"I do."
"Then there'll be no charge for this important major operation. Philippa, will you take ether tomorrow morning?"
The girl laughed and nodded, looking up at him from where she was seated beside the Countess, examining the sewing.
"Could I not do this for you, Madame?" she said.
"But I like to sew, Philippa."
The girl smiled, then a slight sigh escaped her. The Countess looked up at her, and Philippa smiled again, saying:
"There seems to be nothing within my power to do for you, Madame."
"There _is_ something," said Madame de Moidrey under her breath.
"What, if you please?"
"I want you to like me, Philippa.... And if some day you could learn to love me, that would be the rarest gift that could be offered me."
The girl's grey eyes widened in utter surprise; suddenly they sparkled with tears, and she bent her head swiftly and touched the elder woman's hands with her own.
"Madame," she whispered, "you overwhelm me with your kindness.... If only I could express my gratitude----"
She checked herself as Maurice, the head gardener, appeared, hat in hand, deep anxiety stamped on his seamed and sunburnt features.
"Pardon, Madame la Comtesse--there is a great fire somewhere in the north. I thought Madame should be told----"
"A fire? What is it? The forest, Maurice?"
"Oh, it is very far away, Madame. Perhaps it is a forest on fire.... But there is a sound, too. One may see and hear from the northern terrace when the wind sets in."
"Is it as far away as Ausone?"
"Farther, Madame."
The Countess glanced at Warner, rose, retaining Philippa's hand.
"Thank you, Maurice," she said over her shoulder, and, passing her arm through Philippa's, she entered the house, followed by Warner and Peggy.
"What do you suppose alarms old Maurice?" whispered Peggy.
But Warner, vastly troubled, made no answer.
*CHAPTER XXIV*
Below the carved stone balustrade of the north terrace acres and acres of tree tops--oak, beech, birch, and fir--spread away on every side. This was the Foret des Oiseaux.
Beyond the dense green surface of the tree tops, which was so compact that it resembled a wide and gently rolling plateau, the country stretched away toward Ausone. Here and there some distant farmhouse window sparkled in the sun; set amid banks of velvet green the Recollette glittered like severed fragments of a silver thread.
Bathed in a mauve haze the Ausone Fort stood out on its conical, tree-clad hill; beyond it other hillocks rose, lilac-tinted silhouettes against the horizon.
Turquoise, palest violet, tender green and gold, the country lay revealed under the August sky, peaceful, glimmering, silent.
And across this dainty harmony of color was smeared a somber, discordant smudge, staining the delicate haze of amethyst, defiling the pure sky--a wide, high area of dirty smoke, leaning from the perpendicular toward the east, spilling its dun-colored vapor downward over the pale aquarelle of hill and river and valley.
"The Alcyon Forest is afire!" exclaimed the Countess in a low voice.
"It is much farther away," said Warner.
A sudden breeze sprang up, blowing in their faces over the swaying tree tops.
"Listen!" said Philippa, touching her lips with one finger.
From an infinite distance the wind carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now regular as the dulled rolling of drums, now softly irregular, with intervals of stillness, then again spasmodic, muffled, almost inaudible.
"Are they threshing anywhere near us?" asked the Countess of her sister. "What is that pumping sound?" She turned to Warner, who made no reply.
"Do you know what it is, Jim?" demanded Peggy Brooks uneasily.
"I'm not absolutely sure.... I'll be back in a moment----" He turned and went swiftly into the house.
Philippa, leaning on the balustrade beside the Countess, said very quietly:
"I know what that sound is. I have heard it before from the outer boulevard in Ausone, when the grand maneuvers were going on."
The Countess said:
"I was afraid it was that."
"Drums?" asked Peggy Brooks.
"Cannon," said Philippa.
Warner came back with his field glasses.
Studying the horizon, he spoke at intervals in his pleasant, undisturbed voice:
"They have cleared the Ausone Fort; the flag, the semaphore, the signal tower--all are gone; there is nothing to be seen there except trees.... It looks like any hill now; nothing is stirring on it.... This glass brings the smoke much nearer, but it is impossible to guess what is on fire.... I don't think it's a forest.... I'm afraid it is a village."
