Part 53

The situation began to strike him as sufficiently ludicrous--the tragic mask is always on the verge of a grin--but he did not feel like smiling.

For a few minutes he occupied himself with collecting, strapping, and slinging his kit; and when he was ready to go, he looked down at the girl Philippa, where she was seated watching him out of her trustful grey eyes.

"I can employ you as a model," he said, "until Monsieur Wildresse sends for you. What do you think of the idea?"

"As a--a model, Monsieur?" she stammered.

"Yes. You could pose for me, if you like."

A delicate scarlet flush slowly mounted to her hair.

Perplexed, he watched her.

"Don't you like the idea?" And suddenly he divined what was troubling her. "Not that sort of model," he said, amused. "You shall wear your clothes, Philippa."

"Oh.... Yes, I should like it, I think."

"It's about the only excuse which would enable you to remain at the inn until you have come to some conclusion regarding your future," he explained.

"A painter may always have his models? It is expected, is it not?"

"Oh, yes, that is always understood. But nobody would understand your coming to live at the Golden Peach merely because you and I happened to be good friends," he added laughingly.

"I understand," she said in a grave voice. "I am to be your model, not your friend."

He nodded carelessly, looking away from her. After a moment, he lighted a cigarette. It relieved him considerably to recollect that the Harem had gone to Ausone.

"Now," he said, "if you are ready to walk back to the inn with me, I'll explain you to Madame Arlon, the patronne."

"And my punt?" she inquired, rising from the grass.

"Oh, Lord! I forgot."

"My trunk is in it."

"Where is your punt?"

She pointed across the meadow to where the river sparkled:

"It is my own punt; the Lys. I took nothing from Monsieur Wildresse that did not belong to me. It will be agreeable for us to have a punt here, will it not?"

"Very," he said uneasily.

They turned eastward across the blossoming meadow, over which already the swallows were soaring in their late afternoon flight. A vanneau or two rose from moist spots, protesting, and flapping away on greenish-bronze wings; a becassine went off like a badly-balanced arrow, and his flat, raucous, "squack! squack!" rang through the sunny silence. Higher, higher his twisting flight carried him toward the sky, where he dwindled to a speck and vanished; but out of the intense blue zenith his distant cry still rang long after he had disappeared from the range of human vision.

*CHAPTER XI*

When Warner and the girl Philippa arrived at the Golden Peach, they found that Madame Arlon, profiting by the prospective temporary absence of the Harem, had gone to visit relatives near Nancy for a day or two. But Linette smilingly took charge of Philippa and her luggage.

Warner, entering the southern end of the walled garden, discovered Halkett at the other extremity, still seated under the latticed arbor. A letter lay spread upon the table beside his elbow. Over this letter, with pencil and paper, he pored as though he were working out a problem in hieroglyphics.

But when Warner appeared, the Englishman leisurely folded and pocketed the papers on which he had been working, nodded pleasantly, and handed to Warner a copy of the Petit Journal d'Ausone.

"It came after you left," he said. "There's nothing really new in it--Germany's ultimatum to Russia, that's about all.... I am feeling rather anxious about a friend of mine, Reginald Gray. He was to have arrived here last night or early this morning on his motor cycle. No word has come from him personally, and it is now nearly night again."