"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.

By a cas.e.m.e.nt window a girl, with hair like the dusk, stood gazing towards the road that was hidden in darkness. Silently and motionless she watched the melancholy drops of rain as they fell upon the gla.s.s, until, unconsciously, her lips parted and she sang, very softly, the little song taught to the maiden in the story by the lonely shepherd:

"Maman, dites moi ce qu'on sent quand on aime.

Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?"

She paused in the improvised melody, and repeated the words slowly.

"Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?"

And then the little mistress of the mill laid herself upon her bed and wept profusely; but whether it was because she was happy or because she was sorrowful, let those explain who understand the psychology of a woman's tears.

Downstairs, Louis and the miller slept profoundly.

V

It was several months later that an airman emerged from his hut into the chilly air of an April night that was lingering grudgingly over its last hour of darkness. There was a sullen rumble of guns borne on a restless breeze that stirred the long gra.s.s of the fields and set the leaves in the trees whispering and quivering. The drone could be heard of a lonely aeroplane returning from its night-ride over the enemy lines.... Above the distant roll of the artillery, one gun stood out like a pizzicato note on a giant ba.s.s violin.

The airman pa.s.sed the silent aerodrome, and, with difficulty accustoming himself to the darkness, made out the shadow of a machine in the adjoining field. He heard the sigh of cylinders sucking in the petrol as the mechanics warmed the machine, and walked over to it. For a moment he spoke to the men before climbing into the pilot's seat.

There followed the incisive monotone of the flier's incantation between himself and the non-commissioned officer.

"Petrol on: switch off."

"Petrol on: switch off."

"Contact."

"Contact."

The propellers were swung into action, hesitated for a moment, then wheezily subsided.

The incantation was repeated; the propeller blades coughed, and leaped into a deafening roar. The mechanics sprang aside, and the machine, stumbling forward for a few yards, turned into the wind. There was a sudden acceleration of the propeller, a crescendo from the engines, and the machine made swiftly across the field, rising as it attained flying speed, and disappearing into the night.

A few moments later its light was mixing with the dulling stars, and the drone of its engine could be heard only at the whim of the breeze.

"I wonder what the Black Cat's up to now," said mechanic No. 1, rubbing his hands together for warmth. "Rum beggar, isn't he?"

His companion slapped his breast with his arms and blew on his fingers.

"Mad as a March hare," he growled; "takes a two-seater out at this time of night."

"And did you notice the extra outfit?"

"He's mad," repeated the before-dawn psychologist, "mad as a rabbit."

"But he's a mighty stout boy," interposed the N.C.O., who was torn between his duty of keeping discipline and his love of character study; "and he sure puts the wind up Fritz when he takes off with his Black Cat Bristol fighter."

The blackness of night was beginning to give way to a dull and sullen gray as the solitary pilot made a detour over the lines. In the gloom beneath he could see a long crescent of orange-colored flashes where the British guns were maintaining their endless pounding of the enemy.