He offered the glass to the others; each took a turn and made out nothing new until Philippa, gazing above the discoloring stain of smoke, spoke to Warner in a low voice and handed him the glasses.
For a few moments he stood rigid, his field glasses poised at an angle; then, still watching at the same angle, he said:
"You are perfectly right, Philippa; two aeroplanes are soaring between the smoke and the Ausone Fort."
One by one the others searched for the distant sky craft and discovered them.
They were still at it when tea was served, and, by that time, the deadened drumming sound had become unmistakable, increasing in volume with every lightest puff of wind, and, when the breeze died out, still filling the ears with its steady thudding.
Also, the dirty smoke-smear had spread, polluting the tender northern sky, and new centers of infection had appeared here and there amid the green landscape--dark spots of smoke which, at first, appeared insignificant and motionless, which were bigger in ten minutes, which in half an hour had become volumes. Yet their actual growing process was not perceptible, so gradually the looming spots assumed the threatening proportions of gloom.
Warner, his teacup on his knees, bracketed the field glasses on the aeroplanes once more, and was startled at their nearness.
Almost at the same instant a dry crack, like the breaking of a stick, sounded, coming from the direction of the distant fort--another, another, others following in quicker succession. And, watching, he saw below the aeroplanes a dotted line of tiny white spots, growing in length for a while, then maintaining its length as the rearward dots vanished and new dots of cottony white were added to the other end.
Higher and higher rose the aeroplanes above the white wake of exploding shells, bearing eastward now, sheering widely, as a pair of soaring hawks sweep swiftly into vaster circles as they mount into the dazzling blue.
"The fort is using its sky-guns," remarked Warner.
They all took turns watching the fleecy clots of smoke appear, linger, dissolve in mid-air. Long after the aeroplanes had disappeared in the sky, the high-angle guns continued their distant, rattling fusillade.
"What do you think is happening out there?" asked the Countess. "You have seen war, Jim. Have you an idea what the smoke and cannonade mean? Is a German army coming?"
Warner said:
"They are shelling villages to the north of us--perhaps trenches, too. I don't know what troops we have there.
"Probably their cavalry screen has come into contact with ours, and I should say that we are retiring. But you can't tell yet."
"It's the _invasion_, then," said the Countess calmly.
"It's a raid, anyway."
"A raid on Ausone?"
"Probably. The railroad there is always important--much more so than the Ausone Fort. I'm afraid that fort doesn't amount to very much as fortifications are classed now."
The spectacle from the north terrace had become very disquieting. All the horizon was now obscured by smoke, and its dirty shadow dulled the distance and invaded the middle distance, hanging from west to east like a sooty veil suspended across land and sky. There was, however, nothing else to see, not a glimmer of flame, nothing stirring on the hill where, unseen, the Ausone Fort crouched above the green valley of the Recollette. But the deadened mutter of the cannonade continued unbroken along the horizon, never ceasing now, not even when the light wind changed.
Peggy's curiosity was satisfied; she had taken jealous possession of Philippa, with a side glance at Warner out of brown eyes not entirely devoid of malice, and the two were in the billiard room, which opened from the northern terrace, for the purpose of Philippa's education in the game of French billiards.
The Countess set her teacup aside and picked up her sewing.
"I don't intend to be driven out of my home," she remarked.
He lighted a cigarette and looked curiously into the north.
"Whether it's to be the wretched story of 1870 again or not," she went on, "I shall not be frightened away from this house.
"This is my home. I came here a bride; my dear husband died under this roof; all I care for in the world, all I hold most dear, most intimate, is here, Jim. I shall not go."
He said gravely:
"I hope the necessity may never arise, Ethra."
"It will not. Are the Germans really barbarians? What object could they have in injuring this old house? What good would it do them or their country to disturb us here? If they come, we can't defend ourselves. What is there for us to do except to submit? But I shall not go away and leave this place to the mercies of their filthy soldiery."