CHAPTER VII
Warner, conscientious but not hopeful, circulated among the easels of the Harem. Halkett strolled at his heels.
Stopping in front of Alameda Golden's large canvas, which was all splashed with primary and aggressive colors, he gazed, uncomforted, upon what she had wrought there. After a few moments he said very patiently:
"You should not use a larger canvas than I have recommended to the class. Mere size is not necessarily a synonym for distinction, nor does artistic strength depend upon the muscular application of crude paint. A considerable majority of our countrymen comprehend only what is large, gaudy, and garrulous. Bulk and noise only can command their attention. On the other hand, only what is weak, vague, and incoherent appeals to the precious – the incapables and eccentrics among us. But there is a sane and healthy majority: enroll yourself there, Miss Golden!
"Be honest, reticent, and modest. If you have anything to say in paint, say it without self-consciousness, frankly, but not aggressively. Behave on canvas as you would bear yourself in the world at large, with freedom but with dignity, with sincerity governed by that intelligent consideration for truth which permits realism and idealism, both of which are founded upon fact."
Miss Golden pouted:
"But I see haystacks this way!" she insisted. "I see them in large and brilliant impressions. To me nothing looks like what it is. Haystacks appear this way to my eyes!"
"My dear child, then paint them that way. But the popular impression will persist that you have painted the battle of Trafalgar."
Miss Golden wriggled on her camp chair.
"Everything," she explained, "is one monstrous, gaudy, and brutal impression to me. I see a million colors in everything and very little shape to anything. I see only cosmic vigor; and I paint it with a punch. Can't you see all those colors in those haystacks? To me they resemble gigantic explosions of glorious color. And really, Mr. Warner, if I am to be true to myself, I must paint them as I see them."
Warner, horribly discouraged, talked sanely to her for a while, then with a pleasant nod he passed to the next easel, remarking to Halkett under his breath:
"It's a case for a pathologist, not for a painter."
And so for an hour he prowled about among the Harem, ministering to neurotics, inspiring the sluggish, calming despair, gently discouraging self-complacency.
"Always," he said, "we must remain students, because there is no such thing as mastery in any art. If ever we believe we have attained mastery, then our progress ceases; and we do not even remain where we are; we retrograde – and swiftly, too.
"The life work of the so-called 'master' is passed only in solving newer problems. There is no end to the problems, there is an end only to our lives.
"Look at the matter in that way, not as a race toward an attainable goal, nor as an eternally hopeless effort in a treadmill; but as a sane and sure and intelligent progress from one wonder-chamber to a chamber still more wonderful – locked rooms which contain miracles, and which open only when we find the various keys which fit their locks…
"That is all for this morning, young ladies."
He lifted his hat, turned, and strolled away across the meadow, Halkett at his side.
"Some lecture!" he commented with a faint grin.
"It's sound," said Halkett.
"I do the best I can with them. One might suppose I know how to paint, by the way I pitch into those poor girls. Yet, I myself never pick up a brush and face my canvas but terror seizes me, and my own ignorance of all I ought to know scares me almost to death. It's not modesty; I can paint as well as many, better than many. But, oh, the long, long way there is to travel! The stars are very far away, Halkett."
He pitched his easel, secured a canvas, took a freshly-set palette and brushes from his color-box, and, still standing, went rapidly about his business, which was to sketch in an impression of what lay before him.
Halkett, watching him over his shoulder, saw the little river begin to glimmer on the canvas, saw a tender golden light grow and spread, bathing distant hills; saw the pale azure of an arching sky faintly tinting with reflections the delicate green of herbage still powdered with the morning dew.
"This is merely a note," remarked Warner, painting away leisurely but steadily. "Some day I may pose my models somewhere outdoors under similar weather conditions; and you may see dragoons in their saddles, carbines poised, the sunlight enveloping horses and men – or perhaps a line of infantry advancing in open order with shrapnel exploding in their faces… Death in the summer sunshine is the most terrifying of tragedies… I remember once after Lule Burgas – Never mind, I shan't spoil the peaceful beauty of such a morning.
