Part 24 (1/2)

”Little Peepa?” she laughed delightedly.

”Pippa,” he a.s.sented, puffing smoke as he lighted the pipe. ”I think I shall call you that. You see, according to her biographer, Mr.

Browning, she worked in the silk-mills all the year, but one day she had to herself, from dawn to midnight, and so as to enjoy it to the full she--well, she pretended, like you.”

”But that is droll,” she said eagerly, ”for every Easter after Sunday, my uncle, who is fatigued from so much chanting in the church, always goes to Boulogne and becomes drunk for one whole day. On Wednesday he returns. These six years he has done it always the same; and on the Tuesday it is wonderful. I am alone with Louis, and we ask all the people in our books to visit us.”

A sudden gleam of excitement lit his eyes.

”The Tuesday after Easter?”

”Always it is so.”

”Pippa,” he said--but checked the remainder of his words. He placed the pipe in his mouth and ran five-finger exercises at a terrific speed.

”Pippa,” he said again, then, ceasing his display of virtuosity, leaned back and gazed at her from beneath his eyebrows. ”Next spring, on the Tuesday after Easter, I will come for you.”

She caught her breath deliriously.

”Beyond the village road,” he went on, speaking slowly and distinctly, ”I saw a big pasture-field at the top of the hill. Be there as the sun is just above the horizon, and I will come in an aeroplane.”

”And, your Majesty, you will take me to your kingdom?”

”For one day, Pippa, to the great city of London--the city that is open to all who possess a golden key. We shall return by the stars at night.”

”Then”--her voice shook, and the brilliancy of her eyes was softened by sudden tears, as the rays of an August sun are sometimes tempered by a shower, ”then--at last--I am to see the world--boys and girls and palaces and----”

”To say nothing of prunes and potentates.”

”Oh, but, your Majesty, it is too wonderful. I am certain it will not come true.”

He rose and quietly placed his chair against the wall. ”Pippa,” he said, ”there are only two things that could prevent it. One, if there is a storm and--the other----” he shook his head impatiently.

The girl took down a work-basket, and after searching its contents extracted a tiny trinket.

”You mean,” she said, stepping lightly over to him, ”that you might go to join your brothers--those who smiled so bravely?”

”We never know, Pippa,” he answered.

She reached for the lapel of his coat and pinned the little keepsake on it. ”'Tis a black cat,” she said. ”I saw it in the village store, so small and funny, like Louis. It is a gift from little Pippa, who will pray to the Virgin every night that her Prince may not be killed--unless----”

He looked at the little mascot, which dangled above a couple of ribbons.

”Unless?” he said.

For a moment there was a flash in her eyes and a sudden crimson flush in her cheeks that startled him. For the first time in her life she felt the instinct of a tigress; that strange fusion of pa.s.sion and timidity that comes to women of her kind when it seems they may lose the object of their love.

”Unless he--forgets.” The words were spoken between lips that hardly moved.

”By the sacred bones of my ancestors,” he said, with a sort of sincere grandiloquence, ”I promise to come. So that I shall always think of you, my Pippa, I will paint a black cat upon the machine, and woe to the Hun who dares to singe its whiskers!”

A few minutes later, the heavily coated figure of an aviator was plowing its way through a drizzling rain, along a dark and solitary road. His pace was extraordinarily long for his height, and he appeared to be stepping over a perpetual array of obstacles at least one foot high.