MONSIEUR:

Undescribed individuals carrying important document stolen from the

United States Government may appear in your vicinity.

Observe diligently, but with discretion, the arrival of any strangers at

your cafe. If suspicions warrant, lay a complaint before local police

authorities. Use every caution. The fugitives probably are German, but

may be American. Inform the girl Philippa of what is required. And

remember that Biribi is preferable to Noumea.

When Wildresse received this letter he went into the bedroom of the girl

Philippa, who was standing before her looking glass busily rouging her

cheeks and painting her lips. She wore no corset, her immature figure

requiring none.

"If they come our way, Philippa," growled Wildresse, "play the baby--do

you hear? Eyes wide and artless, virginal candor alternating with

indifference. In other words, be yourself."

"That is not difficult," said the girl Philippa, powdering her nose.

"When I lose my innocence then it will mean real acting."

Wildresse glared at her out of his little black eyes.

"_When_ you lose it, eh?" he repeated. "Well, when you do, I'll break

your neck. Do you understand that?"

The girl continued to powder her nose.

"Who would marry me?" she remarked indifferently. "Also, now it is too

late for me to become a religieuse like--"

"You'll carry on the business!" he growled. "That's what you'll do--with

Jacques, when the Sbirs de Biribi let him loose. As for marrying, you

can think it over when you are thirty. You'll have a dot by that time,

if the damned Government lets me alone. And a woman with a dot need not

worry about marriage."

The girl was now busy with her beautiful chestnut hair; Wildresse's

pock-marked features softened.

"_Allons_," he said in his harsh voice, "lilies grow prettiest on

dunghills. Also, you are like me--serious, not silly. I have no fears.

Besides, you are where I have my eye on you."

"If I am what I am it is because I prefer it, not on account of your

eye," she said listlessly.

"Is that so!" he roared. "All the same, continue to prefer virtue and

good conduct, and I'll continue to use my two eyes, nom de Dieu! And if

any strangers who look like Germans come into the cafe--any strangers at

all, no matter what they look like--keep your eyes on them, do you

hear?"

"I hear," said the girl Philippa.

The web of fate had settled over her at last.

About that time the steamer _Zeeduyne_ was docking at Antwerp.

Two hours later two German gentlemen in a hurry registered at the Hotel

St. Antoine in the Place Verte, and were informed that they were

expected immediately in room 23.

A page conducted them to the corridor and indicated the room; they

thanked him and sent him back for their luggage which he had, it seemed,

neglected to bring from the lobby.

Then both German gentlemen went to the door of room 23, knocked, and

were admitted; and the door was rather violently closed and locked.

The next instant there came a crash, a heavy fall, dull sounds of feet

scuffling behind the locked door, a series of jarring, creaking noises,

then silence.

A chambermaid came into the corridor to listen, but the silence was

profound, and presently she went away.

When the boy came back with the hand luggage and knocked at 23, Halkett

opened the door a little way and, tipping the lad with a five-franc

piece, bade him leave the luggage outside the door for the present.

Later, Gray cautiously opened the door and drew in the luggage.

Ten minutes later both young men came leisurely out of the room, locking

the door on the outside. They each carried hand luggage. Halkett

lighted a cigarette.

At the desk Gray requested that the gentlemen in No. 23 should not be

disturbed that night, as they were lying down and in need of repose.

Which was true.

Then both young men departed in a cab. At the railroad station,

however, an unusually generous stranger offered Gray a motor cycle for

nothing. So he strapped his bag to it, nodded a smiling adieu to

Halkett, and departed.

Halkett bought a ticket to Maastricht, Holland, which he had no idea of

using, and presently came out of the station and walked eastward rather

rapidly. A man who also had bought a ticket for Maastricht rose from

his seat in the waiting room and walked stealthily after him, making a

signal to another man.

This second man immediately stepped into a station telephone booth and

called up room 23 at the Hotel St. Antoine, where two German gentlemen,

badly battered, were now conferring with a third German gentleman who

had paid no attention to instructions from the hotel office but had gone

to room 23, knocked until out of patience, and had then summoned the

_maitre d'hotel_, who unlocked the door with a master-key.

Which operation revealed two Teutons flat on their backs, very carefully

tied up with rope and artistically gagged.

This unbattered gentleman now conversed over the telephone with the man

at the railroad station.

A few moments later he and the two battered ones left the hotel hastily

in a taxicab, joined the man at the railroad station, and drove rapidly

eastward.

And before forty-eight hours had elapsed, each one of these four men

operating in pairs, had attempted to kill the young man named Halkett.

Twice he got away. The third time two of them succeeded in locating him

in the little town of Diekirch, a town which Halkett was becoming more

and more anxious to leave, as he finally began to realize what a

hornet's nest he and his friend Gray had succeeded in stirring up.

And all the while the invisible net of destiny in which he now found

himself entangled was every minute enmeshing in its widening spread new

people whose fate was to be linked with his, and who had never even

heard of him. Among them was the girl Philippa.

*PROLOGUE*

A narrow-gauge railroad track runs through the woods from Diekirch,

connecting the two main lines; and on the deserted wooden platform

beside this track stood Halkett, his suitcase in one hand, the other

hand in his side pocket, awaiting the shuttle train with an impatience

born of deepest anxiety.

The young man's anxiety was presently justified, for, as he sauntered to

and fro, uneasily scanning the track and the unbroken woods around him,

always keeping his right hand in his coat pocket, two men crept out from

behind separate trees in the forest directly behind the platform, and he

turned around only in time to obtain a foreshortened and disquieting

view of the muzzle of a revolver.

"Hands up--" began the man behind the weapon; but as he was in the very

act of saying it, a jet of ammonia entered his mouth through the second

button of Halkett's waistcoat, and he reeled backward off the platform,

his revolver exploding toward the sky, and fell into the grass, jerking

and kicking about like an unhealthy cat in a spasm.

Already Halkett and the other man had clinched; the former raining blows

on the latter's Teutonic countenance, which proceeding so dazed,

diverted, and bewildered him that he could not seem to find the revolver

bulging in his side pocket.

It was an automatic, and Halkett finally got hold of it and hurled it

into the woods.

Then he continued the terrible beating which he was administering.

"Get out!" he said in German to the battered man, still battering him.

"Get out, or I'll kill you!"

He hit him another cracking blow, turned and wrested the other pistol

from the writhing man on the grass, whirled around, and went at the

battered one again.

"I've had enough of this!" he breathed, heavily. "I tell you I'll kill

you if you bother me again! I could do it now--but it's too much like

murder if you're not in uniform!"

The man on the grass had managed to evade suffocation; he got up now and

staggered off toward the woods, and Halkett drove his companion after

him at the point of his own revolver.

"Keep clear of me!" he said. "If you do any more telephoning or

telegraphing it will end in murder. I've had just about enough, and if

any more of your friends continue to push this matter after I enter

France, just as surely as I warn you now, I'll defend my own life by

taking theirs. You can telephone that to them if you want to!"

As he stood on the edge of the wooden platform, revolver lifted, facing

the woods where his two assailants had already disappeared, the toy-like

whistle of an approaching train broke the hot, July stillness.

Before it stopped, he hurled the remaining revolver into the woods

across the track, then, as the train drew up and a guard descended to

open a compartment door for him, he cast a last keen glance at the

forest behind him.

Nothing stirred there, not even a leaf.

But before the train had been under way five minutes a bullet shattered

the glass of the window beside which he had been seated; and he spent

the remainder of the journey flat on his back smoking cigarettes and

wondering whether he was going to win through to the French frontier, to

Paris, to Calais, to London, or whether they'd get him at last and, what

was of infinitely greater importance, a long, thin envelope which he

carried stitched inside his undershirt.

That was really what mattered, not what might become of a stray

Englishman. He knew it; he realized it without any illusion whatever.

It was the contents of this envelope that mattered, not his life.

Yet, so far, he had managed to avoid taking life in defense of his

envelope. In fact, he traveled unarmed. Now, if matters continued

during his journey through France as they had begun and continued while

he was crossing Holland and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, he would be

obliged to take life or lose his own.

And yet, if he did kill somebody, that meant arrest and investigation by

the police of France. And such an investigation might be fatal to the

success of his undertaking--quite as fatal, in fact, as though he

himself were killed.

The main thing was to get that envelope and its contents to London.

His instructions were not to mail it, but to take it in person, or to

send it, if necessary, by another messenger through other channels.

One thing became more and more evident to him; the time had now arrived

when certain people unknown to him by sight had decided to kill him as

the only way out of the affair.

Would they actually go so far as to kill him in France, with the chance

of the French police seizing that envelope before they could seize it

and clear out with it to Berlin? Would they hazard the risk of France

obtaining cognizance of a matter which so vitally concerned Germany,

rather than permit that information to reach England?

Halkett lay on his back and smoked and did not know.

But he was slowly coming to the conclusion that one thing was now

imperative: the envelope must not be found upon his person if he were

killed.

But what on earth to do with it until it could be safely transferred to

the proper person he had not the slightest idea.

That evening, as he changed trains at the frontier, in the lamp-lit

dimness of the station platform he was fired at twice, and not hit.

A loud outcry naturally ensued; a stampede of passengers who tried to

escape, a rush of others who desired to see what had happened--much

hubbub and confusion, much shouting in several languages.

But nobody could be found who had fired two shots from a revolver, and

nobody admitted that they had been shot at.

And so, as nobody had been hit, the gendarmes, guards, and railway

officials were in a quandary.

And the train rolled out of the station with Halkett aboard, a prey to

deepest anxiety concerning his long thin envelope.

*CHAPTER I*

Somebody at Warner's elbow spoke to him in French. He turned his head

leisurely: a well-dressed young fellow, evidently an Englishman, was

striving to maintain a place beside him in the noisy, market day crowd.

"Pardon, Monsieur, are you English?"

"American," replied Warner briefly, and without enthusiasm.

"My name is Halkett," said the other, with a quick smile. "I'm English,

and I'm in trouble. Could you spare me a moment?"

To Warner the man did not look the typical British dead-beat, nor had he

any of the earmarks and mannerisms of the Continental beach-comber. Yet

he was, probably, some species or other of that wearisome and itinerant

genus.

"I'm listening," said the young American resignedly. "Continue your

story."

"There's such a row going on here--couldn't we find a quieter place?"

"I can hear you perfectly well, I tell you!"

Halkett said:

"If I try to talk to you here I'll be overheard, and that won't do. I'm

very sorry to inconvenience you, but really I'm in a fix. What a noise

these people are making! Do you mind coming somewhere else?"

"Say what you desire to say here," returned Warner bluntly. "And

perhaps it might save time if you begin with the last chapter; I think I

can guess the rest of the story."

The features of the American expressed boredom to the point of

unfriendly indifference. The Englishman looked at him, perplexed for a

moment, then his sun-bronzed face lighted up with another quick smile.

"You're quite mistaken," he said. "I don't expect the classic

remittance from England, and I don't require the celebrated twenty-franc

loan until it arrives. You take me for that sort, I see, but I'm not.

I don't need money. May I tell you what I do need--rather desperately?"

"Yes, if you choose."

"I need a friend."

"Money is easier to pick up," remarked Warner drily.

"I know that. May I ask my favor of you all the same?"

"Go ahead."

"Thanks, I will. But can't we get out of this crowd? What is going on

in this town anyway?"

"Market day. It's like this once a month in Ausone. Otherwise the town

is as dead as any other French provincial town."

Shoulder to shoulder they threaded their way through the crowded market

square, amid the clatter of sabots, the lowing of cattle, the incessant

bleating of sheep. Ducks quacked from crates in wagons, geese craned

white necks and hissed above the heads of the moving throngs; hogs

squealed and grunted; fowls hanging by their legs from the red fists of

sturdy peasant women squawked and flapped.

Cheap-Jack shows of all sorts encumbered the square and adjacent streets

and alleys--gingerbread booths, shooting ranges, photograph galleries,

moving-picture shows, theaters for ten sous. Through the lowing,

bleating, and cockcrowing, the drumming and squeaking of Punch and Judy,

and the brassy dissonance of half a dozen bands, mournful and incessant

strains from several merry-go-rounds continued audible.

But the steady clatter of sabots on stony pavements, and the ceaseless

undertone of voices, swelling, subsiding, dominated the uproar,

softening the complaint of kine and feathered fowl to a softly cheerful

harmony suggestive of summer breezes and green fields.

On the dusty Boulevard d'Athos--the typical solitary promenade of such

provincial towns--there were, as usual, very few people--the inevitable

nurses here and there, wheeling prams; a discouraged, red-trousered and

sou-less soldier or two sprawling on benches under the chestnut trees;

rarely a passing pedestrian, more often a prowling dog.

At the head of the Boulevard d'Athos, where the rue d'Auros crosses,

Warner halted under the shade of the chestnuts, for the July sun was

very hot. His unconvinced grey eyes now rested inquiringly on the young

Englishman who had called himself Halkett. He said:

"What species of trouble are you in?"

