Part 107

He had pitched his easel near the river, perhaps because it remained busy; and where, if any troops or military trains passed along the quarry road, he could see them. Also, from there he could look down over the road hedge and see the motor cycles whiz by and military automobiles with a streak of crimson, turquoise and silver uniforms in the tonneau.

But none came. Two or three gendarmes, with white and yellow trappings, passed toward Ausone at a gallop while he sat there, but across the river nothing stirred save a kestrel soaring.

According to the Petit Journal d'Ausone of the day before, war had already burst over eastern Belgium full blast and the famous forts so long celebrated as impregnable were beginning to crumble away under an avalanche of gigantic shells.

As he sat there under the calm sky, painting leisurely, relighting his pipe at intervals, he tried to realize that such things as bombardments and sieges and battles were going on to the north of where he was--not so very far north, either. But he could not seem to grasp it as an actual fact. For the monstrous and imbecile actuality of such a war seemed still to remain outside his comprehension; his intelligence had not yet accepted it--not encompassed and digested the fact--and he could not get rid of the hopefully haunting feeling that presently somebody or something somewhere or other would stop all this amazing insanity, and that the diplomats would begin again where they had left off only a few days ago.

It was the illimitable proportions of the calamity--the magnitude of the catastrophe--the cataclysmic menace of it that still left his mind slightly stunned, as it had paralyzed the minds of every civilized human being, and suspended for a space the power of thought in the world.

As yet, all these enormous, impossible threats of governments and emperors seemed to be some gigantic, fantastic, and grotesque hoax which the sovereigns and chancelleries of Europe were playing in concert to frighten a humdrum world out of its five dull wits.

And yet, under the incredulity, and the mental obscurity and inertia, deep within the dazed hearts of men a measured and terrible pulse had already begun to throb steadily, with an unchanging and dreadful rhythm. It was the clairvoyant prophecy of the world's subconscious self stirring, thrilling to that red future already breaking, and warning all mankind that the day of wrath had dawned at last.

But to Warner the most unreal part of it all was not the dusty fantassins in column, slouching forward toward the north--not the clinking, jingling cuirassiers on their big battle horses, not the dragoons riding with rapt, exalted faces under forests of tall lances, not the clanking artillery, the heavy military wagons and motor trucks, nor the galloping gendarmes which passed the inn every hour or two.

What had become suddenly unreal to him was the green and sunlit serenity of the world itself--the breeze ruffling the clover, poppies glowing deep in fields of golden wheat and barley, the melody of the flowing river, the quiet blue overhead, the tenderness of leaf and blossom, and the blessed stillness of the world.

Relighting his pipe, he looked at the swallows soaring and sailing high above the Recollette; noticed butterflies hovering and flitting everywhere; heard the golden splashing of the river, the sigh of leaves and rushes. The word "war" still remained a word to him, but in the sunshine and the silence he began to divine the immobility of menace--something unseen and evil which was quietly waiting.

Ariadne had come across from the garden, ostensibly to hunt meadow mice, really for company.

Sniffing and snooping around his color box, she got one dainty whisker in the ultramarine, and had enough of art. So she went off, much annoyed, to sit by herself in the grass and do some scrubbing. After a while the fixed persistency with which she stared across the meadow attracted his attention and he, also, turned and looked that way.

As he saw nothing in particular to stare at, he presently resumed his sketching and his troubled thoughts. The latter concerned the girl Philippa. Not since he had taken her to the Chateau had he seen her. And that was four days ago.

He didn't know exactly why he had not strolled over. Possibly a vague idea that he had better not interfere to distract the girl's attention from her first lessons in the refinements of existence had kept him away from her vicinity.

He didn't even know that he had missed her; he knew only that for some occult reason or other he had felt rather lonely lately.

He painted away steadily, pausing to relight his pipe now and then, and all the while Ariadne, never stirring, stared persistently across the landscape, neglecting her uncleansed whisker.

Suddenly, with a little mew of recognition and greeting, she trotted forward through the grass; and the next moment two soft hands fell lightly upon Warner's shoulders from behind.

"Philippa!" he exclaimed, enchanted.

"Oh, Jim!" she cried joyously, abandoning both hands to him as he sprang to his feet and faced her.

She was so eager, so pretty in her unfeigned delight, as though it had been four years instead of four days since they had seen each other; and he seemed to feel something of this, also, for he held her hands closely and laughed without any apparent reason for mirth--unless the sheer contentment of contact and possession be a reason.

"Are you well and happy, Philippa?"

"Yes, I am happy enough up there. But, oh, how dreadfully I have missed you, Jim--may I call you Jim?--I do to myself----"

"Of course!"

"I think of you that way--so it came very naturally to my lips--if you really don't mind? And besides, I am so happy to be with you.... Peggy Brooks and I were looking over maps in the library--you know, the Petit Journal says that the Prussians are firing enormous shells into Liege--and so Peggy and I were down on our knees over the maps of Belgium. Oh, dear! You know, it isn't so very far from us here if you take a ruler and measure by scale.... And it seemed to sober us both--we had been laughing, I don't remember exactly what about--but studying the map made us both serious, and Peggy went upstairs to talk it over with the Countess, and I felt that I couldn't stand being away from you for a single minute longer!"

"You dear child!"

"So I asked Peggy to ask Madame de Moidrey if I might pay you a little visit, and she said, 'Of course.' So I came as fast as I could----" She laughed and made a sweeping gesture with both arms outflung: "And here I am! Are you contented?"

She stooped and stroked Ariadne, looking up to smile at him.

"Careful of her whisker; there is blue paint on it," he warned Philippa; but the girl wiped off the ultramarine with a green leaf and took the cat to her heart, covering her with caresses and murmuring endearments.