Part 117

She pressed a little closer to his shoulder:

"I had nobody. Do you understand? I seem to know right from wrong, but I don't know how I know it. Yet, I am old in some things--old and wearied with a knowledge which still, however, remains personally incomprehensible to me. It's just a vast accumulation of unhappy facts concerning life as it is lived by many.... I always knew there were such people as you--as these dear and gentle friends of yours; I never saw them--never saw even any young girls after I left school--only the women, young and old, who came to the cabaret, or who came and went through the Ausone streets, or who sat knitting and gossiping under the trees on the quay."

She laid her cheek against his shoulder with a little sigh.

"You are very wonderful to me," she murmured, partly to herself.

The night air had become a little fresher: he thought that she should have some sort of wrap, so they entered the billiard room together, where Peggy, awaiting her shot, slipped one arm around Philippa's waist, detaining her to caress her and whisper nonsense.

"You beautiful child, I want you to stay with me and not go star-gazing with that large and sunburnt man. You'll stay, won't you, darling? And we'll go to the library presently and find a pretty red and gold book full of armorial designs and snobbish information; and we'll search very patiently through those expensively illuminated pages until we find a worthy family called D'Aures----"

"Oh, Peggy!" said Philippa. "Would you really take so much trouble?"

"Rather!" said Peggy coolly. "I mean to write him some day and find out how he is treating my pet Minerva runabout which he had the audacity to appropriate without thanking me."

Philippa laughed rather shyly, not entirely comprehending the balance between badinage and sincerity in Peggy's threat, but realizing that any freedom she permitted herself was her prerogative.

Warner, lingering at the other door, caught Peggy's eye.

"You can't have her, Jim!" she said with emphasis, and drew her closer.

So Warner went on to find a wrap for her, and entered the music room.

The next moment he halted, rigid, astounded.

Peering through the windows into the room were the dirty countenances of Asticot and Squelette, their battered noses flattened white on the glass, their ratty eyes fixed on him.

*CHAPTER XXV*

That the precious pair believed Warner to be paralyzed with terror was evident.

As long as he remained motionless they glared at him, their faces and spread fingers flattened against the windowpane. Then, the next instant, he was after them at one bound, jerking open the glass door, out across the terrace where the two young ruffians, evidently surprised and confused by his headlong behavior, parted company, Squelette digging up gravel in his headlong flight down the drive, Asticot darting across the lawn where, beyond the stables, a hospitable tangle of shrubbery seemed to promise easy escape.

But Asticot was awfully wrong; in the darkness he rushed full speed into an elastic barrier of mesh wire which supported the hedge of sweet peas separating garage and stables; and as he rebounded, Warner caught him and coolly began to beat him up.

The beating was deliberate, methodical, and merciless; the blows fell with smart cracks upon the features of Asticot, right, left, sometimes hoisting him off his large, flat feet, sometimes driving him dizzily earthward; but another blow and a savage jerk always brought him up to be swung on again, battered, knocked flying, and finally smashed into merciful insensibility.

Asticot was in a dreadful mess as he lay there on the grass. Vignier, the chauffeur, and a stable lad, Henri, had appeared with a lantern at the debacle of Monsieur Asticot.

Warner, breathing rapidly, waited a few moments to recover his breath.

"Take him into the harness room and lay him on a blanket," he managed to say. "Keep your eyes on him, Vignier, until I return. There's another of them, but I'm afraid he's cleared out."

As a matter of fact, Squelette had cleared out. He must have scaled the wall somewhere, for the gates were locked, and the old lodge keeper was evidently asleep.

The lad, Henri, came up, armed with a stable fork, and followed by the head gardener, Maurice, shouldering a fowling piece and marshaling in his wake half a dozen others--grooms, under-gardeners, and a lad or two employed about the place.

They beat the shrubbery for an hour; then Warner left them to explore the wooded strip along the base of the wall with their flashlights and lanterns, and went back to the stable where lay Asticot, badly in need of bandages and protracted repose.

Vignier met Warner at the stable door.

"Has he come to?" inquired the latter, who had begun to feel a little worried.

"Monsieur Warner, that voyou is a most frightful wreck. Out of neither eye is he able to perceive me; what he wears upon his shoulders does not, to me, resemble a head at all."