Halkett shook his head.

"I can't tell you what the trouble is; I may only ask you to help me a

bit--" The quick smile characteristic of him glimmered in his eyes

again--a winning smile, hinting of latent recklessness. "I have my

nerve with me, you see--as you Americans have it," he added. "You're

thinking something of that sort, I fancy."

Warner smiled too, rather faintly, but remained silent.

"This is what I want you to do," continued Halkett. "I've a long thin

envelope in my pocket. I'd like to have you take it from me and slip it

into your breast pocket and then button your coat. Is that too much to

ask?"

"_What!_"

"That's all I want you to do. Then if you wouldn't mind giving me your

name and address? And that is really all I ask."

Said the American, amused and surprised:

"That airy request of yours requires a trifle more explanation than you

seem inclined to offer."

"I know it does. I can't offer it. Only--you won't get into trouble if

you keep that envelope buttoned tightly under your coat until I come for

it again."

"But I'm not going to do that!"

"Why?"

"Why the devil should I? I don't propose to wander about France

carrying papers concerning which I know nothing--to oblige a young man

about whom I know even less."

"I quite see that," admitted Halkett seriously. "I shouldn't feel

inclined to do such a thing either."

"Can't you tell me what is the nature of these papers?--Or

something--some explanation----"

"I'm sorry."

"And why do you propose to trust me with them?" continued Warner,

curiously. "How do you know I am honest? How do you know I won't

examine your packet as soon as you clear out?"

Halkett looked up with his quick and winning smile:

"I'll take that risk."

"Why? You don't know me."

"I had a good look at you in the market square before I spoke to you."

"Oh. You think you are a psychologist?"

"Of sorts. It's a part of my business in life."

"Suppose," said Warner, smiling, "you explain a little more clearly to

me exactly what is your actual business in life."

"Very glad to. I write."

"Books?"

"No; just--stories."

"Fiction?"

"As one might say, facts rather than fiction."

"You are a realist?" suggested Warner with slight irony.

"I try to be. But do you know, there is more romance in realism than in

fairy tales?"

Warner, considerably diverted, nodded:

"I know. You belong to the modern school, I take it."

"Very modern. So modern, in fact, that my work concerns tomorrow rather

than today."

Warner nodded again:

"I see. You are a futurist--opportunist. There are a lot of clever men

working on those lines in England.... Still--" he glanced amusedly at

Halkett "--that scarcely explains your rather unusual request. Why

should I take charge of an envelope for _you_?"

"My dear fellow, I can't answer that.... Still--I may say this much;

I'm hard put to it--rather bewildered--had a rotten time of it in the

Grand Duchy and in Belgium--so to speak--"

"What do you mean by a rotten time?"

"Rows."

"I don't understand. You'll have to be more explicit."

"Well--it had to do with this envelope I carry. Some chaps of sorts

wanted to get it away from me. Do you see? ... I had a lively time, and

I rather expect to have another before I get home--if I ever get there."

Warner looked at him out of clear, sophisticated eyes:

"See here, my ingenuous British friend," he said, "play square with me,

if you play at all."

"I shan't play otherwise."

"Very well, then; why are you afraid to carry that envelope?"

"Because," said Halkett, coolly, "if I'm knocked on the head and that

envelope is found in my clothing and is stolen, the loss of my life

would be the lesser loss to my friends."

"Is anybody trying to _kill_ you?"

Halkett shrugged his shoulders; but there seemed to be neither swagger

nor bravado in his careless gesture of assent. He said:

"Listen; here's my case in brief. I saw you in the crowd yonder, and I

made up my mind concerning you. I have to think quickly sometimes; I

took a good look at you and--" He waved one hand. "You look like a

soldier. I don't know whether you are or not. But I am ready to trust

you. That's all."

"Do you mean to say that you are in any real personal danger?"

"Yes. But that doesn't count. I can look out for myself. What worries

me is this envelope. Couldn't you take charge of it? I'd be very

grateful."

"How long do you expect me to carry it about?"

"I don't know. I don't know whether anything is likely to happen to me

today in this town--or tomorrow on the train--or in Paris--I have no

means of knowing. I merely want to get to Paris, if I can, and send a

friend back here for that envelope."

"I thought you were to return for it yourself."

"Maybe. Maybe I'll send you a letter by a friend--just a line for him

to give you, saying it's all right."

"Mr. Halkett, you have rather a disconcerting way of expressing

unlimited confidence in me--"

"Yes, I trust you."

"But _why_?"

"You look right."

"That's no reason!"

"My dear chap, I'm in a corner, and instinct rules, not reason! You

see, I--I'm rather afraid they may get me before I can clear out."

"_Who'll_ get you?" demanded Warner impatiently.

"That's the worst of it; I don't know these fellows by sight. The same

chaps never try it on twice."

Warner said quietly:

"What is this very dramatic mess you're in? Can't you give me a hint?"

"I'm sorry."

"Shall I give _you_ a hint?"

"If you like."

"Are the _police_ after you?"

"No."

"You're sure of that?"

"Quite sure. I don't blame you for asking. It looks that way. But it

isn't."

"But you are being followed across Europe by people who want this

envelope of yours?"

"Oh, yes."

"You expect personal violence from them?"

Halkett nodded and gazed absently down the almost deserted boulevard.

"Then why don't you appeal to the police--if your conscience is clear?"

demanded Warner bluntly.

Halkett's quick smile broke out.

"My dear chap," he said, "I'd do so if I were in England. I can't, as

matters stand. The French police are no use to me."

"Why don't you go to your consulate?"

"I did. The Consul is away on his vacation. And I didn't like the

looks of the vice-consul."

"What?"

"No. I didn't like his name, either."

"What do you mean?"

"His name is Schmidt. I--didn't care for it."

Warner laughed, and Halkett looked up quickly, smiling.

"I'm queer. I admit it. But you ought to have come to some conclusion

concerning me by this time. Do you think me a rotter, or a criminal, or

a lunatic, or a fugitive from justice? Or will you chance it that I'm

all right, and will you stand by me?"

Warner laughed again:

"I'll take a chance on you," he said. "Give me your envelope, you

amazing Britisher!"

*CHAPTER II*

Halkett cast a rapid glance around him; apparently he saw nothing to

disturb him. Then he whipped out from his pocket a long, very thin

envelope and passed it to Warner, who immediately slipped it into the

breast pocket of his coat.

"That's very decent of you," said Halkett in a low voice. His

attractive face had grown serious and a trifle pale. "I shan't forget

this," he said.

Warner laughed.

"You're a very convincing Englishman," he said. "I can't believe you're

not all right."

"I'm right enough. But you are _all_ white. What is your name?"

"I had better write it out for you."

"No. If things go wrong with me, I don't want your name and address

discovered in my pockets. Tell it to me; I'll remember."

Warner looked at him rather gravely for a moment, then:

"James Warner is my name. I'm a painter. My present address is La

Peche d'Or at Sais."

"By any chance," asked Halkett, "are you the military painter, James

Warner, whose pictures we know very well in England?"

"I don't know how well my pictures are known in England. I usually

paint military subjects."

"I _knew_ you were right!" exclaimed Halkett. "Any man who paints the

way you paint _must_ be right! Fancy my actually knowing the man who did

'Lights Out' and 'The Last Salute'!"

Warner laughed, coloring a little.

"Did you really like those pictures?"

"Everybody liked them. I fancy every officer in our army owns a colored

print of one or more of your pictures. And to think I should run across

you in this God-forsaken French town! And to think it should be _you_

who is willing to stand by me at this pinch! Well--I judged you

rightly, you see."

Warner smiled, then his features altered.

"Listen, Halkett," he said, dropping instinctively the last trace of

formality with a man who, honest or otherwise, was plainly of his own

caste. "I have tried to size you up and I can't. You say you are a

writer, but you look to me more like a soldier. Anyway, I've concluded

that you're straight. And, that being my conviction, can't I do more

for you than carry an envelope about for you?"

"That's very decent of you, Warner. No, thanks, there is nothing else

you could do."

"I thought you said you are likely to get into a row?"

"I am. But I don't know when or where. Besides, I wouldn't drag you

into anything like that."

"Where are you stopping in Ausone?"

"At the Boule d'Argent. I got in only an hour before I met you."

"Do you still believe you are being followed?"

"I have been followed so far. Maybe I've lost them. I hope so."

Warner said:

"I came into town to buy canvases and colors. That's how I happen to be

in Ausone. It's only an hour's drive to Sais. Why don't you come back

with me? Sais is a pretty hamlet. Few people have ever heard of it.

The Golden Peach is an excellent inn. Why don't you run down and lie

snug for a while? It's the last place on earth anybody would think of

looking for a man who's done--what I suppose _you've_ done."

Halkett, who had been listening with a detached smile, jerked his head

around and looked at Warner.

"What do you suppose I've done?" he asked coolly.

"I think you're a British officer who has been abroad after military

information--and that you've got it--in this envelope."

Halkett's expressionless face and fixed eyes did not alter. But he said

quietly:

"You are about the only American in France who might have been likely to

think that. Isn't it the devil's own luck that I should pick _you_ for

my friend in need?"

Warner shrugged:

"You need not answer that implied question of mine, Halkett. My theory

concerning you suits me. Anyway, I believe you _are_ in trouble. And I

think you'd better come back to Sais with me."

"Thinking what you think, do you still mean to stand by me?"

"Certainly. I don't _know_ what's in your damned envelope, do I? Very

well; I don't wish to know. Shall we stroll back to the Boule

d'Argent?"

"Right-o! What a devilish decent chap you are, Warner!"

"Oh, no; I'm a gambler by disposition. This business amuses me!"

"Are you stopping at the Boule d'Argent, too?" asked Halkett after a

moment.

"I lunched there and left my stack of _toiles_ and my sack of colors

there. Also, I have a dogcart and a horse in the stables."

They turned away together, side by side, crossed the boulevard,

traversed the deserted square in front of the beautiful old church of

Sainte Cassilda, and entered the stony rue d'Auros, which led directly

into the market square.

The ancient town of Ausone certainly seemed to be very much _en fete_,

and the rue d'Auros--the main business thoroughfare--was crowded with

townspeople, country folk, and soldiers on leave, clustering not only

all over the sidewalks, but in the middle of the streets and squares,

filling the terraces of the cafes and the courts of the two hotels, the

Boule d'Argent and the Hotel des Voyageurs.

Sunlight filtered through the double rank of chestnut trees in full

leaf; the shade was even denser and cooler by the stone bridge where,

between stone walls, the little stony river flowed, crystal clear. Here

women and young girls, in holiday attire, sat on the benches, knitting

or chatting with their friends; children played along the stone

embankment, where beds of brilliant flowers bloomed; the red trousers of

soldiers and the glittering brass helmets of firemen added a gayety to

the color and movement.

"They're a jolly people, these French," remarked Halkett.

"They're very agreeable to live among."

"You've lived in France for some time?"

"Yes," said Warner. "My headquarters are in Paris, but every summer I

take a class of American art students--girls--to Sais for outdoor

instruction. I've half a dozen there now, plugging away at _Plein Air_."

"Do you like to teach?"

"Well, not particularly. It interferes with my own work. But I have to

do it. Painting pictures doesn't keep the kettle boiling."

"I see."

"I don't really mind it. Sais is a charming place; I've known it for

years. Besides, a friend of mine lives there--an American woman, Madame

de Moidrey. Her sister, Miss Brooks, is one of the young girls in my

class. So it makes it agreeable; and Madame de Moidrey is very

hospitable."

Halkett smiled.

"Painters," he said, "have, proverbially, a pretty good time in life."

"Soldiers do, too; don't they?"

Halkett's smile became fixed.

"I've heard so. The main thing about a profession is to choose one

which will take you out of doors."

"Yours does. You can sit under a tree and write your stories, can't

you?"

The Englishman laughed:

"Of course I can. That's the beauty of realism; all you have to do is

to walk about outdoors and jot down a faithful description of everything

you see."

They had reached the little stone _quai_ under the chestnut and lime

trees; the cool ripple of the river mingled with the laughter of young

girls and the gay voices of children at play made a fresh and cheerful

sound in the July sunshine.

They leaned against the mossy river wall and looked out under the trees

across the square which surged with people. Flags fluttered from booths

and white tents; the blare of bands, the tumult of wooden shoes, the

noises of domestic creatures, and human voices all mingled with the

unceasing music from the merry-go-rounds.

Across the esplanade there was a crowd around the Cafe de Biribi--people

constantly passing to and fro--and strains of lively music leaked out

from within.

After a moment Warner suggested that they go over and have something

light and cool to drink.

"I've never been in there," he remarked, as they started, "but I've

always intended to go. It's kept by a rascal named Wildresse--a

sporting man, fight promoter, and an ex-gambler. You've heard of the

Cabaret Wildresse in Paris, haven't you?"

"I think I have," replied Halkett. "It was an all night place on the

Grand Boulevard, wasn't it?"

