry.
Everywhere sentries were being set, taking post on every terrace, every path and road, and before the doorways of the great house.
A single candle burned in the chapel. Beside it sat Sister Eila, intent on her breviary, her lips moving silently as she bent above it.
The fifth part of the breviary, Matins, Lauds, and the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, absorbed her.
The whole of the breviary services, the duty of publicly joining or of privately reading aloud so as to utter with the lips every word, is generally incumbent upon all members of religious orders.
But Sisters of Charity, forming as they do an active religious order, are excepted.
Nevertheless, they are always bound to some shorter substitute, such as the Little Office, or to some similar office. And though the hours for devotion are prescribed, the duties of mercy sometimes interrupt the schedule which must then be carried out as circumstances of necessity permit.
Philippa, entering the chapel, caught sight of Sister Eila, and knelt without disturbing her.
The girl had experienced an odd, unaccustomed, and suddenly imperative desire for the stillness of an altar, for its shelter; for that silent security that reigns beneath the crucifix and invites the meditation of the pure in heart.
How long she had been seated there in the shadows she did not know, but presently she became aware of Sister Eila beside her, resting against her as though fatigued.
The girl put her arm around Sister Eila's neck instinctively, and drew the drooping head against her shoulder.
They had not known each other well.
That was the beginning.
*CHAPTER XXXV*
The growling and muttering of German guns in the north and northeast awoke Warner in his bed.
Sunrise plated his walls and ceiling with gold; the morning air hummed with indefinite sounds and rumors, the confusion and movement of many people stirring.
He stood for a moment by his window looking down over the plateau and across the valley of the Recollette.
Everywhere cavalry, infantry, artillery, baggage trains, automobiles, bicycles, motor cycles were moving slowly eastward into the blazing eye of the rising sun and vanishing within its blinding glory.
Two French aeroplanes had taken the air. They came soaring over the valley from the plateau, filling the air with the high clatter of their machinery; pale green ribbons of smoke fell from them, uncoiling like thin strips of silk against the sky; flag signals were being exchanged between officers gathered on the terrace below and a group of soldiers at the head of the nearest pontoon across the river.
Poles supporting field telephone and telegraph wires stretched across the lawn, running south toward the lodge gate. Another line ran east, another west.
Parked on the lawn were a dozen big automobiles, the chauffeurs at the wheels, the engines running. Behind these, soldier cyclists and motor cyclists sat cross-legged by their machines, exchanging gossip with a squadron of hussars drawn up on the other side of the drive.
There were no tents visible anywhere, but everywhere in the open soldiers were erecting odd-looking skeleton shelters and covering them with freshly cut green boughs from the woods. Under one of these an automobile was already standing, and under others hussars stood to horse.
Across the rolling country, stretching over valley and plateau, the face of the green and golden earth was striped, as though some giant plow had turned furrows at random here and there, some widely separated from the rest, others parallel and within a few yards of one another. A few dark figures appeared along these furrows of raw earth, moved about, disappeared. It was evident that the trenches of these prepared positions were still in process of construction, for carts were being driven to and from them and men were visible working near some of them.
Warner had completed his toilet when a maid brought cafe-au-lait. He ate, listening to the grumble of the northern cannonade and watching the movement of the columns along dry roads, where unbroken walls of dust marked every route, seen or unseen, across the vast green panorama.
He had finished breakfast and was lighting a cigarette in preparation for descending to the terrace, when the noise of an altercation arose directly under his window; and, looking out, he beheld Asticot in dispute with the sentry stationed there, loudly insisting that he was a servant of the establishment, and demanding free entry with every symptom of virtuous indignation.
He was a sight; his face and hands were smeared with black--charcoal, it looked like--his clothes were muddy and full of briers, his beloved lovelocks, no longer plastered in demicurls over each cheekbone, dangled dankly beside his large, wide ears.
Over his shoulder he carried a sack, and to this he clung while he flourished his free hand in voluble and impassioned argument.
Warner spoke sharply from the window above:
"Asticot!"
The disheveled one looked up with a joyous exclamation of recognition; the sentry also looked up.
"He's my servant," said Warner quietly. "Asticot! What do you want?"
"M'sieu' Warner, I have something for you and for Mademoiselle Philippa----"
"Very well. Go to the harness room; make something approaching a toilet, put on the clean suit I gave you, and report to me."
"'Fait, M'sieu'!"
The sentry scowled after him as he departed, and Asticot pulled a hideous face at him and thrust his tongue into his cheek in derision.
Warner, immensely amused, reassured the soldier on guard, folded his arms and leaned on the sill to watch the interminable columns of motor lorries moving through the valley.
