The Girl Philippa

They smoked for a while in silence, then:

"Where is your little protégée?" asked Halkett, making an effort to shake off his depression.

"Linette is making her comfortable. When Madame Arlon returns from Nancy I shall tell her to look out for the child. She's in her room, unpacking, I suppose."

"Did she even bring her boxes?" asked the Englishman, greatly amused.

"Yes, she did. And I don't know what on earth she intends to do for a living when I go back to Paris. I'm sorry for her, but she can't expect me to travel about France with her – "

He checked himself abruptly; Halkett also looked up.

The girl Philippa had entered the further end of the garden.

She came slowly forward through the rosy evening light, straight and slim in her girlish gown of white, unrelieved except by a touch or two of black, and by the coppery splendor of her hair.

She halted in the path a little way from the arbor, evidently aware that somebody was within.

"Are you there, Monsieur Warner?" she asked in her sweet, childish voice.

He got up with a glance of resignation at Halkett, and went to meet her. Halkett, from the arbor, noticed the expression of her face when Warner appeared, and he continued to observe the girl with curious attention.

She had instinctively laid her hands in Warner's, detaining him naïvely, and looking up into his face with an honesty too transparent to mistake.

"I miss you very much," she said, "even for a few minutes. I hastened my toilet to rejoin you."

"That is very sweet of you, Philippa – " He didn't know what else to say; felt the embarrassment warm on his face – chagrin, shyness, something of both, perhaps – and a rather helpless feeling that he was acquiescing in an understanding which already was making him very uneasy.

"Come in to the arbor," he said. "Mr. Halkett is there."

She slipped her arm through his. Halkett saw both their faces as they approached, and, watching Warner for a moment, he felt inclined to laugh. But in this young girl's eyes there was something that checked his amusement. A man does not laugh at the happy and serious eyes of childhood.

So he rose and paid his respects to Philippa with pleasant formality; she seated herself between the two men.

The last pink rays of the sun fell across the little iron table, flooding the garden with an enchanted light: already the evening perfume of clove pinks had become exquisitely apparent; a belated bumblebee blundered out of the reseda and, rising high in the calm air, steered his bullet flight into the west. Ariadne, on the table, stretched herself, yawned, and looked about her, now thoroughly awake for the rest of the night.

"Minette!" murmured Philippa, caressing her and laying her cheek against the soft fur.

"You are sunburned," remarked Halkett.

"And badly freckled, Monsieur – " She looked mischievously at Warner, laughed at their secret agreement concerning cosmetics, then turned again to Halkett:

"You have heard, I suppose, of the happy understanding between Mr. Warner and me?"

"I think so," said Halkett, subduing an inclination to laugh.

"The future, for me, is entirely secure," continued Philippa happily. "I am permitted to assist Mr. Warner in his art. It is a very wonderful future, Mr. Halkett, destined for me without doubt by God." She added, half to herself: "And a lifetime on my knees would be too short a time to thank Him in."

Both men became silent and constrained, Warner feeling more helpless than ever in the face of such tranquil confidence; Halkett remembering what Warner had once said about the soul of Philippa – but still pleasantly and gently inclined to skepticism concerning this fille de cabaret.

Philippa, leaning forward on the table between them, joined her slender hands and looked at Warner.

"It is pleasant to be accepted as a friend by such men as you are," she said thoughtfully… "I have met other gentlemen of your station in life, now and then. But their attitude toward me has been different from yours… I once supposed that, in a cabaret, all men resembled each other where women were concerned. I have been very happily mistaken."

Warner said:

"A man scarcely expects to see more than one sort of woman in a cabaret."

"Yet, you were not astonished to see me, were you?"

"Yes," he said, "I was astonished."

"You did not seem to be."

Warner glanced at Halkett:

"Do you remember what I once said about Philippa's soul?"

The Englishman smiled at Philippa:

"As soon as Mr. Warner saw you he said to me that your soul was as clean as a flame… I was slower to understand you."

The girl turned swiftly to Warner:

"What a heavenly thing for a man to say about a woman! And my lips painted scarlet – and I a caissière de cabaret– " Her voice broke childishly; she sprang to her feet and stood looking through the starting tears at the last level rays of the sun.

Standing so, unstirring till the tears dried, she presently turned and resumed her chair; and, after a few moments' silence, she dropped her elbows on the table again and clasped her hands under her chin.

She said, not looking at either of the men:

"I have thought of becoming a nun. But it is too late. Cloisters make awkward inquiries and search records; no Sisterhood of any order I ever heard of would admit to a novitiate any girl who has served five years where I have served… And so – until I saw you – I did not know what was to become of me – "

She lifted her grey eyes to Warner. They were starry with recent tears. Her chin rested on her clasped hands, her enchanted gaze on him.

Halkett was first to move and make an effort:

"Yes, it was perhaps time to cut away," he muttered. "Anything we can do – very glad, I'm sure."

"Certainly," said Warner. "There are a lot of agreeable young women in my class who will be interested to know you when they return from Ausone day after tomorrow – "

Philippa turned swiftly toward him:

"I do not wish any woman to know what I have been! You wouldn't tell them, would you?"

"No, of course not – if you feel that way," he said. "Only I – it occurred to me – some protection – some countenance – understanding – from other women – "

"I desire none. I want only your friendship."

"But how am I going to explain you – "