"Yes; opposite the Grand Hotel. This is the same proprietor. He's an

American--a shady sort of sport--and he certainly must have been a

pretty bad lot, because the police made him leave Paris six years

ago--what for, I don't know--but they fired him out, and he started his

cabaret business here in Ausone. You hear of it everywhere. People

come even from Nancy and Liege and Louvain to dance, and dine

here--certain sorts of people, I mean. The cuisine is celebrated. There

are cockfights and other illegal attractions."

The Cabaret Biribi formed the corner of the square. It was a detached

stucco structure surrounded by green trees and pretty shrubbery; and in

the rear the grounds ran down to the river, where a dozen rowboats were

moored along that still, glassy reach of water which extends for several

miles south of Ausone between meadows and pleasantly wooded banks.

They found the Cabaret Biribi crowded when they went in; a lively young

person was capering on the little stage at the end of the dancing floor,

and singing while capering; soldiers and civilians, with their own or

other people's sweethearts, sat at the zinc tables, consuming light beer

and wine and syrups; a rather agreeable stringed orchestra played

intermittently.

Waiters scurried about with miraculously balanced trays on high; old man

Wildresse roamed furtively in the background, his gorilla arms behind

his back, his blunt fingers interlocked, keeping a sly and ratty eye on

waiters and guests, and sometimes on the young woman cashier who lounged

listlessly upon her high chair behind the wire cage, one rather lank leg

crossed over the other, and her foot swinging in idle time to the music.

The moment that Warner and Halkett appeared in the doorway, looking

about them to find a table, Wildresse crossed the floor and said to his

cashier in a whisper:

"It's one of those men. Schmidt's description might fit either. If

they don't make eyes at you and ask you to dance and drink with them,

come over and join them anyway. And I want you to pump them dry. Do

you hear?"

"Yes, I hear."

Warner looked across the room at her again when he and Halkett were

seated. She had considerable paint on her cheeks, and her lips seemed

too red to be natural. Otherwise she was tragically young, thin,

excepting her throat and cheeks--a grey-eyed, listless young thing with

a mass of chestnut hair crowning her delicately shaped head.

She made change languidly for waiter and guest; acknowledged the salutes

of those entering and leaving without more than a politely detached

interest; smiled at the jests of facetious customers with mechanical

civility when importuned; and, when momentarily idle, swung her long,

slim foot in time to the music and rested her painted cheek on one hand.

Her indifferent grey eyes, sweeping the hall, presently rested on

Warner; and remained on him with a sort of idle insolence until his own

shifted.

Halkett was saying:

"You know that girl--the cashier, I mean--is extraordinarily pretty.

Have you noticed her, Warner?"

Warner turned again:

"I've been looking at her. She's rather thickly tinted, isn't she?"

"Yes. But in spite of the paint. She has a charmingly shaped head.

Some day she'll have a figure."

"Oh, yes; figures and maturity come late to that type.... If you'll

notice, Halkett, those hands of hers are really exquisite. So are her

features--the nose is delicate, the eyes beautifully drawn--she's all in

good drawing--even her mouth, which is a little too full. As an

amateur, don't you agree with me?"

"Very much so. She's a distinct type."

"Yes--there's a certain appeal about her.... It's odd, isn't it--the

inexplicable something about some women that attracts. It doesn't

depend on beauty at all."

Halkett sipped his Moselle wine.

"No, it doesn't depend on beauty, on intelligence, on character, or on

morals. It's in spite of them--in defiance, sometimes. Now, take that

thin girl over there; her lips and cheeks are painted; she has the

indifferent, disenchanted, detached glance of the too early wise. The

chances are that she isn't respectable. And in spite of all that,

Warner--well--look at her."

"I see. A man could paint a troubling portrait of her--a sermon on

canvas."

"Just as she sits there," nodded Halkett.

"Just as she sits there, chin on palm, one lank leg crossed over the

other, and her slim foot dangling.... And the average painter would make

her seem all wrong, Halkett; and I might, too, except for those clear

grey eyes and their childish indifference to the devil's world outside

their ken." He inspected her for a moment more, then: "Yes, in spite of

rouge and other obvious elementals, I should paint her as she really is,

Halkett; and no man in his heart would dare doubt her after I'd

finished."

"That's not realism," remarked Halkett, laughing.

"It's the vital essence of it. You know I'm something of a gambler.

Well, if I painted that girl as she sits there now, in this noisy,

messy, crowded cabaret, with the artificial tint on lip and cheek--if I

painted her just as she appears to us, and in all the insolently

youthful relaxation of her attitude--I'd be gambling all the while with

myself that the soul inside her is as clean as a flame; and I'd paint

that conviction into her portrait with every brush stroke! What do you

think of that view of her?"

"As you Americans say, you're some poet," observed Halkett, laughingly.

"A poet is an advanced psychologist. He begins where scientific

deduction ends."

"That's what makes your military pictures so convincing," said Halkett,

with his quick smile. "It's not only the correctness of details and the

spirited drawing and color, but you _do_ see into the very souls of the

men you paint, and their innermost characters are there, revealed in the

supreme crisis of the moment." He smiled quietly. "I'll believe it if

_you_ say that young girl over there is quite all right."

"I'd paint her that way, anyhow."

The singing on the stage had ceased from troubling, and the stringed

orchestra was playing one of the latest and most inane of dance steps.

A clumsy _piou-piou_ got up with his fresh-cheeked partner; other

couples rose from the sloppy tables, and in another moment the dancing

floor was uncomfortably crowded.

It was a noisy place; a group of summer touring students from Louvain,

across the border, were singing "La Brabanconne"--a very patriotic and

commendable attempt, but it scarcely harmonized with the dance music.

Perspiring waiters rushed hither and thither, their trays piled high;

the dancers trotted and spun around and galloped about over the waxed

floor; the young girl behind her wire wicket swung her narrow foot to

and fro and gazed imperturbably out across the tumult.

"Philippa!" cried one of the Louvain students, hammering on the table

with his beer glass. "Come out from behind your _guichet_ and dance

with me!"

The girl's grey eyes turned superciliously toward the speaker, but she

neither answered nor moved her head.

The young man blew a kiss toward her and attempted to climb upon the

zinc table, but old man Wildresse, who was prowling near, tapped him on

the shoulder.

"Pas de betise!" he growled. "Soyez sage! Restez tranquille, nom de

Dieu!"

"I merely desired the honor of dancing with your charming cashier--"

"Allons! Assez! It's sufficient to ask her, isn't it? A woman dances

with whom she chooses."

And, grumbling, he walked on with his heavy sidling step, hands clasped

behind him, his big, hard, smoothly shaven face lowered and partly

turned, as though eternally listening for somebody just at his heels.

Always sidling nearer to the table where Warner and Halkett were seated,

he paused, presently, and looked down at them, shot a glance across at

the girl, Philippa, caught her eye, nodded significantly. Then,

addressing Warner and his new friend:

"Well, gentlemen," he said in English, "are you amusing yourselves in

the Cafe Biribi?"

"Sufficiently," nodded Warner.

Wildresse peeped stealthily over his shoulder, as though expecting to

surprise a listener. Then his very small black eyes stole toward

Halkett, and he furtively examined him.

"_Jour de fete_," he remarked in his harshly resonant voice. "Grand

doings in town tonight. Do you gentlemen dine here this evening?"

"I think not," said Warner.

"I am sorry. It will be gay. There are dance partners to be had for a

polite bow. You should see my little _caissiere_ yonder!" He made a

grunting sound and kissed his blunt fingers to the ceiling. "M-m-m!" he

growled. "_She_ can dance! But I don't permit her to dance very often.

Only a special client now and then----"

"May we consider ourselves special clients?" inquired Warner, amused.

"Oh, I don't say yes and I don't say no." He jerked his round, shaven

head. "It all depends on _her_. She dances with whom she pleases. And

if the Emperor of China asked her, nevertheless she should be free to

please herself."

"She's very pretty," said Halkett.

"Others have said so before you in the Cabaret de Biribi."

"Why do you call your cabaret the Cafe Biribi?" asked Warner.

"Eh? By God, I call it Biribi because I'm not ashamed of the name."

Halkett looked up into his wicked black eyes, and Wildresse wagged his

finger at him.

"Supposition," he said, "that your son is a good boy--a little lively,

but a good boy--and he comes of age and he goes with his class for two

years--three years now, and to hell with it!

"Bon! Supposition, also, that his sergeant is a tyrant, his captain an

ass, his colonel an imbecile! Bon! Given a little natural ardor--a

trifle of animal spirits, and the lad is up before the

council--bang!--and he gets his in the battalions of Biribi!"

His voice had become a sort of ominous growl.

"As for me," he said heavily, "I mock at their council and their

blockhead colonel! I accept their challenge; I do not conceal that my

son is serving in a disciplinary battalion; I salute all the battalions

of Biribi--where there are better men in the ranks than there are in

many a regiment of the line, by God! And I honor those battalions by

naming my cabaret 'Biribi.' The Government gets no change out of me!"

The man asserted too much, swaggered too obviously; and Halkett, not

suspicious but always cautious, kept his inquiring eyes fixed on him.

Warner said with a smile:

"You have the courage of your convictions, Monsieur Wildresse."

"As for that," growled Wildresse, casting another stealthy glance behind

him, "I've got courage. Courage? Who hasn't? Everybody's got courage.

It's brains the world lacks. Excuse me, gentlemen--affairs of

business--and if you want to dance with my little cashier, there is no

harm in asking her." And he shuffled away, his heavy head bent

sideways, his hands tightly clasped behind him.

"There's an evil type," remarked Halkett. "What a brute it is!"

Warner said:

"With his cropped head and his smooth, pasty face, and those unpleasant

black eyes of his, he looks like an ex-convict. It doesn't astonish me

that he has a son serving in the disciplinary battalions of Africa."

"Does it astonish you that he is the employer of that girl behind the

counter?" asked Halkett.

Warner turned to look at her again:

"It's interesting, isn't it? She seems to be another breed."

"Yes. Now, what do you make of her?"

Warner hesitated, then looked up with a laugh.

"Halkett," he said, "I'm going over to ask her to dance."

"All right; I'll hold the table," said the Englishman, amused. And

Warner rose, skirted the dancers, and walked around to the cashier's

desk, aware all the while that the girl's indifferent grey eyes were

following his movements.

*CHAPTER III*

Warner tucked his walking stick and straw hat under one arm and,

sauntering over to the cashier's desk, made a very nice and thoroughly

Continental bow to the girl behind it.

Her impartial and uninterested gaze rested on him; after a moment she

inclined her head, leisurely and in silence.

He said in French:

"Would Mademoiselle do me the honor of dancing this dance with me?"

She replied in a sweet but indifferent voice:

"Monsieur is too amiable. But he sees that I am _caissiere_ of the

establishment."

"Yet even the fixed stars of heaven dance sometimes to the music of the

spheres."

She smiled slightly:

"When one is merely a fixture _de cabaret_, one dances only to the music

of the _Sbires_! You must ask Monsieur Wildresse if I may dance with

you."

"He suggested that I ask you."

"Very well, if it's a matter of business----"

Warner laughed.

"Don't you ever dance for pleasure?" he asked in English.

She replied in English:

"Is it your theory that it would give me pleasure to dance with you?"

"It is," he said, still laughing. "But by demonstration alone are

theories proven."

The girl hesitated, her grey eyes resting on him. Then she turned her

head, drew a pencil from her chestnut hair, rapped with it on the

counter. A head waiter came speeding to her.

"Aristide, I'm going to dance," she said in the same sweetly indifferent

voice. "Have the goodness to sit in my chair until I return or Melanie

arrives."

She slid to the floor from her high seat, came out, through the wire

gate, and began to unpin her cambric apron.

The closer view revealed to him her thinness in her black gown. She was

not so tall as he had thought her, and she was younger; but he had been

right about her cheeks and lips. Both were outrageously painted.

She handed her daintily embroidered apron to the waiter, laid one hand

lightly on Warner's arm; he led her to the edge of the dancing floor,

clasped her waist and swung her with him out into the noisy whirl

beyond.

Thin, almost immature in her angular slenderness, the girl in motion

became enchantingly graceful. Supple as a sapling in the summer wind,

her hand rested feather-light in his; her long, narrow feet seemed like

shadows close above the floor, never touching it.

The orchestra ceased playing after a few minutes, but old man Wildresse,

who had been watching them, growled, "Go on!" and the music recommenced

amid plaudits and shouts of general approval.

Once, as they passed the students' table, Warner heard the voice of old

Wildresse in menacing dispute with the student who had first shouted out

an invitation to Philippa.

"She dances with whom she chooses!" roared Wildresse. "Do you

understand, Monsieur? By God, if the Grand Turk himself asked her she

should not dance with him unless she wished to!"

Warner said to her jestingly:

"Did the Grand Turk ever ask you, Philippa?"

The girl did not smile.

"Perhaps I am dancing with him now. One never knows--in a cabaret."