The scenes everywhere were so intensely interesting that he had not had enough of them when Asticot reappeared, cleansed, reclothed, his hair sleekly plastered, still lugging his sack and looking at the sentinel with the sad air of outraged innocence bestowing forgiveness.
"Let him pass, please," said Warner from the window. After a few moments a disgusted maid knocked, requesting enlightenment concerning "an individual pretending to be a servant of Monsieur Warner."
"It's true, Babette," he said, laughing. "Show him up, if you please."
Asticot entered, cap in hand, bowed, scraped the carpet with a propitiating and crablike shuffle of his right foot, and set the sack upon the floor.
There always had been something about the young ruffian which inclined Warner to mirth. He waited a moment to control the amusement which twitched at his lips, then:
"Well, Asticot, where have you been and what is in this bundle?"
"M'sieu'--may I close the door? I thank M'sieu'.... One cannot be too careful about being overheard in these miserable days of martial law."
"What? Have you been doing something you are ashamed of?"
"No; nothing that I am ashamed of," replied Asticot naively. "I have been to Ausone."
"To Ausone!"
"M'sieu', figurez-vous!--It occurred to me last evening--tiens! there ought to be a few odds and ends to pick up in Ausone--a few miserable chiffons which nobody wants--little fragments of no value, you understand--what with the bombardment and all those ruined houses----"
"You went looting!"
"M'sieu'!" he said in pained surprise. "It was nothing like that! No! I said to myself, 'Tenez, mon vieux, to rake over a pile of rubbish is no crime in Paris. On peut ramasser des bouts d'cigares comme ca. Eh, bien, quoi?' I said to myself, 'Asticot, en route!'
"So I borrowed a boat----"
"Borrowed? From whom?"
"I could not find any owner, M'sieu'. So, as I say, I offered myself a boat, and I took the fishing pole which was in it, and I rowed boldly up the river.
"I suppose, seeing the fishing pole, nobody stopped me. Besides, there were a few freshly caught fish in the boat. These I held up, offering to sell to the soldiers I saw--a precaution, M'sieu', which rendered my voyage very easy."
"It's a wonder you did not get yourself shot!"
"It was dark enough after a while. And there are no troops beyond the second mill; and no vedettes disturbed me.
"At the Impasse d'Alcyon I tied my boat. The alley and the square were full of the poor people of Ausone, returning to look among the ruins for what had been their homes. Me, I said I was looking for mine, also----"
Warner said:
"That is villainous, Asticot; do you know it?"
"M'sieu'! I journeyed there only for what was rightfully mine!"
"Yours! What do you mean?"
"Tenez, M'sieu'; that wicked traitor, Wildresse, employed me, did he not? Bon! Would you believe it--never yet has he paid me what he owes me! M'sieu', such trickery, such ingratitude is nauseating! Besides, now that I know he has sold France, I would not touch his filthy money. No!"
He scowled thoughtfully at space, shrugged, continued:
"The question nevertheless remained: how was I to reimburse myself? Tiens! An idea! I remembered that in the cellar of that cabaret my friend, Squelette, and I had discovered a safe.
"That very night, after M'sieu' had escaped us, taking with him M'amzelle Philippa, Squelette and I we drilled into that safe----"
"What!"
Asticot shrugged:
"Que voulez-vous! C'est la vie! Also, M'sieu' should trouble himself to recollect that I had not become honest and God-fearing under the merciless blows of M'sieu'. I was still full of evil in those days, alas! not yet sufficiently remote----"
"Go on," said Warner, controlling his laughter.
"M'sieu', we got the safe door open, Squelette and I, but found no opportunity to rummage. Then we were sent here, M'sieu' knows the rest--the bombardment and all.... So last night I went back to the cabaret--or what remains of it--four walls and a heap of brick. The fire was out. The cabaret was ruined, but the cafe had not been destroyed.
"And now, M'sieu', comes a real vein of luck. And what do you suppose! Face to face in the dark I came upon a pioupiou on guard as I crawl through the cafe door.
"And I thought his bayonet was in my bowels, M'sieu', when he turned his breast torch on me. One makes short work of looters--not that I can rightly be called that. No! But still I thought: 'Dieu! Je claque! C'est fini!' When, 'Tiens!' exclaims my soldier. 'C'est mon vieux co'pain! What dost thou do here, Asticot, smelling around these ruins?'
"M'sieu', I look, I expel a cry of joy, I embrace a friend! It is One Eye--my comrade in the Battalion of Biribi! I am within the lines of a Battalion of Africa!"
He licked his lips furtively, and leered at Warner.
"Voyez-vous, M'sieu', when old friends meet an affair is quickly arranged. I file away at full speed; I gain the cellar, I flash the safe, I pull some old sacks under me and sit down at my leisure. It was most comfortable.