"War? War here! – In this still meadow, bathed in the heavenly fragrance of midsummer! … Well, Halkett, the government of any nation which attacksanother nation is criminal, and all the arguments of church and state and diplomacy cannot change that hellish fact.
"There is only one right in any combat, only one side in any war. And no reasoning under the sun can invest an aggressor with that right.
"He who first draws and strikes forestalls God's verdict."
Halkett said:
"How about your own wars?"
"Halkett, the United States is the only nation which ever entered a war from purely sentimental reasons. It was so in the Revolution; it was so in 1812, in the War of Secession, in Mexico, in the Cuban War.
"All our wars have been undertaken in response to armed aggression; all were begun and carried on in defense of purely sentimental principles. I do not say it because I am a Yankee, but our record is pretty clean, so far, in a world which, since our birth, has accused us of ruthless materialism."
He continued to paint for a while in silence; and when his color notes were sufficiently complete for his purpose, and when the Harem had filed before the canvas and had adoringly inspected it, Warner packed up his kit, and, taking the wet canvas, walked with Halkett back to the Golden Peach.
There Halkett was made acquainted with Madame Arlon, the stout, smiling proprietress of the inn, who sturdily refused to believe that war was possible, and who explained why to Halkett with animation while Warner went indoors to deposit his sketches in his studio.
He returned presently, saying that he would take Halkett to Sister Eila's school across the fields; so the two young men lighted their pipes and strolled away together through the sunshine.
Eastward, far afield, the gay aprons and sunbonnets of the Harem still dotted the distance with flecks of color; beyond, the Récollette glimmered, and beyond that hazy hills rolled away southward toward the Vosges country.
Halkett looked soberly into the misty east.
"It won't come from that direction," he said, half to himself.
Warner glanced up, understood, and sauntered on in silence.
"By the way," remarked the Englishman, "I shall stay here tonight."
"I'm very glad," returned Warner cordially.
"So am I, Warner. Ours is an agreeable – acquaintance."
"It amounts to a little more than that, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It's a friendship, I hope."
"I hope so."
After a moment he added laughingly:
"I've fixed up your bally envelope for you."
"How?"
"Covered it with a thick, glossy layer of Chinese white. I put in a dryer. In a day or two I shall make a pretty little picture on it. And nobody on earth could suspect that embedded under the paint and varnish of my canvas your celebrated document reposes."
They took a highway to the left, narrow and tree-shaded.
"When do you get the newspapers here?" inquired Halkett.
"After lunch, usually. The Petit Journal d'Ausonearrives then. Nobody bothers with any Paris papers. But I think I shall subscribe, now… There's the school, just ahead."
It was a modern and very plain two-storied building of stone and white stucco, covered with new red tiles. A few youthful vines were beginning to climb gratefully toward the lower window sills; young linden trees shaded it. A hum, like the low, incessant murmur of a hive, warned them as they approached that the children were reciting in unison; and they halted at the open door.
Inside the big, clean room, the furniture of which was a stove and a score or more of desks, two dozen little girls, neatly but very poorly dressed, stood beside their desks reciting. On a larger desk stood a glass full of flowers which Halkett recognized; and beside this desk, slenderly erect, he saw Sister Eila, facing the children, her white hands linked behind her back.
Seated behind the same desk was another Sister – a buxom one with the bright, clear coloring of a healthy peasant – more brilliant, even, for the white wimple, collarette, and wide-winged headdress which seemed to accent the almost riotous tint of physical health.
The childish singsong presently ceased; Sister Eila turned pensively, took a step or two, lifted her eyes, and beheld Halkett and Warner at the doorway.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Please come in, Messieurs. I have been wondering whether Mr. Warner would bring you before luncheon… Sister Félicité, this is Monsieur Halkett, who so amiably aided me to gather my bouquet this morning."
Sister Félicité became all animation and vigor; she was cordial to Halkett, greeted Warner with the smiling confidence of long acquaintance.
It lacked only a few minutes to noon, and so lessons were suspended, and the children put through one or two drills for Halkett's benefit.