When the music ceased she was breathing only a trifle faster, and her

cheeks under the paint glowed softly pink.

"Could you join us?" he asked. "Is it permitted?"

"I'd like to.... Yes."

So he took her back to the table, where Halkett rose and paid his

respects gracefully; and they seated themselves and ordered a grenadine

for her.

Old Wildresse, sidling by, paused with a non-committal grunt:

"Eh bien? On s'amuse? Dis, petit galopin!"

"I'm thirsty," said the girl Philippa.

"And your _caisse_?"

"Tell them to find Melanie," she retorted indifferently.

"Bon! A _jour de fete_, too! How long are you going to be?" But as

she glanced up he winked at her.

She shrugged her shoulders, leaned forward, chose a straw, and plunged

it into the crimson depths of her iced grenadine.

Old Wildresse looked at her a moment, then he also shrugged his

shoulders and went shuffling away, always apparently distrustful of that

invisible something just behind his back.

Halkett said:

"Mr. Warner and I have been discussing an imaginary portrait of you."

"What?" The clear, grey eyes turned questioningly to him, to Warner.

The latter nodded:

"I happen to be a painter. Mr. Halkett and I have agreed that it would

be an interesting experiment to paint your portrait--_as you really

are_."

The girl seemed slightly puzzled.

"As I really am?" she repeated. "But, Messieurs, am I not what you see

before you?"

The music began again; the Louvain student, a little tipsy but very

decorous, arose, bowed to the girl Philippa, bowed to Halkett and to

Warner, and asked for the honor of a dance with her.

"Merci, Monsieur--another time, perhaps," she replied indifferently.

The boy seemed disposed to linger, but he was not quarrelsome, and

finally Halkett got up and led him away.

From moment to moment Warner, glancing across during his tete-a-tete

with the girl Philippa, could see the Louvain student continually

shaking hands with Halkett who seemed horribly bored.

A little later still the entire Louvain delegation insisted on

entertaining Halkett with beer and song; and the resigned but polite

Englishman, now seated at their table, was being taught to sing "La

Brabanconne," between draughts of Belgian beer.

The girl Philippa played with the stem of her glass and stirred the ice

in it with her broken wheat straw. The healthy color in her face had now

faded to an indoor pallor again under the rouge.

"So you are a painter," she said, her grey eyes fixed absently on her

glass. "Are you a distinguished painter, Monsieur?"

He laughed:

"You'll have to ask others that question, Philippa."

"Why? Don't you know whether you are distinguished?"

"I've had some success," he admitted, amused.

She thought a moment, then leaned forward toward the Louvain table.

"Mr. Halkett," she called in English. "Is Mr. Warner a distinguished

American painter?"

Halkett laughed.

"One of the most celebrated American painters of the day!"

The Louvain students, understanding, rose as a man, waved their glasses,

and cheered for Warner, the "_grand peintre Americain_." Which

embarrassed and annoyed him so that his face grew brighter than the

paint on Philippa's lips.

"I'm sorry," she said, noticing his annoyance. "I did not mean to make

you conspicuous."

Everybody in the cafe was now looking at him; on every side he gazed

into amused and smiling faces, saw glasses lifted, heard the cries of

easily aroused Gallic enthusiasm.

"Vive le grand peintre Americain! Vive l'Amerique du Nord!"

"This is tiresome!" exclaimed Philippa. "Let us walk down to the river

and sit in one of our boats. I should really like to talk to you

sensibly--unless you are too much annoyed with me."

She beckoned a waiter to bring her apron; and she put it on.

"When you are ready, Monsieur," she said serenely.

So they rose; Warner paid the bill, and, with a whimsical smile at

Halkett, walked out beside Philippa through one of the rear doors, and

immediately found himself in brightest sunshine, amid green trees and

flower beds.

Here, under the pitiless sky, the girl's face became ghastly under its

rouged mask--the more shocking, perhaps, because her natural skin, if

pale, appeared to be smooth and clear; and the tragic youth of her

seemed to appeal to all out of doors from the senseless abuse it was

enduring.

To see her there in the freshness of the open breeze, sunshine and

shadow dappling the green under foot, the blue overhead untroubled by a

cloud, gave Warner a slightly sick sensation.

"The air is pleasant," she remarked, unconscious of the effect she had

on him.

He nodded. They walked down the grassy slope to the river bank, where

rows of boats lay moored. A few were already in use out on the calm

stream; young men in their shirt sleeves splashed valiantly at the oars;

young women looked on under sunshades of flamboyant tints.

There was a white punt there called the _Lys_. Philippa stepped into it,

drew a key from her apron pocket, unlocked the padlock. Then, lifting

the pole from the grass, she turned and invited Warner with a gesture.

He had not bargained for this; but he tossed the chain aboard, stepped

in, and offered to take the pole.

But Philippa evidently desired to do the punting herself; so he sat

back, watching her sometimes and sometimes looking at the foliage, where

they glided swiftly along under overhanging branches and through still,

glimmering reaches of green water, set with scented rushes where dragon

flies glittered and midges danced in clouds, and the slim green frogs

floated like water sprites, partly submerged, looking at them out of

golden goblin eyes that never blinked.

"The town is _en fete_," remarked Philippa presently. "Why should I not

be too?"

Warner laughed:

"Do you call this a _fete_?"

"For me, yes." ... After a moment, turning from her pole: "Do you not

find it agreeable?"

"Certainly. What little river is this?"

"The Recollette."

"It flows by Sais, too. I did not recognize it for the same. The

Recollette is swifter and shallower below Sais."

"You know Sais, then?"

"I live there in summer."

"Oh. And in winter?"

"Paris."

An unconscious sigh of relief escaped her, that it was not necessary to

play the spy with this man. It was the other man who interested

Wildresse.

The girl poled on in silence for a while, then deftly guided the _Lys_

into the cool green shadow of a huge oak which overhung the water, the

lower branches touching it.

"The sun is warm," she observed, driving in the pole and tying the white

punt so that it could swing with the current.

She came and seated herself by Warner, smiled frankly.

"Do you know," she said, "I've never before done this for pleasure."

"What haven't you done for pleasure?" he inquired, perplexed.

"This--what I am doing."

"You mean you never before went out punting with a customer?"

"Not for the pleasure of it--only for business reasons."

He hesitated to understand, refused to, because, for all her careless

freedom and her paint, he could not believe her to be merely a _fille de

cabaret_.

"Business reasons," he repeated. "What is your business?"

"Cashier, of course."

"Well, does your business ever take you boating with customers? Is it

part of your business to dance with a customer and drink grenadine with

him?"

"Yes, but you wouldn't understand----" And suddenly she comprehended

his misunderstanding of her and blushed deeply.

"I am not a _cocotte_. Did you think I meant that?"

"I know you are not. I didn't know what you meant."

There was a silence; the color in her cheeks cooled under the rouge.

"It happened this way," she said quietly. "I didn't want to make it a

matter of business with you. Even in the beginning I didn't.... You

please me.... After all, the town is _en fete_.... After all, a girl

has a right to please herself once in her life.... And business is a

very lonely thing for the young.... Why shouldn't I amuse myself for an

hour with a client who pleases me?"

"Are you doing it?"

"Yes. I never before knew a distinguished painter--only noisy boys from

the schools, whose hair is uncut, whose conversation is _blague_, and

whose trousers are too baggy to suit me. They smoke soldier's tobacco,

and their subjects of discussion are not always _convenable_."

He said, curiously:

"As for that, you must hear much that is not _convenable_ in the

cabaret."

"Oh, yes. I don't notice it when it is not addressed to me.... Please

tell me what you paint--if I am permitted to ask."

"Soldiers."

"Only soldiers?"

"Portraits, sometimes, and landscapes out of doors--anything that

appeals to me. Do pictures interest you?"

"I used to go to the Louvre and the Luxembourg when I was a child. It

was interesting. Did you say that you would like to make a portrait of

me?"

"I said that if I ever did make a portrait of you I'd paint you _as you

really are_."

Her perplexed gaze had the disconcerting directness of a child's.

"I don't understand," she said.

"Shall I explain?"

"If you would be so kind."

"You won't be offended?"

She regarded him silently; her brows became slightly contracted.

"Such a man as you would not willingly offend, I think."

"No, of course not. I didn't mean that sort of thing. But you might not

like what I have to say."

"If I merit what you say about me, it doesn't matter whether I like it

or not, does it? Tell me."

He laughed:

"Well, then, if I were going to paint you, I'd first ask you to wash

your cheeks."

She sat silent, humiliated, the painful color deepening and waning under

the rouge.

"And," he continued pleasantly, "after your face had been well scrubbed,

I'd paint you in your black gown, cuffs and apron of a _caissiere_, just

as I first saw you there behind the desk, one foot swinging, and your

cheek resting on your hand.

"But behind your eyes, which looked out so tranquilly across the tumult

of the cabaret, I'd paint a soul as clean as a flame.... I'm wondering

whether I'd make any mistake in painting you that way, Philippa?"

The girl Philippa had fixed her grey eyes on him with fascinated but

troubled intensity. They remained so for a while after he had finished

speaking.

Presently, and partly to herself, she said:

"_Pour ca_--no. So far. But it has never before occurred to me that I

look like a _cocotte_."

She turned, and, resting one arm on the gunwale, gazed down into the

limpid green water.

"Have you a fresh handkerchief?" she asked, not turning toward him.

"Yes--but----"

"Please! I must wash my face."

She bent swiftly, dipped both hands into the water, and scrubbed her

lips and cheeks. Then, extending her arm behind her for the

handkerchief, she dried her skin, sat up again, and faced him with

childish resignation. A few freckles had become visible; her lips were

no longer vivid, and there now remained only the faintest tint of color

under her clear, cool skin.

"You see," she said, "I'm not attractive unless I help nature. One

naturally desires to be thought attractive."

"On the contrary, you are exceedingly attractive!"

"Are you sincere?"

"Perfectly."

"But I have several freckles near my nose. And I am pale."

"You are entirely attractive," he repeated, laughing.

"With my freckles! You are joking. Also, I have no pink in my cheeks

now." She shrugged. "However--if you like me this way----" She

shrugged again, as though that settled everything.

Another punt passed them; she looked after it absently. Presently she

said, still watching the receding boat:

"Do you think you'll ever come again to the Cafe Biribi?"

"I'll come expressly to see you, Philippa," he replied.

To his surprise the girl blushed vividly and looked away from him; and

he hastily took a different tone, somewhat astonished that such a girl

should not have learned long ago how to take the irresponsible badinage

of men. Certainly she must have had plenty of opportunity for such

schooling.

"When I'm in Ausone again," he said seriously, "I'll bring with me a

canvas and brushes. And if Monsieur Wildresse doesn't mind I'll make a

little study of you. Shall I, Philippa?"

"Would you care to?"

"Very much. Do you think Monsieur Wildresse would permit it?"

"I do what I choose."

"Oh!"

She misunderstood his amused exclamation, and she flushed up.

"My conduct has been good--so far," she explained. "Everybody knows it.

The _prix de la rosiere_ is not yet beyond me. If a girl determines to

behave otherwise, who can stop her, and what? Not her parents--if she

has any; not bolts and keys. No; it is understood between Monsieur

Wildresse and me that I do what I choose. And, Monsieur, so far I have

not chosen--indiscreetly----" She looked up calmly. "----In spite of

my painted cheeks which annoyed you----"

"I didn't mean----"

"I understand. You think that it is more _comme il faut_ to exhibit

one's freckles to the world than to paint them out."

"It's a thousand times better! If you only knew how pretty you

are--just as you are now--with your soft, girlish skin and your chestnut

hair and your enchanting grey eyes----"

"Monsieur----"

The girl's rising color and her low-voiced exclamation warned him again

that detached and quite impersonal praises from him were not understood.

"Philippa," he explained with bored but smiling reassurance, "I'm merely

telling you what a really pretty girl you are; I'm not paying court to

you. Didn't you understand?"

The grey eyes were lifted frankly to his; questioned him in silence.

"In America a man may say as much to a girl and mean nothing

more--important," he explained. "I'm not trying to make love to you,

Philippa. Were you afraid I was?"

She said slowly:

"I was not exactly--_afraid_."

"I don't do that sort of thing," he continued pleasantly. "I don't make

love to anybody. I'm too busy a man. Also, I would not offend you by

talking to you about love."

She looked down at her folded hands. Since she had been with him

nothing had seemed very real to her, nothing very clear, except that for

the first time in her brief life she was interested in a man on whom she

was supposed to be spying.

The Gallic and partly morbid traditions she had picked up in such a

girlhood as had been hers were now making for her an important personal

episode out of their encounter, and were lending a fictitious and

perhaps a touching value to every word he uttered.

But more important and most significant of anything to her was her own

natural inclination for him. For her he already possessed immortal

distinction; he was her first man.

She was remembering that she had gone to him after exchanging a glance

with Wildresse, when he had first asked her to dance. But she had

needed no further persuasion to sit with him at his table; she had even

forgotten her miserable role when she asked him to go out to the river

with her. The significance of all this, according to her Gallic

tradition, was now confronting her, emphasizing the fact that she was

still with him.