"Can M'sieu' see the tableau? Me, Asticot, seated before the open safe of Wildresse, who has wronged me and my country, leisurely revenging myself by knocking off the necks of his wine bottles and refreshing myself while I examine the contents of the traitor's safe!"
He smirked, doubtless picturing to himself his recent exploit, with himself, Asticot, as the heroic center of a deed which evidently gave him exquisite satisfaction.
He reached for the sack on the floor, squatted down on the rug in front of Warner's chair, untied the sack, and drew from it bundle after bundle of papers.
"His!" he remarked. "All private. I think, M'sieu', that a few of these will do away with any necessity for ceremony when we catch Wildresse."
He passed the packages of papers to Warner, who laid them on the table, looking very serious.
What Asticot did not extract from the sack he had already removed and hidden in the straw under his blanket in the harness room--a bag of Russian gold coins and a bag of French silver money.
Now, however, he produced a pillowcase. There were old, rusty stains on it, and in the corner of it a heraldic device embroidered.
Asticot deftly untied it and dumped out of it upon the floor a strange assortment of things--toys, and picture books in French, articles of clothing, ribbons, tiny slippers, the crumpled frocks and stockings of a little girl, and fragments of a little cloak of blue silk edged with swansdown, and a little hat to match.
"What in the world----" began Warner, when Asticot opened one of the picture books and silently displayed the name written there--"Philippa."
"M'sieu', because you are fond of M'amzelle, when I discovered her name in these books I brought everything as I found it--tied up in this pillowcase--toys, clothing, all, just as I discovered it in the safe--thinking perhaps to please M'sieu', who is so kind to me----"
"You did right! What are those things--photographs? Give them to me----"
"M'sieu', they are the pictures of a little child. To me they resemble M'amzelle Philippa."
Warner examined the half-dozen photographs in amazement. They were more or less faded, not sufficiently to prevent his recognizing in them the child that Philippa had once been. He was absolutely certain that these photographs represented Philippa somewhere between the ages of five and seven.
One by one he studied them, then turned them over. On every one was written "Philippa," and the age, "four," "five," "six," on the several pictures. All were written in the same flowing feminine handwriting. The name of the photographer was the same on every picture, except on that one where the age "six" was written. That photograph had been taken in the city of Sofia in Bulgaria. The others bore the name of a photographer in the French city of Tours.
Asticot, squatting on the floor cross-legged, watched him in silence.
Finally Warner said:
"Thank you, Asticot. You have behaved with intelligence. I double your wages."
"M'sieu' is contented with his Asticot, grateful and devoted?"
"Indeed, I am!"
"Will M'sieu' permit me to go now?"
"Certainly. Do they feed and lodge you properly at the inn?"
Asticot murmured that it was heavenly, and hastily took his departure, burning with anxiety concerning the safety of the treasure he had concealed under the straw and blanket in the harness room.
As for Warner, he was intensely interested, excited, and perplexed. Here, apparently, in this old, stained pillowcase which Asticot had found in the private safe of Wildresse, were the first clews to Philippa's identity that anybody, excepting Wildresse, had ever heard of.
These photographs were without doubt photographs of Philippa as a child, two taken in Tours, one in Sofia.
And the girl's name was Philippa, too----
Suddenly it occurred to him that, according to Wildresse, Philippa had been left at his door as a Paris foundling--as an infant only a few weeks old. So Wildresse himself might have named her. Perhaps his wife had written Philippa's name on these pictures. And yet--how had Philippa come to be in the Bulgarian city of Sofia? Was it possible that Wildresse could ever have taken the child there?
He looked down at the toys, at the clothing. Had they belonged to Philippa as a child?
Between his room and Gray's there was a pretty sitting room. He put everything back into the pillowcase, went out into the corridor, found the sitting room door open and the room full of sunlight.
A maid, who sat sewing in the corridor, went to Philippa's room with a request from Warner that she dress and come to the sitting room.
Warner emptied the pillowcase on the center table, then, folding it, gave it to the maid, who returned to say that Philippa was dressed and would come immediately.
"Take this pillowcase to Madame la Comtesse," he explained. "Say to Madame that there is a device embroidered on the case, and that I should be infinitely obliged if Madame la Comtesse would be kind enough to search for a similar device among such volumes on the subject as she possesses."
The maid went away with the pillowcase, and a moment later Philippa appeared, fresh, dainty, smiling, an enchanting incarnation of youth and loveliness in her thin, white morning frock.
She offered her hand and withdrew it immediately, as though this slight, new shyness of hers in his presence forbade that contact with him which, before that day when he painted her, had never seemed to embarrass her.
