Presently she went upstairs again with Dr. Senlis. Later the Countess went up. Peggy and Philippa had gone out to the south terrace where the reverberation of the cannonade was now continually shaking the windows, and where, beyond, Ausone, a dark band of smoke stretched like a rampart across the northern sky.
As Warner stood thinking, listening to the dull shock of the concussions rolling in toward them on the wind from the north, the footman, Vilmar, approached him.
"Pardon, Monsieur Warner, but there is a frightful _type_ hanging about whom it seems impossible to drive away----"
"What!" said Warner angrily.
"Monsieur, I have hustled him from the terrace several times; I have summoned aid from my fellow domestics; the chauffeur, Vignier, chases him with frequency into the shrubbery; Maurice and the lad, Henri, pursue him with horsewhips----"
"Is it that _voyou_ who is all over bandages?" demanded Warner incredulously.
"It is, Monsieur----"
Out of sheer contempt for the creature and for all his species, Warner had ordered him to be fed and turned loose. And here he was, back again, hanging around!
"Where is he?"
"He dodged into the shrubbery across the lawn."
The effontery of Asticot amazed Warner. With an impatient gesture he turned on his heel to traverse the lawn. And at the same moment Asticot emerged from the bushes bordering it.
His bruised and ratty eyes blinked nervously; his battered _casquette de marlou_ was in his hand; his knees, and his teeth also, seemed inclined to smite together. Plainly, he was terrified; and when Warner walked swiftly toward him across the lawn, the creature uttered a sort of stifled squeak.
"Asticot," said Warner, in pleasant, even tones, "I told the servants to feed you and turn you loose. Also, I left word that I'd kill you the next time I caught you hanging around here. Did they give you that message?"
"M-m'sieu'----"
"Did they?"
"Alas!"
"Then why are you still prowling in this vicinity? Do you _want_ to be killed?"
A suppressed howl escaped the bandaged ruffian.
"I do not desire to go away from M'sieu'! No! I desire to remain under his powerful protection----"
"What!"
"I desire to serve M'sieu'--to dedicate my life to the service of M'sieu', my patron, powerful and terrible. I have need to render him homage--I, Asticot, grateful and affectionate----" He blubbered sentimentally, squirming like a kicked and abject dog.
Warner, astonished, stared at the writhing ruffian for a few moments, then he burst into a laugh.
"Why, you Parisian sewer rat," he said, "do you imagine that I could have any use for _you_?"
"M'sieu'! I ask as wages only a crust, a pallet of straw in some corner, and a few pennies which will enable me to 'fry a cigarette' when I am lonely----"
"I don't want you!" repeated Warner, disgusted, but much amused. "Why do you imagine that I have any employment to offer a cutthroat?"
"There is le Pere Wildresse," replied Asticot, naively.
"Do you imagine I expect to hire somebody to murder him?"
"M'sieu'--it is but natural."
Warner's laughter died out and his expression altered.
"Come, Asticot, cut away," he said quietly, "or I shall become angry!"
"M'sieu'! Don't drive me away!" he whined. "I know how to wash brushes in black soap----"
"What!"
"Also, I have learned how to stretch _toiles_ and make _chassis_. I have served in Biribi. My lieutenant amused himself by painting pictures of camels and palms and the setting sun, very red and as full of rays as a porcupine----"
"I don't _want_ you, Asticot! It is noon, now. I shall tell them at the stables to give you a crust and a bowl of soup. After you have sufficiently stuffed yourself, go quietly away wherever you belong, and don't come back----"
"M'sieu'! I entertain a deep affection for M'sieu'----"
"Go to the devil!" said Warner wearily, and walked back to the house. Here he gave the footman culinary instructions to transmit to the kitchen-maid, who, in turn, should see that something to eat was sent to the stables for Asticot.
Then he walked through the house to the northern terrace, where Philippa and Peggy sat sewing and looking out across the valley toward the smoky panorama in the north. His field glasses lay on the parapet, and he picked them up and adjusted them to his vision.
"Isly is burning, and Rosales, and the great farm of Le Pigeonnier," remarked Peggy.