Out in the kitchen a good, nourishing broth was simmering for them, and Sister Eila slipped away during the brief exhibition to prepare twenty-four bowls and spoons and tartines for these ever-hungry little children of the poor, orphaned for the most part, or deserted, or having parents too poor to feed them.
At noon Sister Félicité dismissed the school; and the little girls formed in line very demurely and filed off to the kitchen.
"What a delicious odor!" exclaimed Halkett, nose in the air.
Sister Félicité sniffed the soup.
"We do our best," she said. "The poor little things fatten here, God be praised." And, to Warner, in her vigorous, alert manner: "What is all this talk concerning war? The children prattle about it. They must have heard such gossip among the quarry people."
Warner said:
"It begins to look rather serious, Sister."
"Is it Germany again?"
"I fear so."
Sister Félicité's pink cheeks flushed:
"Is it the noisy boaster who rules those Germans who would bring the sword upon us again? Is there not enough of barbaric glory in his Empire for him and his that he should invade the civilized world to seek for more? It is a vile thing for any man, be he ruler or subject, to add one featherweight to the crushing burden of the world's misery!"
"To declare war is the heaviest of all responsibilities," admitted Warner.
"Is it already declared?"
"No. That is to say, Austria has declared war against Servia, Russia is mobilizing, and Germany has warned her."
"Is that an excuse for anybody to attack France?"
"Russia is mobilizing, Sister," he repeated meaningly.
"What then?"
"France must follow."
"And then?"
Warner shrugged his shoulders.
Sister Eila came out, nodding to Sister Félicité, who usually presided at the lunch hour: and the latter went away with Warner toward the kitchen, still plying the American with questions. Sister Eila bent her head, inhaled the perfume of the flowers on her desk, and then looked up at Halkett.
"Don't you ever lunch?" he asked.
"Yes; I tasted the soup. You lunch at one at the inn."
"I suppose so. What a charming country this is – this little hamlet of Saïs! Such exquisite peace and stillness I have seldom known."
Sister Eila's eyes grew vague; she looked out through the sunny doorway across the fields towards a range of low hills. The quarries were there.
"It is a tranquil country," she said pensively, "but there is misery, too. Life in the quarries is hard, and wages are not high."
"Mr. Warner tells me they are a hard lot, these quarrymen."
"There is intemperance among the quarrymen, and among the cement workers, too: and there is roughness and violence – and crime, sometimes. But it is a very hard métier, Mr. Halkett, and the lime dust blinds and sears and incites a raging thirst. God knows there is some excuse for the drunkenness there. We who are untempted must remain gentle in our judgments."
"I could not imagine Sister Eila judging anybody harshly."
Sister Eila looked up and laughed:
"Oh, Mr. Halkett, I have confessed to impatience too many times to believe that I could ever acquire patience. Only today I scolded our children because they tore down a poster which had been pasted on the public wall at the crossroad. I said to them very severely, 'It is a sin to destroy what others have paid for to advertise their merchandise.'"
"That was a terrible scolding," admitted Halkett, laughing.
"I'll show you the poster," volunteered Sister Eila, going over to her desk. Raising the lid, she picked up and displayed an advertisement.
CHAPTER VIII
Halkett looked curiously at this specimen of a poster which was already very familiar to him. The dead walls of northern and eastern France and Belgium had been plastered with such advertisements for the last year or two, extolling the Savon de Calypso. But what had recently interested Halkett in these soap advertisements was that posters, apparently exactly similar, appeared to differ considerably in detail when examined minutely.
The picture in this advertisement represented, as always, the nymph, Calypso, seated upon the grass, looking out over the sea where the sun shone in a cloudless sky upon a fleet of Grecian ships which were sailing away across the blue waves of the Ægean.
Where details varied was in the number of ships in the fleet, the number and grouping of sails, sea birds flying, of waves, and of clouds – when there were any of the latter – the number of little white or blue or pink blossoms in the grass, the height of the sun above the horizon line and the number and size of its rays.
There was always at least one ship – never more than a dozen; he had counted twenty white blossoms on some posters; varying numbers on others, of white, of blue, or of pink, but never less than three of any one color. Sometimes there were no sea birds.