He ushered her silently into the little sitting room; she went forward and stopped by the center table, looking down curiously at the motley heap of toys and clothing which covered it.
He watched her intently as she turned over one object after another. Presently she glanced around at him interrogatively.
"Examine them," he said.
"What are they?"
"You see--a child's toys and clothing. Pick up that broken doll and look it over carefully."
She lifted the battered French doll, examined it as though perplexed, laid it aside, picked up a Polichinelle, laid that aside, looked at a woolly dog, a cloth cat, a wooden soldier in French uniform with scarlet cap askew and one arm missing.
"Well?" he asked.
"I don't understand, Jim."
"I know. Is there among these things any object which seems at all familiar to you?"
"No."
"Nothing that seems to stir in you any memory?"
She shook her head smilingly, turned over the heap of garments, shifting them to one side or the other, caught a glimpse of the little cloak of pale blue silk and swansdown, lifted it curiously.
"How odd," she said; "I have----" She hesitated, looked intently at the faded silk, passed one slim hand over the swansdown, stood with brows bent slightly inward as though searching in her mind, deeply, for something which eluded her.
Warner did not speak or stir; presently she turned toward him, perplexed, still searching in her memory.
"It's odd," she said, "that I seem to remember a cloak like this.... Or perhaps as a very little child I dreamed about such a pretty cloak.... It was long ago.... Where did you get it, Jim?"
"Do you seem to remember it?"
"Somehow, I seem to."
"Is there anything else there which appears at all familiar to you?"
She sorted over the toys and garments, shook her head, picked up a picture book and stood idly turning the pages----
And suddenly uttered a little cry.
Instantly he was beside her; the page lay open at a golden scene where the Sleeping Beauty had just awakened, and the glittering Prince had fallen on one knee beside her couch.
"Jim! I--I remember that! It was all gold--all--all golden--everything--her hair and his--and the couch and her gown and his clothes--all gold, everything golden!
"I know that picture. Where in the world did you find it? I was a child--they showed it to me; I always asked for it----" She looked up at him, bewildered.
"Turn the pages!" he said.
She turned; another soft little cry escaped her; she recognized the picture, and the next one also, and the next, and every succeeding one, excitedly calling his attention to details which had impressed her as a child.
Of the other books she seemed to retain no recollection; remembered none of the toys, nothing of the clothing except the faded silken cloak with its border of swansdown. But this book she remembered vividly; and when he showed her her name written in it she grew a little pale with surprise and excitement.
Then, seated there on the table's edge beside her, he told her what Asticot had told him and showed her the photographs.
She seemed a little dazed at first, but, as he continued, the color returned to her cheeks and the excitement died out in her grey eyes.
"I cannot remember these events," she said very quietly.
"Is it possible he could have taken you to Bulgaria without your recollecting anything about it?"
"I must have been very, very young." She sat on the table's edge, staring at the sunny window for a while in silence, then, still gazing into space:
"Jim.... I have sometimes imagined that I could remember something--that I am conscious of having been somewhere else before my first recollections of Wildresse begin. Of course, that is not possible, if he found me, a baby, at his door----"
"He may have lied."
She turned slowly toward him:
"I wonder."
"I wonder, too."
After a silence she said, speaking with a deliberation almost colorless:
"Whether they were dreams, I am not quite certain, now. Always I have supposed them to have been dreams--dreamed long ago.... When I was very, very little.... About a lady with red hair--near me when I was sleepy.... Also there comes a voice as though somebody were singing something about me--my name--Philippa."
"Is that all?"
"I think so.... She had red hair, and her cheeks were warm and soft.... I was sleepy. I think she sang to me.... Something about 'Philippa,' and 'dreamland.' ... The golden picture in that book makes me think of her voice. The cloak with the swans-down reminds me.... Do you think it could have been a dream?"
"God knows," he muttered, staring at the floor.
After a while he rose, drew a chair to the table, and Philippa seated herself. Leaning there on one elbow, her cheek on her palm, she opened the book she had remembered and gazed at the golden picture.
Warner watched her for a while, then went quietly out and along the corridor to the hall that crossed it. Madame de Moidrey's maid announced him.
"May I come in a moment, Ethra?"
"Certainly, Jim. It's all right; I'm in negligee." And as he entered: "Where in the world did you find that soiled old pillowcase?"
"Did you discover the device embroidered on it?"
She pointed to a volume lying on her dressing table:
"Yes. The arms of Chatillon-Montreal are embroidered on it. It's rather a strange thing, too, because the family is extinct."
"What?"
"Certainly. As soon as I found out what the device was, I remembered all about the family. Sit down there, if you want to know. You don't mind Rose doing my hair?"
"You're as pretty as a picture, Ethra, and you are perfectly aware of it. Go on and tell me, please."
