"So I asked Peggy to ask Madame de Moidrey if I might pay you a little visit, and she said, ’Of course.’ So I came as fast as I could——" She laughed and made a sweeping gesture with both arms outflung: "And here I am! Are you contented?"
She stooped and stroked Ariadne, looking up to smile at him.
"Careful of her whisker; there is blue paint on it," he warned Philippa; but the girl wiped off the ultramarine with a green leaf and took the cat to her heart, covering her with caresses and murmuring endearments.
"Jim, dear, what do _you_ think?" she asked presently.
"I don’t quite understand how those magnificent Belgian forts are being knocked to pieces—if what the paper says is true. I supposed them to be among the strongest fortifications in the world."
"Madame de Moidrey says they are. Her husband, the late Count Victor, was an artillery officer. And she told Peggy and me that the Count de Moidrey had always said they were the very strongest forts in the world."
"_Something’s_ gone wrong; that is evident," said Warner. "But not with _you_, Philippa," he added, smiling at her. "I never saw you looking as well; and that’s a tremendously fetching frock you’re wearing."
It was a white outing gown of serge, and the girl wore white stockings and tennis shoes, and a soft white hat—a boyish headgear which became her enchantingly.
"Peggy gave it to me," she said. "It is very American, isn’t it?"
"It’s adorable on _you_. Do you like Peggy Brooks?"
"Yes, I—yes, I do like her.... But I don’t do much to earn my wages. And that troubles me."
"Wages, salary—what does it matter what you call them, when both merely mean pay for work performed.... I should like to do something for Madame de Moidrey in return. But she has many servants and a maid and a housekeeper. I thought I was to read to her, write letters for her, amuse her. But she sometimes reads to me and she and Peggy are teaching me to play tennis——" Philippa held out one narrow foot for his inspection. "And yesterday she ordered a horse for me, as well as for herself and her sister, and I wore one of Peggy’s riding habits—knee breeches and boots, Jim; and they set me on a horse! _That_ is the way I am earning my wages at the Château des Oiseaux!"