As for the sun, sometimes it hung well above the ocean, often its yellow circle dipped into it, and then again only the rays spread fanlike above the horizon line.
And concerning the nymph, her pose and costume did not seem to vary at all in the various poster specimens which he had seen; the wind was always blowing her red hair and white, transparent scarf; she always sat gazing laughingly seaward, one hand resting on the grass, the other clutching a cake of soap to her bosom.
Still examining the sheet of paper, he counted the white flowers scattered over the grass around the seated nymph. There were ten of them.
"Sister Eila," he said carelessly, "how many kilometers is it to the next town south of us? I mean by the military road."
"To Rosières-sous-Bois?"
"Yes."
"About ten kilometers by the military road."
He nodded and counted the ships. There were three.
"Is there more than one road which runs to Rosières-sous-Bois?" he asked.
"Yes. One may go by this road, or cross the bridge by the quarries and go by the river road, or there is still a better and shorter highway which runs west of Saïs."
"Then there are three main roads to Rosières-sous-Bois?"
"Yes. The road to the west is shorter. It is not more than seven miles that way."
Halkett casually counted the sea gulls. Seven gulls were flying around one of the ships; thirteen around another.
"And the river road, Sister?" he inquired.
"By the quarry bridge? Oh, that is longer – perhaps twelve or thirteen kilometers."
"I see… Rosières-sous-Bois is not a garrison town?"
"No. There are only a few gendarmes there."
Halkett examined the picture attentively. The sun appeared to be about three hours high above the horizon.
"The nearest military post must be about three hours' journey from here," he ventured.
Sister Eila thought a moment, then nodded:
"Yes, about three hours. You mean the fort above the Pass of the Falcons? That is the nearest."
He counted the rays of the sun. There were three long ones and two short ones.
"I suppose there are three or four battalions garrisoned there," he remarked.
"Three, I think. And a company of engineers and one company of Alpine chasseurs."
All the time, with a detached air, the young Englishman was examining the colored poster, searching it minutely for variations from other posters of the same sort which he had recently investigated.
There remained in his mind little or no doubt that the number and position of the groups of pointed wavelets signified something important; that the number of sails set on the ships, which varied in every poster, contained further information; that the sky, cloudless in some posters, dotted with clouds in others, was destined to convey topographical particulars to somebody.
These colored advertisements of a soap made in Cologne by Bauermann and Company, and plastered over the landscape of Northern and Eastern Belgium and France, concealed a wealth of secret information for anybody who possessed the key to the messages so clearly and craftily expressed in pictograph and cipher code.
The sinister significance of the sheet in his hand was becoming more apparent every minute. He had made a study of these posters – was just beginning to find them interesting, when he had been ordered to America. Now, all his interest in them returned.
Sister Eila had seated herself at her desk, and, while he was still examining the poster, she continued serenely to correct the pile of inky copybooks.
He watched her for a while, where she bent above the scrawled pages, her pen poised, her lovely face framed in the snowy wimple under the pale shadow of her wide-winged coiffe.
"Sister Eila?"
She turned her head tranquilly.
"You are English, you tell me?"
"Irish." She smiled.
"It's the same. Tell me, have you had enough experience in your world of duty and of unhappiness to know an honest man when you encounter him?"
Sister Eila laid aside her pen and turned toward him.
"I don't think I understand," she said.
"I mean, could you make up your mind about – well – about such a man as I am – merely by inspecting me and hearing me speak?"
Sister Eila laughed:
"I think I could very easily."
"Have you already done so?"
"Why, yes, I suppose so."
"Do you think I am honest enough to be trusted?"
Sister Eila laughed again, deliciously.
"Yes, I think so," she said.
He remained silent and his face, already grave, grew more serious. Sister Eila's smile faded as she watched him. It was becoming very plain to her that here was a man in trouble.
Silent there together in the cool stillness of the schoolroom, they heard the distant clatter of little feet, the vigorous voice of command from Sister Félicité; and a moment later a double file of chattering children passed in the sunshine outside the window, led toward their noonday playground by Sister Félicité accompanied by Warner.