"Who says so?"
"Mathilde. The postman told her. He heard it in Ausone from the soldiers. That is where the fighting is, at Isly. The trains leaving Ausone are loaded with soldiers going north. It appears that matters are progressing very well for us."
Warner said nothing. With two French towns burning on the horizon, the great farm of Le Pigeonnier on fire, and the cannonade steadily becoming more distinct, he was not at all certain that everything promised well for Ausone and Sais and the valley of the Recollette.
Through his glasses he could see the beautiful spire of Sainte Cassilda in Ausone. Beyond, where the wooded, conical hill rose from the rolling plain as though it were an enormous artificial mound, nothing of the fort was visible.
But farther away, beyond the river, he could see trains crawling across the landscape--see smoke trailing from locomotives; farther still only the green and gold of woods and grain fields stretched away, growing vaguer and dimmer until the wall of smoke obscured them and blotted the earth from view.
Madame de Moidrey appeared at the doorway behind them.
"They have just telephoned from Ausone to ask whether we can take in wounded, if necessary," she said calmly. "They are to send material for fifty beds this evening. Sister Eila and Dr. Senlis have offered to remain for the present. I think everybody will have to help."
Philippa, who had risen, came toward her.
"I don't mind where I sleep," she said, "if I can only be of any use----"
"You are not going to be disturbed, dear--not at present, anyway." And to Peggy: "I have told them to open the east wing and air the gallery and the rooms on both the upper floors. There is room for two hundred beds in the east wing. Vignier has gone to turn on the water, and I shall have the parquet and windows thoroughly cleaned and the stair carpets taken out of storage and laid down."
"Is there anything I can do?" asked Warner.
"Nothing for any of us to do so far. When the beds arrive, I shall have them set up and ready, that's all. Peggy, if the servants require any further instructions, tell them what to do. Sister Eila is inspecting the east wing and I must return to Mr. Gray."
"How is Gray?" asked Warner.
"Very much afraid that he is making us extra trouble. He is so patient, so considerate--really a most charming man.
"I have an idea that the cannonade is making him very restless. He tries not to show it. He lies there very quietly, asking for nothing, most grateful for the slightest attention. I have been giving him the medicine Dr. Senlis prescribed and reading the paper to him between doses."
"Couldn't I do that?" began Peggy, but Madame de Moidrey shook her pretty head hastily and went away to inspect her Englishman, for whom luncheon was being prepared on a tray.
Luncheon was served on the terrace for the others. It was a rather silent affair: they ate with the distant rumble of cannon in their ears and their eyes turning ever toward the north where that impenetrable wall of smoke masked the horizon from east to west.
"I think I shall go over to Ausone," remarked Warner.
Philippa looked up in silence.
"Why?" inquired Peggy.
"Because," he replied, "I have a couple of dozen pictures and sketches in storage at the Boule d'Argent, and I think I might as well get them and ship them to my Paris studio."
"Do you really suppose there is any danger that----"
"No," he interrupted, smilingly, "but you know how finicky and panicky a painter is. I think I'll take a stroll after luncheon and bring back my canvases--" he turned to Philippa--"if I may take your punt for the purpose?"
"Certainly. I'll pole you up to Ausone----"
"You will do nothing of the sort, thank you!" he retorted, laughing.
"Is there any danger?" asked Peggy.
"Not the slightest. But I had rather that Philippa remained here."
Peggy passed her arm around Philippa's shoulders.
"He doesn't want you, darling, but I do! Remain where you're appreciated and I'll take you up presently to see that exceedingly nice-looking Englishman."
Philippa's smile was a little forced; she looked up at Warner every now and then, curiously, questioningly, even reproachfully.
When he had pretended long enough not to be aware of it, he turned and looked at her and laughed. And after Peggy had risen and entered the house, he said:
"Philippa, I don't care to have you any nearer that wall of smoke out yonder than you are at present. That's the only reason I don't want you to go to Ausone in the punt with me."
"You know," she said, "that I might just as well be where you are all the time."
"Why?"
"Is it necessary for me to tell you that if anything happens to you it might as well happen to me at the same time?"