Part 14 (1/2)

For the time being he said nothing about it to Henriette, but occasionally his glance stole away from her toward Helen, who kept on with her labour. The breeze carried her voice and laugh, which was like a rich echo of Henrietta's, and at length he heard her singing a French song, in which the other workers joined. Time pa.s.sed rapidly watching the figures in the field and Henriette--too rapidly.

”We are started, though there is nothing to see,” said Henriette finally. ”We will rest till after luncheon.”

The peasants, too, had stopped work. They were seating themselves on the sheaves or sprawling on the hard, dry, yellow stubble for their mid-day meal. He heard them laugh at some sally of Helen's before she started across the field toward where he was sitting. Flushed from the sun and exercise, she cried out, as she approached:

”They say I do it like a veteran! It was great fun--and I was helping France!”

Phil had been envying her the exercise and told her so.

”There's room for volunteers,” she suggested. And she looked at him and then at Henriette. ”I dare you both to come out there this afternoon!” she added.

”Done--if your sister will let me off! Will you?”

Henriette shot one of her quick glances at Helen.

”Perhaps you will volunteer, too,” Helen parried.

”Why not? I'm game!” Henriette replied.

”Good! It's the best way of helping that I know. They are very hard pressed to get the grain cut before it is overripe. It will be straight sickling this afternoon on the Pigou patch. Poor Madame Pigou's son is at the front and she has only Jean who is but ten to help, and she's too poor to hire a reaper.”

When Madame Ribot heard the plan she smiled and nodded approval, reminding Henriette that she must wear gloves in order not to blister her hands. She herself, under her parasol, walked out to see them begin.

Madame Pigou, with deep wrinkles around her kindly mouth and hands already stiffened by labour at forty, protested at first.

”Such work is not for you,” she said to Henriette. ”Nothing takes it out of your back more than sickling, unless it's hoeing.”

”Oh, none of us expects to be as adept as you,” replied Henriette, ”or as Helen, who has a natural talent for such things.”

”Mademoiselle Helene,” said Madame Pigou, with an affectionate smile of fellows.h.i.+p at Helen, ”is one of us. Thank you all--thank you for the sake of Armand. I shall write him how you helped,” she added.

”Mind that you don't overdo!” Madame Ribot warned Henriette as she started back to the chateau.

Henriette did not overdo. With skirt tucked above her slim ankles and an old pair of gloves up to her elbows, she used her sickle much as she had her brush, cutting her small swaths handily after she had learned the trick and often stopping to deride her own efforts or to boast of them very merrily, holding the attention of every one on herself. It was no cross to her that she did not keep up with the others. Madame Pigou complimented her for another reason. It was wonderful that Henriette should cut even a single sheaf; the condescension of a beautiful princess who used a real trowel and some real mortar in laying the cornerstone of a public building.

Helen, humming s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, kept her swath even with Madame Pigou.

Her plain features as she bent to her work seemed in keeping with it.

There was truth in Madame Pigou's saying that she was ”one of us.” But Madame did not set a fast pace, for she saw that Helen meant to hold her own.

When Phil had finished a swath he turned and cut toward Henriette in hers, and thus they met face to face as he nipped the last straws from in front of her sickle; her face flushed, too, with exercise, as they both stood erect, he with head bare, his sleeves rolled, drawing a deep breath and stretching his supple, square shoulders.

Helen pausing to rest had a glimpse of him thus; and it occurred to her how he must have looked far away in the Southwest when he was directing the workmen in railroad-building. Then she sent the sharp knife athwart the bundle of straws that she had gathered in her hand.

”A good, straight man!” whispered Madame Pigou. ”He knows how to work.”

”So I was thinking,” murmured Helen absently. Then, a sheaf finished, she looked up again to see them standing in quite the same position of confidential comrades.h.i.+p. ”Cousin, more praise!” she called, and repeated in English what Madame Pigou had said of him.

”A real compliment, this!” he replied.

”And tell him that he should put on a hat,” said Madame Pigou. ”The sun is hot.”