Part 16

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.