As she sat there, her hands clasped in her lap, the sunlit reality of it

all seemed brightly confused as in a dream--a vivid dream which casts a

deeper enchantment over slumber, holding the sleeper fascinated under

the tense concentration of the happy spell. Subconsciously she seemed to

be aware that, according to tradition, this conduct of hers must be

merely preliminary to something further; that, in sequence, other

episodes were preparing--were becoming inevitable. And she thought of

what he had said about making love.

Folding and unfolding her hands, and looking down at them rather

fixedly, she said:

"Apropos of love--I have never been angry because men told me they were

in love with me.... Men love; it is natural; they cannot help it. So,

if you had said so, I should not have been angry. No, not at all,

Monsieur."

"Philippa," he said smilingly, "when a girl and a man happen to be alone

together, love isn't the only entertaining subject for conversation, is

it?"

"It's the subject I've always had to listen to from men. Perhaps that

is why I thought--when you spoke so amiably of my--my----"

"Beauty," added Warner frankly, "--because it _is_ beauty, Philippa.

But I meant only to express the pleasure that it gave to a painter--yes,

and to a man who can admire without offense, and say so quite as

honestly."

The girl slowly raised her eyes.

"You speak very pleasantly to me," she said. "Are other American men

like you?"

"You ought to know. Aren't you American?"

"I don't know what I am."

"Why, I thought--your name was Philippa Wildresse."

"I am called that."

"Then Monsieur Wildresse isn't a relation?"

"No. I wear his name for lack of any other.... He found me somewhere,

he says.... In Paris, I believe.... That is all he will tell me."

"Evidently," said Warner in his pleasant, sympathetic voice, "you have

had an education somewhere."

"He sent me to school in England until I was sixteen.... After that I

became cashier for him."

"He gave you his name, and he supports you.... Is he kind to you?"

"He has never struck me."

"Does he protect you?"

"He uses me in business.... I am too valuable to misuse."

The girl looked down at her folded hands. And even Warner divined what

ultimate chances she stood in the Cabaret de Biribi.

"When I'm in Ausone again, I'll come to see you," he said pleasantly.

"--Not to make love to you, Philippa," he added with a smile, "but just

because we have become such good friends out here in the _Lys_."

"Yes," she said, "friends. I shall be glad to see you. I shall always

try to understand you--whatever you say to me."

"That's as it should be!" he exclaimed heartily. "Give me your hand on

it, Philippa."

She laid her hand in his gravely. They exchanged a slight pressure.

Then he glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up the pole.

"I've got to drive to Sais in time for dinner," he remarked. "I'm

sorry, because I'd like to stay out here with you."

"I'm sorry, too," she said.

The next moment the punt shot out into the sunny stream.

*CHAPTER IV*

Warner and the girl Philippa reentered the Cabaret de Biribi together

the uproar had become almost deafening. Confetti was thrown at them

immediately, and they advanced all a-flutter with brilliant tatters.

The orchestra was playing, almost everybody was dancing, groups at

tables along the edge of the floor sang, clinked glasses, and threw

confetti without discrimination. The whole place--tables, floor,

chandeliers, and people--streamed with multi-colored paper ribbons.

Waiters swept it in heaps from the dancing floor.

Philippa entered the cashier's enclosure and dismissed the woman in

charge. Seated once more on her high chair she opened her reticule and

produced a small mirror. Then she leaned far over her counter toward

Warner.

"Is it permitted me to powder my nose?" she whispered with childlike

seriousness; but she laughed when he did, and, still laughing, made him

a gay little gesture of adieu with her powder puff.

He stood looking at her for a moment, where she sat on her high chair

behind the cage, intently occupied with her mirror, oblivious to the

tumult around her. Then, the smile still lingering on his features, he

turned to look for his new acquaintance, Halkett.

Old man Wildresse sidled up to the cashier's desk, opened the wicket,

and went inside. Philippa, still using her tiny mirror, was examining a

freckle very seriously.

"Eh, bien?" he growled. "Rien?"

"Nothing!"

"Drop that glass and talk!" he said harshly.

She turned and looked at him.

"I tell you it was silly to suspect such a man!" she said impatiently.

"In my heart I feel humiliated that you should have set me to spy on

him----"

"What's that!"

"No, I've had enough! I don't like the role; I never liked it! Are

there no police in France----"

"Little idiot!" he said. "Will you hold your tongue?"

"It is a disgusting _metier_----"

"Damnation! Hold your tongue!" he repeated. "We've got to do what the

Government tells us to do, haven't we?"

"Not I! Never again----"

"Yes, you will! Do you hear? Yes, you will, or I'll twist your neck!

Now, I'm going to keep my eye on that other gentleman. Granted that the

man you pumped is all right, I'm not so sure about the other, who seems

to be an Englishman. I'm going over to stand near him. By and by I'll

address him. And if I wink at you, leave your _caisse_ with Melanie,

come over, and sit at their table again----"

"No!"

"Yes, you will!"

"No!"

"Yes, you will. And you'll also contrive it so the Englishman asks you

to dance. Do you hear what I say? And you'll find out where he comes

from, and when he arrived in Ausone, and where he is going, and whatever

else you can worm out of him!" He glared at her. "Disobey if you

dare," he added.

She was silent.

After a moment he continued in a softer voice:

"Do you want to see me in prison and my son in New Caledonia? Very

well, then; do what the Government tells you to do."

"I--I've done enough--filthy work----" she stammered. "Why must I? I

have never done anything wrong----"

"Did you hear what I said? Do you want to see Jacques in Noumea?"

"No," she said sullenly.

"Then do what I tell you, or, by God, they'll ship him there and me

too!"

And he clasped his hands behind his back, peered sideways at her,

shrugged, and went shuffling out of the enclosure.

Groups at various tables were singing and shouting; the floor seethed

with sweating dancers. On the edge of this vortex the girl Philippa,

from her high chair, looked darkly across the tumult toward the table

where Halkett sat.

Something seemed to be happening there; she could see Wildresse

gesticulating vigorously; she saw Warner making his way toward his

friend, who was seated alone at a table, a lighted cigarette balanced

between his fingers and one arm thrown carelessly around the back of the

chair on which he sat.

He was looking coolly but steadily at three men who occupied the table

next to him; Wildresse now stood between the two tables, and his

emphatic gesticulations were apparently directed toward these three men;

but in the uproar, and although he also appeared to be shouting, what he

was saying remained inaudible.

Warner went over and seated himself beside Halkett; and now he could

distinguish the harsh voice of the Patron raised in irritation:

"No politics! I'll not suffer political disputes in my cabaret!" he

bawled. "Quarrels arise from such controversies. I'll have no quarrels

in my place. Now, Messieurs, _un peu de complaisance_!"

One of the men he was exhorting leaned wide in his seat and looked

insolently across at Halkett.

"It was the Englishman's fault," he retorted threateningly. "I and my

friends here had been speaking of the assassination of the Archduke

Francis Ferdinand in Serajevo. We were conversing peaceably and

privately among ourselves, when that Englishman laughed at us----"

"You are mistaken," said Halkett quietly.

"Did you not laugh?" cried the second of the men at the next table.

"Yes, but not at what you were saying. I'm sorry if you thought so----"

The man half rose in his chair, exclaiming:

"Why shouldn't I think it natural for an Englishman to laugh at the

murder of an Austrian arch-duke----"

"Stop that discussion!" cried Wildresse, angrily jerking his heavy head

from Halkett to the three men at the other table. "Let it rest where it

is, I tell you! The English gentleman says he did not laugh at what you

were saying. Nom de Dieu! Nobody well brought up laughs at murder!"

And to Halkett and Warner: "Be amiable enough, gentlemen, to carry this

misunderstanding no further. I've had sufficient trouble with the

police in my time."

Warner laid one hand lightly on Halkett's arm.

"All right," he said to Wildresse; "no trouble shall originate with us."

And, to Halkett, in a lowered voice: "Have you an idea that those men

over there are trying to force a quarrel?"

"Of course."

"Have you ever seen them before?"

"Not one of them."

Warner's lips scarcely moved as he said:

"Is it the matter of the envelope?"

"I think so. And, Warner, I don't intend to drag you into any----"

"Wait. Are you armed?"

Halkett shook his head.

"That's no good," he said. "I can't afford to do anything conspicuous.

If I'm involved with the authorities I'm done for, and I might just as

well be knocked on the head." After a moment he added: "I think perhaps

you'd better say good-by to me now, Warner----"

"Why?"

"Because, if they manage to force a quarrel, I don't mean to have you

involved----"

"Do you really expect me to run away?" asked Warner, laughing.

Halkett looked up at him with a faint smile:

"I'm under very heavy obligations to you already----"

"You are coming to Sais with me."

"Thanks so much, but----"

"Come on, Halkett. I'm not going to leave you here."

"My dear chap, I'll wriggle out somehow. I've done it before. After

all, they may not mean mischief."

Warner turned and looked across at the three men. Two were whispering

together; the third, arms folded, was staring truculently at Halkett out

of his light blue eyes.

Warner turned his head and said quietly to Halkett:

"I take two of them to be South Germans or Austrians. The other might be

Alsatian. Do any of these possible nationalities worry you?"

"Exactly," said Halkett coolly.

"In other words, any trouble you may expect is likely to come from

Germans?"

"That's about it."

Warner lighted a cigarette.

"Shall we try a quiet getaway?" he asked.

"No; I'll look out for myself. Clear out, Warner, there's a good

fellow----"

"Don't ask me to do a thing that you wouldn't do," retorted Warner

sharply. "Come on; I'm going to drive you to Sais."

Halkett flushed.

"I shan't forget how decent you've been," he said. They summoned the

waiter, paid the reckoning, rose, and walked leisurely toward the door.

At the _caissiere's_ desk they turned aside to say good-night to

Philippa.

The girl looked up from her accounts, pencil poised, gazing at Warner.

"_Au revoir_, Philippa," he said, smilingly.

The girl's serious features relaxed; she nodded to him gayly, turned,

still smiling, to include Halkett. And instantly a swift change altered

her face; she half rose from her chair, arm outstretched.

"What is that man doing behind you!" she cried out--too late to avert

what she saw coming. For the man close behind Halkett had dexterously

passed a silk handkerchief across his throat from behind and had jerked

him backward; and, like lightning, two other men appeared on either side

of him, tore his coat wide, and thrust their hands into his breast

pockets.

Warner pivoted on his heel and swung hard on the man with the silk

handkerchief, driving him head-on into the table behind, which fell with

a crash of glassware. Halkett, off his balance, fell on top of the

table, dragging with him one of the men whose hand had become entangled

in his breast pocket.

The people who had been seated at the table were hurled right and left

among the neighboring tables; a howl of anger and protest burst from the

crowd; there came a shout of "_Cochon_!"--a rush to see what had

happened; people mounted on chairs, waiters arrived, running. Out of

the melee Halkett wriggled and rose, coughing, his features still

crimson from partial strangulation. Warner caught his arm in a grip of

iron and whisked him out of the door. The next instant they were

engulfed in the crowds thronging the market square.

Warner, thoroughly aroused and excited, still maintained his grip on

Halkett's arm.

"Did you ever see anything like it?" he said in a low voice. "It came

like a bolt from the sky. That was the _Coup du Pere Francois_. Did

they get anything from you?"

Halkett spoke with difficulty, pressing his throat with his fingers and

trying to smile.

"What they got," he said, "was meant for them to get--time-tables and a

ticket to Paris. I don't intend to travel that way----" A fit of

coughing shook him. "----For a moment I thought they'd actually broken

my neck. What did you do to that fellow with his noose?"

"He fell on the table behind you. Everybody was piled up with the

crockery. You wriggled out like a lizard." He turned cautiously and

looked back over his shoulder. "Do you think we have been followed?"

"I can't see that we are."

They entered the rue d'Auros and turned into the Hotel Boule d'Argent.

Warner sent a chasseur to the stables for his horse and dogcart; Halkett

hastened to collect his luggage.

In a few minutes the horse and cart came rattling out of the mews;

luggage, canvases, and the sack of colors were placed in the boot;

Warner mounted, taking reins and whip; Halkett sprang up beside him, and

the groom freed the horse's head.

Into the almost deserted Boulevard d'Athos they went at a lively clip,

circled the lovely church of Sainte Cassilda at the head of it, and

trotted out into the broad highroad which swings cast to the river

Recollette, and follows that pretty little stream almost due south to

the hills and cliffs and woods and meadows of Sais.

The sun hung low above the fields, reddening the roadside bushes and

painting the tall ranks of poplars with vivid streaks of gold and rose.

Just outside the remains of the old town wall they passed through a

suburban hamlet. That, except for a farm or two more, included the last

houses this side of Sais.

For a little while neither of the young men spoke; Halkett's cough had

ceased, but now and then he fidgeted with his collar as though to ease

it from the bruised throat. Warner drove, looking straight between his

horse's ears, as though intently preoccupied with his navigation.

