Part 131

"No," he interrupted, smilingly, "but you know how finicky and panicky a painter is. I think I'll take a stroll after luncheon and bring back my canvases--" he turned to Philippa--"if I may take your punt for the purpose?"

"Certainly. I'll pole you up to Ausone----"

"You will do nothing of the sort, thank you!" he retorted, laughing.

"Is there any danger?" asked Peggy.

"Not the slightest. But I had rather that Philippa remained here."

Peggy passed her arm around Philippa's shoulders.

"He doesn't want you, darling, but I do! Remain where you're appreciated and I'll take you up presently to see that exceedingly nice-looking Englishman."

Philippa's smile was a little forced; she looked up at Warner every now and then, curiously, questioningly, even reproachfully.

When he had pretended long enough not to be aware of it, he turned and looked at her and laughed. And after Peggy had risen and entered the house, he said:

"Philippa, I don't care to have you any nearer that wall of smoke out yonder than you are at present. That's the only reason I don't want you to go to Ausone in the punt with me."

"You know," she said, "that I might just as well be where you are all the time."

"Why?"

"Is it necessary for me to tell you that if anything happens to you it might as well happen to me at the same time?"

"Nonsense, Philippa----"

"You know it is so," she said quietly.

He looked at the smoke, glanced at her, rose and walked to the door, and, turning abruptly, came back to where she was seated.

"That won't do," he said bluntly. "Nobody should be as vital to you as that. Life and happiness are beginning for you. Both must be independent of circumstances and individuals. Everything already lies before you, Philippa--youth, attainment, the serenity and the happiness of opportunity heretofore denied you. Fulfillment does not depend on others; the interest in living and the reason for living depends on personal faith, resolution, and endeavor, not on what accidents affect other lives around you. Life should be lived thoroughly and completely to the end, industriously, vigorously, and with a courage for enjoyment never faltering. Your life is yours. Live it! Find in it the sheer happiness of living. No matter what befalls others, no matter who these others may be, it is your business in life to go on living, to go on discovering reasons for living, to go on desiring to live, and to find in living the highest happiness in the world--the satisfaction of a duty thoroughly accomplished!"

He was smiling and rather flushed when he ended his emphatic sermon. The girl beside him had listened with drooping head, but her grey eyes were raised to his from time to time.

And now that he had finished expounding his strenuous and masculine logic, she turned away and leaned on the parapet looking down at the tops of the forest trees below.

He came over and rested on the stone balustrade beside her.

"Am I not right?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then you understand that, whatever may happen to anybody else, life always presents the same noble challenge to you?"

"Yes.... A bird, shot through the breast, must go on fighting for breath as long as its heart beats.... I should do the same--if anything happened to you."

The hot color suddenly burnt his face. He made no comment--found none to make. Her transparent candor had silenced him utterly; and he found himself troubled, mute, and profoundly moved by her innocent avowal of devotion.

She looked around at him after a while.

"That is what you meant, isn't it?"

He shook his head slightly. He could scarcely presume to criticize her or instruct her concerning the mysteries of her own heart. Those intimate, shadowy, and virginal depths were exempt from the rule of reason. Neither logic nor motive was in control there; instinct alone reigned.