"The family comes from the West, I think," she remarked to Warner, as she took his arm. "Goodness, Jim, what a nuisance!—Not a horse in the stable, not a car to move about in. It looks to me as though we were marooned here.... But I am very happy to think that I could do even a little for our Government. I wish I could do more."
"You may have plenty of chances, Ethra," he said.
They walked through to the north terrace and stood for a while watching the conflagrations on the horizon.
The vast, slightly curved line of flickering points of fire no longer twinkled and played through the darkness, and the muttering of the cannonade had ceased. Only the three incendiary foci reddened the sky, their illuminated vapors billowing up and spreading away for leagues to the eastward.
There was a mist this night, delicately veiling the tops of the forest trees, and the perfume of lilies from the gardens saturated the night air.
Usually, when foggy conditions prevailed over the valley of the Récollette, the lights of Ausone were visible as a pinkish tinge in the sky. But this night no such tint was apparent; no signal lamps sparkled from the fort, not a light glimmered in the vast black void beyond, where miles and miles of darkness stretched away unlighted even by the wastes of star-set firmament above.
Ethra de Moidrey shrugged her pretty shoulders and turned back toward the billiard room, whither Peggy Brooks had already repaired for practice.
Philippa, remaining beside Warner, stood watching them through the lighted windows.
She was wearing her first evening gown—one of Peggy's gifts—a dainty affair of palest blue; and her full, smooth cheeks and throat accented the slim immaturity of her arms and shoulders.
She looked up, smiled faintly, and moved nearer with that unconscious instinct of youth for seeking contact where confidence and trust is placed. Her slim fingers, touching his, nestled into his hand with an eloquence unmistakable of innocent possession satisfied.