After a while Halkett said:

"The envelope is safe, I take it:"

"Oh, yes. They never noticed me until I hit one of them."

"I'm so grateful," said Halkett, "that it's quite useless for me to try

to say so----"

"Listen! I'm enjoying it. I'm grateful to _you_, Halkett, for giving

me the opportunity. I needed touching up." He laughed in sheer

exhilaration. "We stodgy professional people ought to be stirred out of

our ruts, A little mix-up like that with a prospect of others is exactly

what I needed."

Halkett smiled rather dryly.

"Oh," he said. "If it strikes you that way, I shall feel much

relieved."

"Relieve yourself of all embarrassment," returned Warner gayly. "If our

acquaintance entails further scraps with those gentlemen, I shall be

merely the more grateful to you."

They both laughed; Warner swung his long whip like a fly rod and caught

the loop cleverly on his whip-stock.

Halkett, still laughing, said:

"You don't look as though you enjoyed a cabaret fight. You look far too

respectable."

"Oh, I am respectable, I suppose. But I'm not very aged yet, and my

student days are still rather near."

The road curved out now along the Recollette where it still flowed a

placid stream between green meadows and through charming bits of

woodland. In the glass of the flood the sunset sky was mirrored;

swallows cut the still, golden surface; slowly spreading circles of

rising fish starred it at intervals.

"So you don't go armed?" remarked Warner thoughtfully.

"No."

The American pointed with the butt of his whip to the dashboard where

the blue-black butts of two automatics appeared from slung holsters.

"Why the artillery?" inquired Halkett.

"I drive my neighbor, Madame de Moidrey, sometimes; and in summer it is

often dark before we return. It's a lovely country; also, the quarrymen

at the cement works are a rough lot. So I let my pretty neighbor take

no chances with me."

"Quite right," nodded Halkett. "When quarrymen get drunk it's no joke.

What quarry is it?"

"The Esser Company. It's a German cement concern, I believe."

"German?"

"I believe so."

"Where is this quarry?"

"In the hills back of the Recollette. They run barges to Ausone. Just

below their canal the Recollette becomes unnavigable, and the shallows

and rapids continue for several miles below Sais. That is the reason, I

suppose, that the country around Sais remains primitive and undeveloped,

lacking as it does railroad and water transportation."

"I wonder," said Halkett thoughtfully, "whether I might see the quarry

and cement works. It must be interesting."

Warner shrugged:

"If that sort of thing interests you, I'll take you over. It's a messy

place full of stone crushers and derricks and broken rock and pits full

of green water. Still, if you want to see it----"

"Thanks, I should like to."

Warner glanced at him; a slight grin touched his lips.

"You seem to be interested in a great many kinds of business," he said,

"--literature, military science, cement works, cabaret life----"

Halkett laughed outright; but the next moment he turned like a flash in

his seat, and Warner also cast a quick glance behind him.

"A car coming!" he said, driving to the right. "What's the matter,

Halkett? You don't think it's after us?"

"I think it is."

"What?"

"I know damned well it is!" said Halkett between his teeth. "Shall I

jump and swim for it? Pull in a moment, Warner----"

"Wait! Do you see that gate in the hedge? Get out and open it. Quick,

Halkett! I know what to do----"

Halkett leaped, dragged open the gate; Warner swung his horse and drove

through and out into a swampy meadow set with wild flowers and bushes

and slender saplings.

The wheels of the cart cut through the spongy sod and sank almost to the

hubs, but Warner used his whip and Halkett, taking the horse by the

head, ran forward beside the swaying cart. Right across their path

flowed a deep, narrow stream, partly invisible between reeds and tufts

of swamp weed; Warner turned the vehicle with difficulty, urged his

nervous horse across a cattle bridge which had been fashioned out of a

few loose planks, and drove up on firmer ground among tall ferns and

willow bushes.

"Pull up those planks!" he shouted back to Halkett, guiding his horse

with difficulty; and Halkett ran back, lifted the mossy, half rotted

planks, and threw them up among the bushes.

A grey touring car which had halted on the highway outside the hedge had

now turned after them through the gate; and already the driver was

having a bad time of it in the swampy meadow.

As Halkett lifted the last plank that spanned the brook, one of three

men in the tonneau of the car stood up and fired a revolver at him; and

another of the men, seated beside him, also fired deliberately, resting

his elbow on the side of the stalled car to steady his aim, and

supporting the revolver with his left hand under the barrel.

Halkett ran back to where the cart stood, partly concealed among the

ferns and bushes; Warner, holding whip and reins in one hand, passed him

an automatic revolver and drew out the other weapon for his own use.

"This is rottenly ungrateful of me," said the Englishman. "I've

certainly involved you now!"

"It's all right; I'm enjoying it! Now, Halkett, their car is badly

mired. There is another gate to that hedge a few hundred yards below.

If you'll just lay those planks in the cart, we'll drive along the hard

ground here and make another bridge below."

Halkett picked up the wet and muddy planks, one by one, and placed them

crossways in the cart. Then, at a nod from Warner, he climbed up and

the cart started slowly south, winding cautiously in and out among the

bushes.

When they had driven a little distance, the men in the car across the

brook caught sight of them; the driver left his wheel and sprang out;

and from either door of the tonneau the three other men followed,

revolvers lifted. There was no shouting; not a word spoken; not a sound

except the hard, dry crack of the pistols.

"I don't know," said Warner coolly, "whether this horse will stand our

fire, but if they cross the stream we'll have to begin shooting....

We'd better begin now anyway, I think." He drew rein, turned in his

seat, and fired two shots in quick succession. The horse started, and,

instantly checked, stood trembling but behaving well enough.

Another shot from Halkett brought the running men to a halt. Warner

drove on immediately; three of the men started to follow on a run, but

half a dozen rapid shots brought them to a dead stop again. And again

the dogcart jolted slowly forward.

One of the men made a furious gesture, turned, and ran back to the

mud-stalled car; two of the others followed to aid him to extricate the

machine; the fourth man, skulking along the stream, continued to advance

as the dogcart drove on.

Warner, driving carefully, shoved with his foot a box of clips toward

the dashboard; Halkett reloaded both automatics. Presently the cart

turned east, descending the hard slope toward the stream again; and the

man who had followed them along the swampy brook immediately opened

fire.

Halkett and Warner sprang out; the former shouldered the planks and ran

forward; the latter, holding his nervous horse by the head, fired at the

man among the reeds as he advanced toward the stream.

It seemed odd that so many bullets could fly and hit nothing; Halkett

heard them whining over his head; the horse heard them too and

threatened to become unmanageable. Far up the stream the three other

men were laboring frantically to disengage the grey automobile; the man

across the creek, routed out of the reeds by the stream of bullets

directed at him, was running now to get out of range. Evidently his

automatic was empty, for it merely swung in his hand as he ran.

But what occupied Warner was the course the man was taking, straight for

the lower gate in the hedge.

"Jump in!" he called to Halkett. "We can't wait for the other planks!"

The Englishman swung up beside him; the whip whistled and the horse, now

thoroughly frightened, bounded forward down the slope and took the

improvised bridge at a single leap. For one moment it looked like a

general smash, but the cart stood it, and, after a perilous second,

righted itself.

Straight at the closed gate drove Warner, whipping his horse into a dead

run; crashed through the flimsy pickets, slashed mercilessly with his

whip at the man who pluckily stripped off his coat and strove to make

the horse swerve into the hedge, as a toreador waves his cloak at a

charging bull.

Halkett could have shot the man; but he merely turned his weapon on him

as they dashed out into the highroad once more, and tore away due south

through the rose and golden glory of the sunset.

The horse ran a flat mile before Warner chose to ease him down; the

summer wind whistled in their ears; the last glow faded from the

purpling zenith; the crimson streak on the river surface, which had run

parallel on their left like level and jagged lightning, glimmered to a

pallid ochre tint; and the flying mist of trees and bushes which had

fled past like an endless rush of phantoms now took shape and substance

once more above the rising veil of river mist.

Warner's tense features were flushed with excitement. As he gradually

eased in his horse he was smiling.

"Well, what do you know about this performance of ours, Halkett?" he

inquired rather breathlessly. "Can you beat it in the movies?"

"I'm wondering what I've let you in for," said the Englishman very

seriously.

"I'll tell you," laughed Warner; "you've let me in for a last glimpse of

my youth--the days when everything went and every chance for mischief

was gratefully seized--the days when I was a subject of the only real

democracy on earth--the Latin Quarter--the days that dawn no more,

Halkett. This is the last gleam from their afterglow. _Nosce tempus_!

But the sun has set at last, Halkett, and the last haymaker is going

home."

"It would not have been very amusing if one of those bullets had knocked

you off your seat," remarked Halkett.

"But they didn't, old chap!" returned Warner heartily. "It was a good

mix-up--exciting, harmless, and beneficial. I feel years younger.

Respectability is a good, warm coat for the winter of life; but one

feels its weight in Indian summer."

Halkett smiled but shook his head:

"No good hunting trouble. You've only to turn around any time to find

it sniffing in your tracks."

"You don't understand. For years I've worked very steadily, very

seriously. I've painted, studied, read; I've made a living by selling

some pictures, by royalties on the reproduction of pictures, by teaching

a summer class of girls. After a while, you know, one goes stale with

respectability. I went out to the East and saw the Balkan fighting. It

helped some. I made some sketches last year in Mexico. That helped.

"But there's an exhilaration about lawbreaking--or in aiding and

abetting a lawbreaker--that has the rest beaten to a batter. Today's

misdeeds mean a new lease of life to me, Halkett."

The Englishman laughed. He was still cradling the two automatics on his

knees; now, with a careless glance behind him, he leaned forward and

replaced them in their respective holsters.

"For a rather celebrated and weighty member of the social structure," he

remarked, "there is a good deal of the boy left in you."

"When that dies in a man," returned Warner lightly, "creative and

constructive work end. The child who built with blocks, the youth who

built airier castles, is truly dead. And so is the man he has become."

"Do you think so?"

"I know it. The same intellectual and physical restlessness drives one

to create and construct, which, as a boy, drove one into active and

constructive mischief. When the day dawns wherein creating no longer

appeals to me, then I am old indeed, Halkett, and the overcoat of

respectability will suit me the year round.... I'm very glad that I

have found it oppressive this July day. By the way, what day does it

happen to be?"

Halkett said:

"It happens to be the last day of July. I have an idea that several

billion other people are destined to remember these last few days of

July, 1914, as long as they live."

"Why?" inquired the American curiously.

"Because, within these last few days, Austria has declared war on

Servia, Russia has already ordered partial mobilization, Germany has

sent her an ultimatum, and will back it up tomorrow."

"What! How do you know?"

"You don't mean to ask me that, do you?" said Halkett pleasantly.

"No, of course not----" Warner gazed straight ahead of him as he drove;

his altered features had become gravely expressionless. After a moment

he said:

"I can't comprehend it. Servia had agreed to everything

demanded--except that one item which she offered to arbitrate. I can't

understand it."

Halkett said calmly:

"It is not difficult to understand. A telegram has been suppressed--the

only telegram which could now prevent war." He removed his straw hat,

took from the lining a strip of semi-transparent paper, and read aloud

the minute handwriting:

"The German government has published several telegrams which the Emperor

of Russia exchanged with Emperor William. Among these telegrams,

nevertheless, is one which was not published--a dispatch from His

Russian Majesty, dated July 29, 1914, containing a proposition to submit

the Austro-Servian conflict to The Hague Tribunal.

"This has an appearance of a desire in Germany to pass over in silence

the attempt to prevent the approaching collision. In view of this, the

Minister of Foreign Affairs is authorized to publish the telegram

mentioned, of which this is the text:

"'Thanks for your conciliatory and friendly telegram. Inasmuch as the

official message presented today by your ambassador to my minister was

conveyed in a very different tone, I beg you to explain this divergency.

It would be right to give over the Austro-Servian problem to The Hague

Conference. I trust in your wisdom and friendship.'"

"Where did you get that?" asked Warner bluntly.

"This morning at the Boule d'Argent. A friend was kind enough to leave

it for me in a note," he added blandly.

"Do you believe it to be authentic?"

"Unfortunately, I can not question its truth."

"You think that the German government----"

"Without any doubt at all, Warner. For her The Day is about to dawn at

last. Her Joshua has halted the course of the sun long enough to suit

himself. It is scheduled to rise tomorrow."

"Do you mean war?"

"I do."

"Where?"

"Well, here, in France--to mention one place."

"In _France_!"

"Surely, _surely_!"

"Invasion?"

"Exactly."

"From which way?"

Halkett shrugged:

"Does anybody now believe it will come by way of the Barrier Forts? The

human race never has been partial to cross-country traveling; only ants

prefer it."

"You think it will come by the flank--through Belgium?"

"Ask yourself, Warner. Is there an easier way for it to come?"

"But the treaties?"