"It's a well-known family, Jim--or was. The early ones were Crusaders and Templars, I believe. Their history ever since has been mixed up with affairs oriental.
"There was a De Chatillon who had a row with Saladin, and I think was slain by that redoubtable Moslem. The daughter of that De Chatillon married a paladin of some sort who took her name and her father's quarterings and added a blue fanion and a human head to them; also three yaks' tails on a spear support the arms. Why, I don't remember. It's in that book over there, I suppose.
"Anyway, it seems that some king or other--Saint Louis, I believe--created the first son of this paladin and of the daughter of De Chatillon a Prince of Marmora with the Island of Tenedos as his domain.
"Of course one of the Sultans drove them out. Fifty years ago the family was living in Tours, poor as mice, proud as Lucifer of their Principality of Marmora and Tenedos--realms which no Chatillon, of course, had ever been permitted to occupy since the Crusades.
"The family is extinct--some tragedy, I believe, finished the last of the Chatillons. I don't remember when, but it probably is all recorded in that book over there."
"May I borrow it?"
"Certainly. But where in the world did that exceedingly soiled pillowcase come from?"
"Don't have it washed just yet, Ethra. A man discovered it in a safe which was the private property of that scoundrel, Constantine Wildresse.
"When your hair is done, will you please go into the sitting room on my corridor? Philippa has something to show you."
The Countess looked at him curiously as he took his leave.
"Please hurry with my hair," she said to her maid.
*CHAPTER XXXVI*
As Warner returned to his own room, two thoughts persisted and dominated all others: Philippa's parents were known to Wildresse; Wildresse must be found.
Somehow or other he had already taken it for granted that Philippa's father or mother, or perhaps both parents, had been engaged in some capacity in the service of this family called De Chatillon. There was no particular reason for him to believe this; her parents might have been the friends of these people. But the idea of some business association between the two families seemed to obsess him--he could not explain why--and with this idea filling his mind he entered his room, seated himself by the open window, and picked up the packages of personal papers belonging to Wildresse and taken from his safe by Asticot.
There were three packets of documents, each packet tied separately with pink tape and sealed twice.
Running over the first packet like a pack of cards, he found that every paper had been endorsed on the outside and dated, although the dates were not arranged in proper sequence.
On the first document which he read without unsealing the packet was written, "Affaire Schnaeble, 1887." On the next he read, when he parted the papers, "Affaire de Clermont-Ferrand, 1888." The next, however, bore the inscription, "Affaire Panitza" and bore an earlier date. Beneath this caption was written: "Prince Ferdinand and the Oberanovitch Dynasty. Dossier of Draga. The Jockey Club and King Milan. Queen Natalie and her dossier. The Grand Duke Cyril."
He turned over document after document, all bearing endorsements, but the majority of the captions meant nothing to him, such as "Abdul Hamid and Marmora," "The Greco-Italian Proposition for an International Gendarmerie," "Ali Pasha, Said Pasha, and the Archives of Tenedos," "The Hohenzollern-Benedetti Affair."
There seemed to be nothing in this packet to justify his breaking the seals before he turned over the documents to the military authorities.
Nor, in the next packet, could he discover anything among the motley assortment of endorsements which seemed to justify his forestalling the French authorities in their examination.
But in the third packet he found that, no matter what the endorsement might be, under each caption was written, "The De Chatillon Affair."
This packet he locked in his desk until he should return; he gathered up the other two, took his cap, buttoned and belted his Norfolk, and went downstairs.
The man he sought had not yet left the Chateau; General Delisle was seated at a table in the music room looking at a series of big linen maps which had been hung up on the opposite wall.
A dozen officers were seated in a semicircle around him; an officer with a pointer stood by the maps as demonstrator, another sat at a table near by, under a portable switchboard. In the little room adjoining was seated a military telegraph operator.
Through the open French windows cyclist messengers were constantly mounting and descending the terrace steps; every few moments motor cycles arrived and departed; now and then a cavalryman galloped up in an old-style storm of dust, or a trooper vaulted into his saddle and departed ventre a terre. The growling of the cannonade was perfectly audible in the room.
At first General Delisle did not see Warner, but the Russian Military Observer did, and he rose and came quietly over to shake hands and inquire concerning the health of the ladies.
Several times his big, fish-blue eyes wandered curiously all over Warner's face and figure, as though insolently appraising the American and trying to come to some conclusion concerning the nature of the man and of the packet of papers which he had stuffed into the pocket of his Norfolk jacket.
A moment later Delisle caught sight of him, rose with pleasant courtesy, and extended his hand, asking after the health of the ladies, and making a similar inquiry concerning himself.
"General, could I see you for one moment alone?" said Warner.
The General moved out from the seated circle of officers, joined Warner, and moved with unhurried step beside him through the house toward the billiard room.
When they had reached the billiard room, Warner had told him all he knew concerning Wildresse, concluding with the appearance of the man escorted by Uhlans on Vineyard Hill.
Then he drew the papers from his pocket and gave them to the silent officer, who stood quite motionless, looking him through and through.
It was evident that General Delisle had no hesitation about breaking the big, sprawling seals of grey wax; he ripped both packets open so that the documents fell all over the scarf covering the billiard table; then, rapidly, he picked up, opened, scanned, and cast aside paper after paper.
There was not the slightest change in the expression of his face when he came to the "Schnaeble-Incident"; he scanned it, laid it aside, and said quietly as he picked up the next paper:
"That document is sufficient to settle the affair of this man Wildresse. If we catch him, ceremony will be superfluous.... The nearest wall or tree, you understand--unless he cares to make a statement first.... I always have time to listen to statements. Only one out of a hundred proves to be of any value at all, Mr. Warner, but that one is worth all the time I waste on the others----"
And all the while he was opening, scanning, and casting aside document after document.
"Oh, almost any one of these is enough," remarked the General. "Here's a villainous center of ramifications, leading God knows where----"
He checked himself abruptly; a dull color mounted to his bronzed cheekbones. Warner glanced at the caption of the document. It read: "Dossier of Count Cassilis and the Battenberg Affair."
The General read it, very slowly, for a few minutes. He could not have gone much further than the first paragraph when he folded the paper abruptly, shot a lightning glance at Warner that dazzled him like a saber flash; and suddenly smiled.
"This seems to indicate a rather bad business, Mr. Warner," he said pleasantly. "I count on your discretion, of course."
"You may, General."
"I mean even among my entourage. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"Who has any knowledge of these papers excepting yourself and myself?"
"Nobody but Wildresse, as far as I know."
The General motioned to the sentry who stood guard by the three sky-guns on the north terrace:
"Colonel Gerould; say to him I am waiting!"
A few moments later the big Colonel of Cuirassiers came clanking into the billiard room. General Delisle handed him the papers, said a few words in a low voice. As he spoke there was something quietly terrible in the stare he turned on Colonel Gerould; and the latter turned visibly white and glared blankly into space as the General laid his hand on his arm and spoke low and rapidly into his ear.
The next moment the Cuirassier was gone and General Delisle had taken Warner's arm with a quiet smile and was leisurely sauntering back toward the music room.
"It was very friendly of you, Mr. Warner--may I add, very sagacious? But that is like an American. We French feel very keenly the subtle sympathy of--" he laughed--"neutral America."
"Are these papers of real importance, General?--Is it proper of me to ask you such a question?"
"They are of--overwhelmingly vital importance, Mr. Warner."
"What!"
The General halted, looked him pleasantly in the eyes:
"The most vitally important information that I have ever received during my entire military career," he said quietly. "Judge, then, of my gratitude to you. I cannot express it. I can only offer you my hand--with a heart--very full."
They exchanged a firm clasp. As they went into the music room, Count Cassilis, who had seated himself at the piano, and who was running over a few minor scales, turned and looked at them, rising slowly to his feet with the other officers when the General entered. He had his monocle screwed into his right eye.
The cannonade had now become noisy and jarring enough to interrupt conversation, and it was plain to Warner that French batteries somewhere along the Recollette had opened.
Out on the terrace he could see aeroplanes in the northeastern sky, no doubt trying to find the range for the French batteries. They were very high, and the clots of white appeared and dissolved far below them.
But now the steady tattoo of machine guns had become audible in the direction of the Ausone Forest, and the racket swelled swiftly into a roar of rifle fire and artillery--so rapidly, indeed, that every head in the vicinity was turned to listen--hussars, cyclists, infantry, the cannoniers lying beside their sky-guns, the military chauffeurs, the sentries, all looked toward the northeast.
Two more French aeroplanes took the air over the plateau, rose rapidly, and headed toward the Ausone Forest.
Down on the Sais highway the slowly moving file of motor lorries drew out to the right-hand edge of the road, and past them galloped battery after battery, through a whirling curtain of dust--guns, caissons, mounted officers, flashing past in an interminable stream, burying the baggage vans out of sight under the billowing clouds. Columns of cavalry, also, appeared in the river meadows on both banks, trotting out across the stubble and splashing through the reeds, all moving toward the northeast.
The quarry road, too, was black with moving infantry; another column tramped across the uplands beyond; horsemen were riding over Vineyard Hill, horsemen crossed the Recollette by every ford, every pontoon--everywhere the French riders were to be seen swarming over the landscape, appearing, disappearing, in view again increased in numbers, until there seemed to be no end to their coming.
The uproar of the fusillade grew deafening; the sharper crack of the fieldpieces became dulled in the solid shocks from heavier calibers.
General Delisle came out on the terrace and stood looking across the valley just as the British biplane soared up over the trees--the Bristol machine, pointed high, racing toward the northeast.
Warner, looking up, realized that Halkett was up there. The roaring racket of the aeroplane swept the echoes along forest and hillside; higher, higher it pointed; smoke signals began to drop from it and unroll against the sky.
Looking upward, Warner felt a light touch on his elbow; Sister Eila had slipped her arm through his.
Gazing into the sky under her white coiffe, the Sister of Charity stood silent, intent, her gaze concentrated on the receding aeroplane.
When the first snowy puff ball appeared below it, her arm closed convulsively on Warner's, and remained so, rigid, while ball after ball of fleece spotted the sky, spread a little, hung, and slowly dissolved against the blue.
Down on the Sais road four Red Cross motor ambulances were speeding in the wake of the artillery. A fifth ambulance came up the drive. Sister Felicite, seated beside the chauffeur, signaled to Sister Eila.
Warner said:
"Are you called for field duty?"
"On the telephone a few minutes ago. They need us this side of Ausone."
He went with her to the ambulance and she swung on board. As the chauffeur started to back and make a demi-tour, Warner jumped on the vehicle and shook hands with Dr. Senlis.
"Do you want a bearer?" he asked.
"Yes, if you don't mind."
Sister Eila picked up a brassard bearing the conventional emblem, and tied it around his left arm above the elbow.
He had not yet noticed the other figure in the ambulance; now he looked around, stared, and suddenly a violent desire to laugh seized him.
"Asticot!" he exclaimed.
"Oui, c'est moi, M'sieu'," replied that smirking gentleman, with a demureness that struck Warner as horrible.
"But why?" he asked, in frank amazement.
"Ah," rejoined Asticot complacently, "that is the question, M'sieu'. I myself do not know exactly why I am here."
But he knew well enough. First of all, he had gotten all over any terror of bullets in Africa. Five years and fifty skirmishes had blunted that sort of fear in him.
What he wanted to do was to see what was going on. More than that, the encounter with One Eye in Ausone had strangely moved this rat of the Faubourgs. He desired to find that Disciplinary Battalion again--the Battalion which had been for him a hell on earth--but he wanted to look at it, pushed by a morbid curiosity. If One Eye were there, perhaps other old friends might still decorate those fierce and sullen ranks.
There was a certain lieutenant, too--gladly he would shoot him in the back if opportunity offered. He had dreamed for months of doing this.
But there was still another reason that incited Asticot to offer his services to Sister Felicite as a bearer. The ambulance had been called to the Ausone Forest. Somewhere within those leafy shades lurked Wildresse.
Never before had such a hatred blazed in the crippled intellect of Asticot as the red rage that flared within him when he learned that he had been employed by a spy who had sold out France.
Anything else he could have understood, any other crime. He was not squeamish; nothing appalled him in the category of villainy except only this one thing. Scoundrel as he was, he could not have found it in his heart to sell his country. And to remember that he had been employed by a man who did sell France aroused within him a passion for revenge so fierce that only a grip on the throat of Wildresse could ever satisfy the craving that made his vision red as blood.
He wore a brassard, this voyou of the Paris gutters, set with the Geneva cross. And in his pocket was an automatic pistol.
From the rear seat Sister Eila could still see the Bristol biplane in the sky, circling now high over Ausone Forest and the cultivated hills beyond. She never removed her eyes from it as the ambulance rolled on through the dust beside the slower moving line of lorries.
Later the motor lorries turned east; a column of infantry replaced them, trudging silently along in the sun, their rifles shouldered. Then they passed a battalion of chasseurs-a-pied in green and blue, swinging along at a cheerful, lively pace toward the crash of rifles and machine guns.
Across the river they saw the first German shells explode in the fields, and dark columns of smoke rise and spread out over the bushes and standing grain.
For some time, now, Warner had recognized the high whimper of bullets, but he said nothing until Sister Eila mentioned the noises, guessing correctly what were the causes.
Asticot shrugged and cuddled a cigarette which Warner had given him, enjoying it with leering deliberation.
He was inclined to become loquacious, too, whenever a shell exploded across the river.
"Baoum--baoum!" he sneered. "Tiens! Another overripe egg! The Bosches will starve themselves with their generosity! Pan! Pouf! V'lan! Zoum--zo----um! That is shrapnel, M'sieu', as you know. As for me, I do not care for it. Anything else on the carte du jour, but not shrapnel for Bibi! No! For the big shells, yes; for the machine guns, yes; for the Demoiselles Lebel, all right! But no shrapnel, if you please----"
Sister Eila looked at him in smiling surprise.
"You would do well in the wards, with your cheerfulness," she said. "I always was certain that I should find in you some quality to admire."
Asticot looked at her, mouth open, as though thunderstruck. Then, to Sister Eila's amazement, a blush turned his expressive features scarlet.
To be spoken to like that by a Sainte of Saint Vincent de Paul! To be admired by a Sister of Charity! He, Asticot, was commended, approved of, encouraged!
It was too much for Asticot. He turned redder and redder; he started to relieve his terrible embarrassment by cursing, caught himself in time, choked, passed his red bandanna over his battered visage, tried to whistle, failed, and turned his ratty and distressed eyes upon Warner for relief.
"Cheerfulness is a virtue," said Warner gravely. "You seem to possess others, also; you have physical courage, you have exhibited gratitude toward me which I scarcely expected. It is a wonderful thing for a man, Asticot, to be commended at all by Sister Eila."
Sister Eila smiled and flushed; then her face became serious and she leaned forward and looked up at the Bristol biplane. Under it the white fleece of the shrapnel was still floating.
The ambulance stopped; hussars came riding on either side of it; an officer gave an order to the driver, who turned out among some trees.
The road ahead was crowded with infantry deploying at a double--a strange, gaunt, haggard regiment, white with dust, swinging out to whistle signal into the patches of woodland and across the willow-set meadows to the right.
Sullen sweating faces looked up everywhere among the bayonets; hard eyes, thin lips, bullet heads, appeared through the drifting dust.
Here and there an officer spoke, and there seemed to be a ringing undertone of iron in the blunt commands.
They came running in out of the stifling cloud of dust like a herd of sulky vicious bulls goaded right and left by the penetrating whistle calls and the menacing orders of their officers.
"One Eye!" yelled Asticot, waving his cap vigorously. "He! Mon vieux! How are you, old camp kettle?"
A soldier looked up with a frightful leer, waved his arm, and ran forward.
"C'est un vieux copain a moi!" remarked Asticot proudly. "M'sieu', voila le Battalion d'Afrique! Voila Biribi qui passe! Tonnerre de Dieu! There is Jacques! He! Look yonder, M'sieu'! That young one with the head of a Lyceum lad! Over there! That is the gosse of Wildresse!"
"What!"
"Certainly! That is Jacques Wildresse of Biribi! He! If he knew! Eh? Poor devil! If he knew what we know! And his scoundrel of a father out there now in those woods! C'est epatant! Quoi! B'en, such things are true, it seems! And when he looses his rifle, that lad, what if the lead finds a billet in his own flesh and blood! Eh? Are such things done by God in these days?"
An officer rode up and said to the chauffeur:
"Pull out of there. Back out to the road!"
But, once on the road again, they were ordered into a pasture, then ordered forward again and told to take station under a high bank crowned with bushes.
No shells came over, but bullets did in whining streams. The air overhead was full of them, and the earth kept sliding from the bank where the lead hit it with a slapping and sometimes a snapping sound, like the incessant crack of a coach whip.
Firing had already begun in the woods whither the Battalion of Africa had hurried with their flapping equipments and baggy uniforms white with dust. In the increasing roar of rifle fire the monotonous woodpecker tapping of the machine guns was perfectly recognizable.
Branches, twigs, bits of bark, green leaves, came winnowing earthward in a continual shower. There was nothing to be seen anywhere except a few mounted hussars walking their horses up and down the road, and the motor cyclists who passed like skimming comets toward Ausone.
Sister Eila and Sister Felicite had descended to the road and seated themselves on the grassy bank, where they conversed in low tones and looked calmly into the woods.
Asticot, possessed of a whole pack of cigarettes, promenaded his good fortune and swaggered up and down the road, ostentatiously coming to salute when an automobile full of officers came screaming by.
The military chauffeur dozed over his steering wheel. Two white butterflies fluttered persistently around his head, alighting sometimes on the sleeves of his jacket, only to flit away again and continue their whirling aerial dance around him.
For an hour the roar of the fusillade continued, not steadily, but redoubling in intensity at times, then slackening again, but continuing always.
Hussars came riding out from among the trees. One of them said to Warner that the ambulances across the Recollette were very busy.
Another, an officer, remarked that the Forest was swarming with Uhlans who were fighting on foot. Asked by Asticot whether the Battalion d'Afrique had gone in, the officer answered rather coolly that it was going in then with the bayonet, and that the world would lose nothing if it were annihilated.
After he had ridden on up the road, Asticot spat elaborately, and employed the word "coquin"--a mild explosion in deference to Sister Eila.