"What is on your mind, Mr. Halkett?" asked Sister Eila, still watching him.
"If I tell you," he said, "will you ask me no more than I offer to tell you?"
She flushed:
"Naturally, Monsieur – "
"You don't quite understand, Sister. What I have to say I wish you to write down for me in the form of a letter of information to the French Government."
"You wish me to write it?"
"Please. And that is what I mean. Naturally, you might ask me why I do not write it myself… Don't ask me, Sister… If you really do trust me."
He turned, met her gaze, saw two clear, sweet eyes unspoiled and unsaddened by the wisdom she had learned in dark and wretched places; saw in them only a little wonder, a faintly questioning surprise.
"What is your answer, Sister?" he asked.
"My answer is – I – I do trust you… What am I to write?"
She took a few loose leaves of paper from the desk, and sat looking at him, pen lifted.
He said:
"Write to the chief of the general staff at the Ministry of War in Paris."
And when she had properly addressed the personage in question, he dictated his letter very slowly in English; and Sister Eila, her expressionless young face bent above the letter paper, translated into French as he dictated, and wrote down the exact meaning of every word he uttered:
"Information has come to me that the advertisements of Bauermann and Company, of Cologne, Prussia, which are posted everywhere throughout Belgium and Northern and Eastern France, conceal military and topographical details concerning the vicinity where these advertisements are displayed.
"Such information could be of use only to a prowling spy or an invading enemy.
"Therefore, acting upon the incomplete information offered me, I deem it my duty to bring this matter to the notice of the Government.
"It would appear that:
"1st. Secret information is contained in the details of the picture which embellishes this advertisement, a sample of which I inclose herewith.
"2nd. These details vary in every poster. Presumably their number, color, groupings, and general distribution constitute a secret code which is calculated to convey information to the enemies of France.
"3rd. In the sample which is inclosed with this letter, the number of ships probably represents the number of highways leading from Saïs to Rosières-sous-Bois; the sea gulls flying above two of the ships give the distance in kilometers; the ten white flowers give the distance by the military road.
"The sun, in the picture, appears to be about three hours high above the horizon; and it is three hours' journey from here to the nearest French fortified post, the Pass of the Falcons in the Vosges.
"The rays of the sun are five in number, three long ones and two short ones; and there are three battalions of the line guarding the fort at the pass, and two companies, one of engineers, one of Alpine infantry.
"My informant, who desires to remain anonymous, further declares it to be his belief that an exhaustive study of this and similar posters would reveal perfectly clear messages in every detail of color, drawing, and letter-press; and that it is his firm conviction that these posters, representing a German firm which manufactures soap, have been placed throughout Belgium and France for the convenience of an invading army.
"Immediate removal of these advertisements seems advisable in the opinion of my informant.
"(Signed), SISTER EILA,
"Of the Daughters of St. Vincent de Paul at Saïs."
When she had finished the letter and had unhesitatingly signed it, she lifted her clear eyes to him in silence. Her breath came a trifle unevenly; the tint of excitement grew and waned in her cheeks.
"At least," he said, "you will understand that I am a friend to France."
"Yes, that is evident."
"Will you direct and seal the packet and give it to the postman?"
"Yes."
"And, Sister Eila, if they send gendarmes or other officials to question you?"
She looked straight into his eyes, deeply, so that her gaze seemed to plunge into the depths of his very soul.
Then, lifting the cross from the rosary at her girdle, she slipped out of her chair and knelt down beside her desk, her young head bent low over the crucifix which she held between the palms of her joined hands.
Halkett, head also lowered, stood motionless.
After a few moments she rose lightly from her knees.
"It is a vow, now," she said. "I have bound myself to silence concerning the source of my information – " her untroubled eyes rested again on his – "because I believe in you, Monsieur."
He started to speak, but seemed to find no word to utter. A bright color mounted to his brow; he turned abruptly from the desk and stepped toward the open door.
And the instant he appeared there, framed by the doorway, a shot rang out, knocking a cloud of stucco and plaster from the wall beside him.