At length, seeing that he had finished, she tossed aside the flowering rope of grass, set her elbows on her knees, her rounded chin on her hands, and regarded him inquiringly, as though, for the moment, she had done with childish things.
"It is a letter which urgently concerns Mr. Halkett," he nodded coolly. "Shall I give it to him?"
"Please."
He pocketed the portfolio, hesitated, glanced at his watch, then, with an absent-minded air, began to pack up his painting kit. As he unhooked his _toile_ he looked around at her.
"Philippa," he said, "if you are going to punt back to Ausone, isn't it nearly time you started?"
"Aren't you going to paint any more?" she asked, smiling.
"No. I think I had better find Mr. Halkett and show him this letter."
"But--I have come all the way from Ausone to pay you a visit!" explained the girl in hurt surprise. "Didn't you want to see me?"
"Certainly I want to see you," he replied smilingly. "But to punt up stream to Ausone this afternoon is going to take you quite a long while----"
"As for that," she remarked, "it need not concern us. I am not going back to Ausone."
"Not going back!"
"Listen, please. Monsieur Wildresse and I have had a disagreement----"
"Nonsense!"
"No, a serious disagreement. I am not going back to Ausone. Shall I tell you all about it?"
"Yes, but listen to me, Philippa. You can't run away from your home merely because you have had a disagreement with your Patron and guardian."
"Shall I tell you why we disagreed?"
"If you choose. But that doesn't justify you in running away from your home."
The girl shook her head:
"You don't yet understand. In our cafe the French Government compels us to spy on certain strangers and to report whatever we can discover. Always it disgusted me to do such a thing. Now I shall not be obliged to do it any more, because I am never going back to the Cabaret de Biribi."
"Do you mean to say that you and Monsieur Wildresse are in the secret service of your Government?" he asked, astonished.
"That is too dignified an explanation. I have been an informer since I was seventeen."
"A--a _paid_ informer?"
"I don't know whether the Government pays Monsieur Wildresse."
"But he doesn't do such things for the pleasure of doing them."
"Pleasure? It is an abominable profession! It is unclean."
"Then why do you do it?" he demanded, amazed.
"I am not perfectly sure why. I know that the Patron is afraid of the Government. That, I suppose, is why we have been obliged to take orders from them."
"Afraid? Why?"
"It's partly on Jacques' account--his son's. If we do what they ask of us they say that they won't send him to New Caledonia. But I believe it is all _blague_." She looked up at Warner out of her troubled grey eyes. "Espionage--that has been my _metier_ since I was taken out of school--to listen in the cabaret, to learn to keep my eyes open, to relate to the Patron whatever I saw or heard concerning any client the Government desired him to watch.... Do you think that is a very pleasant life for a young girl?"
His face became expressionless.
"Not very," he said. "Go on."
She said thoughtfully:
"It is a horrible profession, Mr. Warner. Why should I continue it? Are there no police? Why should I, Philippa Wildresse, do their dirty work? Can you explain? _Alors_, I have asked myself that many, many times. Today, at last, I have answered my own question: I shall never again play the spy for anybody! C'est fini! Voila!"
Warner remained silent.
"Why, it is revolting!" she exclaimed. "Figurez-vous, Monsieur! I was even signaled to spy upon _you_! Can you conceive such a thing?"
"On _me_?" he repeated, bewildered and angry.
"Certainly. That is why I danced with you. I am permitted to dance only with clients under observation."
Her unflattering candor sent a flush to his face. His latent vanity had been rather rudely surprised.
"Afterward," she continued, "I knew you could not be the man they wanted----"
"What man did they want?"
"Somebody who had stolen documents in America, I believe. But I was sure that you were honest."
"Why?"
Philippa lifted her grey eyes:
"Because you were honest with _me_."
"How, honest?"
"You did not make love to me. Dishonest men always regard women as a pastime. To make advances is the first thing I expect from them. I am never disappointed. All men are more or less dishonest--excepting you."
"This is a sorry school you have been brought up in," he said grimly.
"Do you mean that I have had my schooling by observing life?"
"Yes--a life in a cabaret full of _rastaoqueres_ and _cocottes_--a rather limited and sordid outlook, Philippa. The world lies outside."
"Still--it is life. Even a _cocotte_ is part of life."
"So is disease. But it isn't _all_ there is in life."
"Nor is life in a cabaret all corruption. A cabaret is merely the world in miniature; all types pass in and out; they come and go as souls are born and go: the door opens and closes; one sees a new face, one loses it. It is much like birth and death."
She made an unconsciously graceful gesture toward the white clouds overhead.
"A cabaret," she went on seriously, "is a republic governed by the patron, audited by the _caissiere_, policed by waiters. Everybody goes there--even you, Monsieur. All languages are spoken there, all questions discussed, all theories aired, all passions ventilated. Every trait of human nature is to be observed there; the germ of every comedy; the motive of every tragedy.... Yet, as you say, it is a saddening school.... Wisdom is too early acquired there. One learns too quickly and too completely in such a school. Such an education means precocity. It foreshadows the early death of youth, Monsieur.... If I remain there, all that is still young in me will die, now, very quickly."
"You poor child!"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Therefore," she said, "I am leaving. Now do you understand?"
He sat looking at her, wondering uneasily at her intelligence and her ability to express herself. Here was a maturity of mind unexpected in this girl. So far it had not visibly altered the youth of her, nor impaired her sweetness and honesty.
In spite of the appalling surroundings amid which she had matured, her mind and heart still remained young.
Biting a tasselled grass stem reflectively, she sat thinking for a few moments, then she reverted to the subject of Wildresse and his son.
"I am convinced that it is all _blague_," she repeated, "--this threat of Noumea. Unless Jacques misbehaves very seriously in Biribi, nobody can send him to La Nouvelle. Besides, if his father chooses to oblige the Government, what does it matter about me? No; I have had enough of degradation. An hour on the river with you was enough to settle it."
"But what do you intend to do, Philippa?" he inquired.
She looked up at him with her winning smile:
"I came to ask _you_ that. Please tell me what I am to do."
"You must not ask _me_----"
"Of course. You are the first man who ever pleased me. You please me more and more. Why should I not come to you in my perplexity and say, 'What am I to do, my friend?'"
He reddened at that; found nothing to answer. The sudden and grotesque responsibility which this young girl was so lightly placing upon his shoulders might have amused if it had not disconcerted him. But it did not disconcert her.
"What am I to do, Mr. Warner?" she repeated with a smile of perfect confidence.
"Why, _I_ don't know, Philippa. What _can_ you do down here at Sais?"
"Tell _me_!" she insisted with undisturbed serenity.
"You couldn't very well remain here. You will have to go back to Ausone and consider this matter more seriously----"
"Ah, ca--non! I shall _not_ go back!"
"What do you propose to _do_?"
She bit her grass stem:
"I don't know. I have my trunk in the punt----"
"What!"
"Certainly, I brought my effects! I have some money--not very much. I shall go to the inn and remain there until you have decided what it is best for me to do."
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?"
[Illustration: "'I can employ you as a model,' he said"]
"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?"