"_Nulla salus bello; necessitas no habet legem._"

"Nothing dishonorable is ever necessary."

"Ah! If nations could only agree upon the definition of that word

'honor'! There'd be fewer wars, my friend."

"You think, if France follows Russia's example and mobilizes, that

Germany will strike through Belgium?"

"I'm sure of it."

"What about England, then?" asked Warner bluntly.

But Halkett remained silent; and he did not repeat the question.

"After all," he said, presently, "this entire business is incredible.

Diplomacy will find a way out of it." And, after a moment's silence:

"You don't think so?"

"No."

Presently Halkett turned and looked back through the gathering dusk.

"I wonder," he said, "whether they'll get their car out tonight?"

"They'll have to go back to Ausone for aid," said Warner.

"Do you still mean to put me up at Sais?"

"Certainly. You don't expect your friends back there to assault the

inn, do you?"

"No," said Halkett, laughing. "They don't do things that way just yet."

Warner snapped his whip, caught the curling lash, let it free, twirled

it, and, snapped it again, whistling cheerfully a gay air from his

student days--a tune he had not thought of before in years.

"I believe," he said, frankly hopeful, "that you and I are going to have

another little party with those fellows before this matter is ended."

"I'm sure of it," said Halkett quietly.

A few moments later Warner, still whistling his joyous air, pointed

toward a cluster of tiny lights far ahead in the dark valley.

"Sais," he said; and resumed his song blithely:

"Gai, gai, mariez-vous!

C'est un usage

Fort sage.

Gai, gai, mariez-vous,

Le mariage est si doux!--"

"Like a bird it is!" he added ironically.

"By the way, you're _not_ married, are you?" inquired Halkett uneasily.

"Oh, Lord! No! Why the unmerited suspicion?"

"Nothing much. I just thought that after getting you into this scrape I

shouldn't dare face your wife."

Then they both laughed heartily. They were already on excellent terms.

Already acquaintance was becoming an unembarrassed friendship.

Warner flourished his whip and continued to laugh:

"I have no serious use for women. To me the normal and healthy woman is

as naive as the domestic and blameless cat, whose first ambition is for

a mate, whose second is to be permanently and agreeably protected, and

whose ultimate aim is to acquire a warm basket by the fireside and fill

it full of kittens! ... No; I'm not married. Don't worry, Halkett."

He whistled another bar of his lively song:

"Women? Ha! By the way, I've a bunch of them here in Sais, all

painting away like the devil and all, no doubt laying plans for that

fireside basket. It's the only thing a woman ever really thinks about,

no matter what else she pretends to be busy with. I suppose it's

natural; also, it's natural for some men to shy wide of such things.

I'm one of those men. So, Halkett, as long as you live, you need never

be afraid of offending any wife of mine!"

"Your sentiments," said Halkett, mockingly serious, "merely reveal

another bond between us. I thank God frequently that I am a bachelor."

"Good," said Warner with emphasis. And he chanted gayly, as he drove,

"Gai, gai, marions-nous--" in a very agreeable baritone voice, while the

lights of Sais grew nearer and brighter among the trees below.

"I never saw a girl worth the loss of my liberty," he remarked. "Did

you, Halkett? And," he continued, "to be tied up to a mentally

deficient appendage with only inferior intellectual resources, and no

business or professional occupation--to be tied fast to something that

sits about to be entertained, and that does nothing except nourish

itself and clothe itself, and have babies!--It's unthinkable, isn't it?"

"It's pretty awful.... Of course if a woman came along who combined

looks and intellect and professional self-sufficiency----"

"You don't find them combined. Take a slant at my class. That's the

only sort who even pretend to anything except vacuous idleness. There

are no Portias, Halkett. There never were. If there were, I'd take a

chance myself, I think. But a man who marries the young girl of today

has on his hands an utterly useless incubus. No wonder he sometimes

makes experiments elsewhere. No wonder he becomes a rainbow chaser. But

he's like a caged squirrel in a wheel; the more he runs around looking

for consolation the less progress he makes.

"No, Halkett, this whole marriage business is a pitiable fizzle. Until

both parties to a marriage contract are financially independent,

intellectually self-sufficient, and properly equipped to earn their own

livings by a business or a trade or a profession--and until, if a

mistake has been made, escape from an ignoble partnership is made

legally easy--marriage will remain the sickly, sentimental, pious fraud

which a combination of ignorance, superstition, custom, and orthodoxy

have made it.

"I'm rather eloquent on marriage, don't you think so?"

"Superbly!" said Halkett, laughing. "But, do you know, Warner, your

very eloquence betrays the fact that you have thought as much about it

as the unfortunate sex you have so eloquently indicted."

"What's that?" demanded Warner wrathfully.

"I'm sorry to say it, but you are exactly the sort of man to fall with a

tremendous flop."

"If ever I fall----"

"You fell temporarily this afternoon."

"With that painted, grey-eyed----"

"Certainly, with the girl Philippa. Come, old chap, you were out with

her a long while! What did you two talk about? Love?"

"No, you idiot----"

"You didn't even mention the word 'love'? Be honest, old chap!"

Warner began to speak, checked himself.

"Didn't you or she even mention the subject?" persisted Halkett with

malicious delight.

But Warner was too angry to speak, and the Englishman's laughter rang

out boyishly under the stars. To look at them one would scarcely believe

they had been a target for bullets within the hour.

"You don't suppose," began Warner, "that----"

"No, no!" cried Halkett. "--Not with that girl. I'm merely proving my

point. You're too eloquent concerning women not to have spent a good

deal of time in speculating about them. You even speculated concerning

Philippa. The man who mourns the scarcity of Portias wouldn't be likely

to care for one if he met her. You're just the man to fall in love with

everything you denounce in a girl. And I have no doubt I shall live to

witness that sorrowful spectacle."

Warner had to laugh.

"You are rather a terrifying psychologist," he said. "You almost make me

believe I have a streak of romance in me."

"Oh, we all have that, Warner. We call it by other names--cleverness,

logic, astuteness, intelligence--but we all have it in us, and it is

revealed in every man who marries a woman for love.... Believe me, no

normal man ever lived who was not, at some brief moment in his life, in

love with some woman. Maybe he ignored it and it never came again;

maybe he strangled it and went on about more serious business; maybe it

died a natural but early death. But once, before he died, he must have

had a faint, brief glimpse of it. And that was the naissance of the

latent germ of romance in him--ephemeral, perhaps, but inevitably to be

born before it died."

Warner waved his whip and snapped it maliciously:

"So you have been in love, have you?"

"Why? Because I, also, am suspiciously eloquent?"

"That's the reason--according to you."

Halkett smiled slightly.

"Perhaps I have been," he said.... "Hello! Is this your inn?" as they

drew up before the lighted windows of a two-story building standing

close to the left-hand edge of the highway, under the stars.

"Here we are at the Golden Peach," nodded Warner, as the door opened and

a smiling peasant lad came out with a: "Bon soir, Monsieur Warner! Bon

soir, messieurs!" And he took the horse's head while they descended.

That night, lying awake on his bed in the Inn of the Golden Peach,

Halkett heard the heavy rush of a southbound automobile passing under

his window with the speed of an express train.

And he wondered whether the spongy morass by the little brook still held

the long, grey touring car imprisoned.

He got up, went to his window and leaned out. Far away down the road

the tail lamps of the machine twinkled, dwindled to sparks, and were

engulfed in the invisible.

"More trouble south of me," he thought. But he returned to his bed and

lay there, tranquil in the knowledge that when he started south alone on

the morrow the envelope would not be on his person.

After a while he rose again, walked to the door connecting his room with

Warner's, and opened it cautiously.

"I'm awake," said Warner in a low voice.

"Did you hear that car?"

"Yes. Was it the one that chased us?"

"I only guess so. Listen, Warner! When I go south tomorrow, what are

you going to do with that envelope until I send a man back for it?"

"I've thought it all out, old chap. I shall take one of my new

canvases, lay the envelope on it, cover envelope and canvas with a

quarter of an inch of Chinese White, and when the enamel is dry I shall

paint on it. By the way, did you do your telephoning to your

satisfaction?"

"Entirely, thank you."

"You got your man?"

"I did," said Halkett. "He's on his way here now. Good night. I'll

sleep like a fox, old chap!"

"Good night," said Warner cheerily, enamored with his invention for the

safety of the envelope, as well as with the entire adventure.

That night, while they both slept, far away southward, on a lonely road

in the Vosges, the car which had rushed by under their windows was now

drawn up on the edge of the road.

Four men sat in it, waiting.

Just as dawn broke, what they awaited came up out of the south--a far,

faint rattle announced it, growing rapidly louder; and a motor cyclist,

riding without lights, shot out of the grey obscurity, trailing a

comet's tail of dust.

Head-on he came, like a streak, caught sight suddenly of the motionless

car and of four men standing up in it, ducked and flattened out over his

handlebars as four revolvers poured forth streams of fire.

Motor cycle and rider swerved into the ditch with a crash; the latter,

swaying wide in his saddle, was hurled a hundred feet further through

the air, landing among the wild flowers on the bank above.

He was the man to whom Halkett had telephoned.

He seemed to be very young--an Englishman--with blood on his fair hair,

and his blue eyes partly open.

They searched him thoroughly; and when they could find nothing more they

lifted him between two of them; two others carried the wrecked motor

cycle out across the fields toward the slope of a wooded mountain.

After ten minutes or so, two of the men returned to the car, drew a

couple of short, intrenching spades from the tool box, and went away

again across the fields toward the misty woods.

A throstle in a thorn bush had been singing all the while.

*CHAPTER V*

Halkett had not slept well; all night long in the garden under his

window the nightingales had been very noisy. When he slept, sinister

dreams had assailed him; cocks crowed at sunrise, cowbells tinkled,

outside his drawn blinds a refreshed and garrulous world was awakening;

and the happy tumult awoke him, too.

He was bathed, shaved, and dressed, and downstairs before Warner awoke

at all; and he began to rove about the place which, by daylight, did not

look at all like what he had imagined it to be the night before.

The Inn of the Golden Peach was one of those cream-tinted stucco houses

built into and around a series of haphazard garden walls which inclosed

flower and fruit gardens, cow-barns and stables. Its roof and wall

copings were covered with red tiles, weather-faded to a salmon tint; two

incredible climbing rosebushes nearly covered the front with delicate,

salmon-pink blossoms, and, in the rear, flowers bloomed along

stone-edged borders--masses of white clove pinks, rockets, poppies,

heliotrope, reseda, portulaca, and pansies--a careless riot of color,

apparently, yet set with that instinctive good taste which seldom fails

in France and is common alike to aristocrat and peasant.

Beyond the strawberry beds were fruit trees, peach, cherry, plum, and

apricot--the cherries hanging ripe and deeply crimson among dark green

leaves, the apricots already golden, peaches and plums delicately

painted with a bloom which promised approaching maturity.

Everywhere the grass grew thick and intensely green, though it was not

very neatly kept; water ran out of a stone trough and made a dancing

little rivulet over a bed of artificially set stones among which grew

ferns. Beyond stood a trellised summerhouse, with iron tables and chairs

painted green.

On the edge of the watering trough, Halkett seated himself in the sun.

An immaculate tiger cat sat on the garden walk a few paces away,

polishing her countenance with the velvet side of one forepaw, and

occasionally polishing the paw with a delicate pink tongue.

Once or twice she looked at Halkett without any apparent interest; now

and then she glanced up with more interest at the side of the house

where, under the kitchen door, in a big basket-cage, a jay hopped about,

making a scuffling noise among his cracked maize and rye straw.

However, the cat proved entirely susceptible to flattery, responded

graciously to polite advances, and presently relapsed into a purring

doze on his knee.

It was very still in the garden, too early even for butterflies to be

abroad. The kitchen door remained closed; smoke had just begun to rise

from one chimney.

In the peaceful silence nothing stirred; there was no breeze, no sound

save the trickle of water among fern fronds.

Then, from nowhere apparently, into this golden tranquillity came a

nun--no, not a nun, but one of those Grey Daughters of St. Vincent de

Paul, who have "for their monastery the houses of the sick, for a cell a

hired room, for a cloister the city streets, for a veil modesty."

In her white _cornette_, or pointed coiffe, with its starched wings, her

snowy collarette, wide sleeves, grey apron, and grey-blue habit, she

became instantly the medieval incarnation which vitalized the old garden

and the ancient wall, so that the centuries they had witnessed were born

again there where their spirit had returned, clothed in the costume

which they had known so well.

The _soeur de charite_ had not seen Halkett; she passed lightly,

swiftly, along the flowering borders with scissors and ozier basket,

bending here to gather the white clove pinks, kneeling there to snip off

pansies.

And it was only when the grey cat leaped from Halkett's knees and

advanced toward the Sister of Charity with a little mew of recognition

that she turned, still kneeling, caught sight of Halkett, and remained

looking at him, one delicate white hand resting on the purring cat.

