But to Warner the most unreal part of it all was not the dusty fantassins in column, slouching forward toward the north—not the clinking, jingling cuirassiers on their big battle horses, not the dragoons riding with rapt, exalted faces under forests of tall lances, not the clanking artillery, the heavy military wagons and motor trucks, nor the galloping gendarmes which passed the inn every hour or two.
What had become suddenly unreal to him was the green and sunlit serenity of the world itself—the breeze ruffling the clover, poppies glowing deep in fields of golden wheat and barley, the melody of the flowing river, the quiet blue overhead, the tenderness of leaf and blossom, and the blessed stillness of the world.
Relighting his pipe, he looked at the swallows soaring and sailing high above the Récollette; noticed butterflies hovering and flitting everywhere; heard the golden splashing of the river, the sigh of leaves and rushes. The word "war" still remained a word to him, but in the sunshine and the silence he began to divine the immobility of menace—something unseen and evil which was quietly waiting.
Ariadne had come across from the garden, ostensibly to hunt meadow mice, really for company.
Sniffing and snooping around his color box, she got one dainty whisker in the ultramarine, and had enough of art. So she went off, much annoyed, to sit by herself in the grass and do some scrubbing. After a while the fixed persistency with which she stared across the meadow attracted his attention and he, also, turned and looked that way.
As he saw nothing in particular to stare at, he presently resumed his sketching and his troubled thoughts. The latter concerned the girl Philippa. Not since he had taken her to the Château had he seen her. And that was four days ago.
He didn't know exactly why he had not strolled over. Possibly a vague idea that he had better not interfere to distract the girl's attention from her first lessons in the refinements of existence had kept him away from her vicinity.
He didn't even know that he had missed her; he knew only that for some occult reason or other he had felt rather lonely lately.
He painted away steadily, pausing to relight his pipe now and then, and all the while Ariadne, never stirring, stared persistently across the landscape, neglecting her uncleansed whisker.
Suddenly, with a little mew of recognition and greeting, she trotted forward through the grass; and the next moment two soft hands fell lightly upon Warner's shoulders from behind.