Halkett was on his feet, his hat under his arm, now, and he bade her

good-morning with that pleasant deference which marks such men

immediately for what they are.

She smiled faintly from the transparent shadow of her white _cornette_.

"Flowers are all so lovely," she said, "it is never easy for me to

choose. They are for my school, you know?"--with a slight rising

inflection. But evidently this young man did not know, so she added, "I

am Sister Eila," and smiled again, when it was apparent that he had

never heard of Sister Eila.

"I am English," he said, "--traveling through France on business. I

arrived last night to visit my friend, Mr. Warner. My name is Halkett."

She nodded and snipped a few more pansies.

"May I help you, Sister? If you don't mind telling me what flowers you

desire----"

"Merci, Monsieur. Pansies, if you please. The children see odd little

faces in their petals, and it amuses them."

Down on his knees beside the border, the grey cat seated between them,

Halkett picked pansies and laid them in rows in her ozier basket.

"Of course," he said, "your school is a charity school."

"For the poor, of course. My children are those of the quarrymen."

"You do not teach them alone?"

"Oh, no. Sister Felicite teaches with me. And then, of course, we are

together when, during the vacation, hospital service is required of us."

"Is there a quarry hospital?"

"Yes, Monsieur. It is more like an ambulance where first aid is given.

The hospital at Ausone takes our sick." Still kneeling, she looked up

at the slender fruit trees beyond, and the sunlight fell full on the

most exquisite young face that Halkett had ever seen. Whether it was her

unexpected beauty that gave him a little shock, or the sudden idea that

in her features there was a haunting resemblance to somebody he had

seen, perhaps met, he did not know.

Sometimes in the first glimpse of a face we recognize the living

substance of her to whom we have aspired, and of whom we have dreamed.

But she has never existed except in the heart which created her until we

unconsciously endow another with all we dreamed she was.

He went on gathering flowers to fill her basket.

"I wonder," she said musingly, "whether any of those apricots are ripe.

One of my children is convalescent, and she really needs a little fresh

fruit."

So Halkett rose, threaded his way through the flowers, and looked

carefully among the branches for a ripe apricot. He found two, and

Sister Eila laid them together in the corner of her basket, which was

now full.

He walked with her to the garden door, which was set solidly under an

arch in the wall. There she looked up, smiling, as she said in English:

"Is not our country of Sais very lovely, Mr. Halkett?"

"Yes, indeed, it is," he replied, also smiling in his surprise. "But,

Sister Eila, you are English, are you not?"

"Irish--but brought up in France." ... Her face grew graver; she said

very quietly: "Is it true there is any danger of war? The children are

talking; it is evident that the quarrymen must be discussing such things

among themselves. I thought I'd ask you----"

"I'm afraid," he said, "that there is some slight chance of war,

Sister."

"Here in France?"

"Yes--here."

"It is Germany, of course?"

"Yes, the menace comes from--" he cast a quick glance toward the east,

"--from over there.... Perhaps diplomacy may regulate the affair. It is

always best to hope."

"Yes, it is best always--to hope," she said serenely.... "Thank you, Mr.

Halkett. Mr. Warner is a friend of mine. Perhaps you may have time to

visit our school with him."

"I'll come," said Halkett.

She smiled and nodded; he opened the heavy green door for her, and

Sister Eila went out of the golden world of legend, leaving the flowers

and young trees very still behind her.

*CHAPTER VI*

Warner discovered him there in the garden, seated once more on the stone

trough, the grey cat dozing on his knees.

"Hello, old chap!" he said cheerfully. "Did you sleep?"

Halkett gave him a pleasant, absent-minded glance:

"Not very well, thanks."

"Nor I. Those damn nightingales kept me awake. Has your man arrived?"

"Not yet. I don't quite understand why."

Warner sauntered up and caressed the cat.

"Well, Ariadne, how goes it with you?" he inquired, gently rubbing her

dainty ears, an attention enthusiastically appreciated, judging by the

increased purring.

"Ariadne, eh?" inquired Halkett.

"Yes--her lover forsook her--although she doesn't seem to mind as much

as the original lady did. No doubt she knows there's a Bacchus

somewhere on his way to console her."

The other nodded in his pleasant, absent-minded fashion. After a moment

he said:

"I've been talking to a Sister of Charity here in the garden."

"Sister Felicite?"

"No; Sister Eila."

"Isn't she the prettiest thing!" exclaimed Warner. "And she's as good as

she is beautiful. We're excellent friends, Sister Eila and I. I'll

take you over to her school after breakfast."

"It's the Grey Sisterhood, isn't it?"

"St. Vincent de Paul's Filles de la Charite; not the Grey Nuns, you

know."

"I supposed not. Of course these nuns are not cloistered."

"They are not even nuns. They don't take perpetual vows."

Halkett looked up quickly.

"What!" he demanded.

"No. The vows of these Sisters of Charity are simple vows. They renew

them annually. Still, it is a strict order. Their novitiate is five

years' probation."

"Oh! I supposed----" He remained silent, his thoughtful gaze fixed on

space.

"Yes, our brave gentle Sisters of Charity remain probationers for five

years, and then every year they renew their vows of chastity, poverty,

and obedience. The annual vows are taken some time in March, I believe.

They have no cloister, you know, other than a room in some poor street

near the school or hospital where they work. Did you ever hear the

wonderful story of their Order?"

"No."

So Warner sketched for him the stainless history of a true saint, and of

the Filles de St. Vincent de Paul through the centuries of their

existence; and Halkett listened unstirring, his handsome head bent, his

hand resting motionless on Ariadne's head.

A few minutes later a fresh-faced peasant girl, in scarlet bodice and

velvet-slashed black skirts, came out into the garden bearing a tray

with newly baked rolls, new butter, and cafe-au-lait for two. She

placed it on the iron table in the little summerhouse, curtseyed to the

two young men, exchanged a gay greeting with Warner, and trotted off

again in her _chaussons_--the feminine, wholesome, and admirable symbol

of all that is fascinating in the daughters of France.

Halkett placed Ariadne on the grass, rose, and followed Warner to the

arbor; Ariadne tagged after them, making gentle but pleased remarks.

There was an extra saucer, which Warner filled with milk and set before

the cat.

"You know," he said to Halkett, "I like to eat by myself--or with some

man. So I have my meals served out here, or in the tap room when it

rains. The Harem feeds itself in the dining-room----"

"The _what_?"

"My class, I mean. An irreverent friend of mine in Paris dubbed it 'the

Harem,' and the title stuck--partly, I suppose, because of its

outrageous absurdity, partly because it's a terse and convenient title."

"_They_ don't call it that, do they?"

"I should say not! And I hope they don't know that others do. Anyway,

the Harem dawdles over its meals and talks art talk at the long table

where Madame Arlon--the Patronne--presides. You'll have to meet them."

"Do you criticise your--Harem--this morning?" inquired Halkett,

laughing.

"Yes; I give them their daily pabulum. Do you want to come about with

me and see how it's done? After the distribution of pap I usually pitch

my own umbrella somewhere away from their vicinity and make an hour's

sketch. After that I paint seriously for the remainder of the day. But

I'll take you over to Sister Eila's school this morning if you like."

He fished out a black caporal cigarette and scratched a match.

Halkett, his cigarette already lighted, lounged sideways on the green

iron chair, his preoccupied gaze fixed on Ariadne.

"Annual vows," he said, "mean, of course, that a Sister renews such vows

voluntarily every year; does it not, Warner?"

"Yes."

"They usually do renew their vows, I suppose."

"Almost always, I believe."

"But--a Sister of Charity _could_ return to the--the world, if she so

desired?"

"It could be done, but it seldom is, I understand. The order is an

admirable one; a very wonderful order, Halkett. They are careful about

admitting their novices, but what they regard as qualifications might

not be so considered in a cloistered order like the Ursalines. The

novitiate is five years, I believe; except for the head of the order in

Paris, no grades and no ranks exist; all Sisters are alike and on the

same level." He smiled. "If anything could ever convert me to

Catholicism, I think it might be this order and the man who founded it,

Saint Vincent de Paul, wisest and best of all who have ever tried to

follow Christ."

Ariadne had evidently centered her gentle affections upon the new

Englishman; she trotted at his heels as he sauntered about in the

garden; she showed off for his benefit, playfully patting a grasshopper

into flight, frisking up trees only to cling for a moment, ears

flattened, and slide back to earth again; leaping high after lazy white

butterflies which hovered over the heliotrope, but always returning to

tag after Halkett where he roamed about, a burnt-out cigarette between

his fingers, his eyes dreaming, lost in speculations beyond the ken of

any cat.

The Harem came trooping into the garden, presently, shepherded by

Warner. They all carried full field kit--folding easels, stools, and

umbrellas slung upon their several and feminine backs; a pair of clamped

canvases in one hand, color-box in the other.

Halkett was presented to them all. There was Miss Alameda Golden, from

California, large, brightly colored, and breezy; there was Miss Mary

Davis, mouse-tinted, low-voiced, who originated in Brooklyn; there was

Miss Jane Post, of Chicago, restlessly intense and intellectually

curious concerning all mundane phenomena, from the origin of

cafe-au-lait to the origin of species; and there was Miss Nancy Lane, of

New York, a dark-eyed opportunist and an observer of man--sometimes

individually, always collectively. And there was Miss Peggy Brooks,

cosmopolitan, sister of Madame de Moidrey who lived in a big house among

the hills across the meadows--the Chateau des Oiseaux, prettily named

because the protection and encouragement of little birds had been the

immemorial custom of its lordly proprietors.

And so the Harem, fully equipped to wrestle with the giant, Art, filed

out of the quiet garden and across the meadows by the little river

Recollette, where were haystacks, freshly erected and fragrant, which

very unusual subject they had unanimously chosen for their morning's

crime.

To perpetrate it upon canvas they pitched their white umbrellas, tripod

easels, and sketching stools; then each maiden, taking a determined grip

upon her charcoal, squinted, so to speak, in chorus at the hapless

haystacks. And the giant, Art, trembled in the seclusion of the

_ewigkeit_.

Warner regarded them gloomily; Halkett, who had disinterred a pipe from

his pockets, stood silently beside him, loading it.

"They'll paint this morning, and after luncheon," said Warner. "After

dinner they all get into an omnibus and drive to Ausone to remain

overnight, and spend tomorrow in street sketching. I insist on their

doing this once every month. When they return with their sketches, I

give them a general criticism."

"Will these young ladies ever really amount to anything?" inquired

Halkett.

"Probably never. Europe, the British Isles, and the United States are

dotted all over with similar and feminine groups attempting haystacks.

The sum-total of physical energy thus expended must be enormous--like

the horsepower represented by Niagara. But it creates no ripple upon the

intellectual serenity of the thinking world. God alone knows why women

paint haystacks. I do my best to switch them toward other phenomena."

The rural postman on his bicycle, wearing _kepi_ and blue blouse, came

pedaling along the highway. When he saw Warner he saluted and got off

his wheel.

"Letters, Grandin?"

"Two, Monsieur Warner."

Warner took them.

"Eh, bien?" he inquired, lowering his voice; "et la guerre?"

"Monsieur Warner, the affair is becoming very serious."

"What is the talk in Ausone?"

"People are calm--too calm. A little noise, now, a little

gesticulation, and the affair would seem less ominous to me--like the

Algeciras matter and the Schnaeble incident before that--Monsieur may

remember?"

"I know. It is like the hush before a tempest. The world is too still,

the sunlight too perfect."

"There seems to me," said the little postman, "a curious unreality about

yesterday and today--something in the cloudless peace overhead that

troubles men."

Being no more and no less poet than are all French peasants, this

analysis sufficed him. He touched his kepi; the young men lifted their

hats, and the postman pedaled away down the spotless military road.

Warner glanced at the envelope in his hand; Halkett looked at it, too.

It was addressed in red ink.

"It's for me, old chap," said the Englishman.

The other glanced up, surprised.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite--if you don't mind trusting me."

Warner laughed and handed him the letter.

"It's addressed very plainly to me," he said. "You've got your nerve

with you, Halkett."

"I have to keep it about me, old chap."

"No doubt. And still I don't see----"

"It's very simple. I sent two telephone messages last night. One

letter should have arrived. It has not! The man who wrote this letter

must have gone miles last night on a motor cycle to mail it so that your

little postman should hand it to me this morning----"

"Intriguer!" interrupted Warner, still laughing. "He handed it to _me_!

I see you're going to get me in Dutch before I'm rid of you."

"I don't comprehend your Yankee slang," retorted Halkett with a slight

grin, "so if you don't mind I'll sit here on the grass and read my

letter. Go on and criticize your Harem. But before you go, lend me a

pencil. They stole even my pencil in the Cabaret de Biribi."

Warner, amused, handed him a pencil and a pad, and strolled away toward

the industrious Harem to see what they might be perpetrating.

Halkett seated himself on the grass where, if he chose to glance up, he

had a clear view all about him. Then he opened his letter.

It was rather an odd sort of letter. It began: