The Old Blood Part 35

"Very effectual, always!" replied the vicar. "Now, he was standing about like this, and you ducked like this to let his blow by?"

"My dear, this is positively shocking!" gasped his wife, mindful that they were in the village street at the time.

"Then you gave it to him like this----" and there the vicar of Truckleford brought his fist up in correct fashion and pressed it against the correct section of Phil's physiognomy. "Exactly!" he concluded, chuckling. "I remember once I used it in a little row--before I had taken orders, my dear, before I had taken orders!"

When they turned in at the vicarage gate they found Madame Ribot at ease on a lawn chair in the shade near the tea-table, looking as charming as usual and with a novel on her lap as usual.

"Now I may thank you in person for the part of a brave gentleman that you have played!" she said to Phil in her delightful way. "And you, my truant Helen, you've found time to come and see your mother, too," she added, as she embraced Helen.

"But have you seen this?" demanded Phil when all were seated around the tea-table. "We have a distinguished person with us. I had the honour of riding down in the train with her from London--with none other than that celebrated artist who is now sipping tea out of a cup just like any everyday person."

He held up the double page for all to see. Helen continued to look into her teacup as they pa.s.sed the picture around.

"Very timely! Just what the editors wanted," said Henriette. "I'm so glad, Helen!"

Madame Ribot seemed most surprised of all at the actuality of the thing. She drew a long breath of realising satisfaction.

"And you did this in the midst of all that sh.e.l.lfire, you poor dear--I mean----" exclaimed Mrs. Sanford.

"Oh, I don't mind being called poor dear!" said Helen in a soft, impersonal way. "What a bad-tempered person I have been!" she added.

The vicar rose from his chair and went over to Helen, taking her hand in his and patting her on the head. In his heart he had ever been as fond of Helen as had General Rousseau, though fondness for Helen was not the fashion among the friends of the Ribots. A little success had made her almost important.

"And the sh.e.l.l that hit between us, did you hear about that?" Phil went on.

"No," said the vicar. "Henriette didn't mention that. What about it?

We heard how Helen fainted when she saw the wounded soldier."

"No fainting this time--a coal box, bang in our faces! I thought that our artist was gone forever."

"If you keep this up," said Helen, "you will make people think that it was I who was the hero of the movies and knocked the villain down; and in that event I shall have to publish the cartoon of you doing it as doc.u.mentary evidence to the contrary. Beware of the power of the press!"

He had won one of her laughs and a full tilt of challenge from her eyes.

"And who cried good and clapped her hand?" he asked.

"The a.s.sembled hero-worshipping mult.i.tude!" she replied.

For the moment in their banter they had taken possession of the conversation. Suddenly Helen realised it. She had been teased and she was giving him as good as he sent. The smile died on her lips; the flame out of her eyes. She was plain Helen drinking tea in silence and wishing that she was not there. When her mother made some remark, she slipped away into the house and out by a side entrance into the lane, glad to be alone.

It had all pa.s.sed by the ears of the vicar and his wife as young people's nonsense, pleasant to hear. These two could think of only one thing: the fact of Phil's presence; the fact that there was a Sanford to fight for the cause.

As he turned to Henriette, Madame Ribot was watching, while pretending to look at the pictures in the weekly. She wanted to know the effect of the ten days which they had spent at the chateau together. Scarcely perceptible the set frown on her brow, which was only erased when an automobile stopped at the gate. Madame Ribot liked the low purring of costly motors. It was as rich and delectable to her as the rustling of silk.

The Marquis of Truckleford had come to see the vicar about Belgian refugee plans and other war work, which, for the first time in weeks, had not been the princ.i.p.al topic of conversation at the vicarage tea-table. Phil was not used to meeting marquises; few work on construction gangs in the Southwest or are seen in New England villages. He did not know how you "My Lorded" or "Your Graced" them, or whatever it was, or how often; but he talked to the Marquis without self-consciousness, just as he would to any other human being, and the results seemed quite satisfactory. The Marquis inquired about the ident.i.ty of the general whom Phil had seen at the War Office.

"So Duggy made you a second lieutenant!" said the Marquis. "Sound chap! So, so! I'll write a letter about you to Starrow, who is a peg above Duggy. Must say I liked the way that you knocked that Hun down.

The vicar and I were puzzled. What was it, a straight lead with the right?"

"No, an upper cut, like this!" interrupted the vicar, giving another exhibition of how it was done.

"Just as I said from the start!" declared His Lordship. "Pleased the old chap in the frame in the dining-room, wouldn't it?"

CHAPTER XXV

HENRIETTE WAITS

At dinner Phil was seated again under the English ancestor, only to find that this did not mean an escape from ancestors, as he was facing the American. The vicar had had the photograph of the statue at Longfield framed, and on the opposite side of the room the man of Ma.s.sachusetts seeking the blood of British redcoats was charging toward the man of Hampshire, who, with uptilted chin, was defying all comers.

"At breakfast some morning you may find the table overturned, chairs broken and the dining-room all gory," Phil said.

"Really!" gasped Mrs. Sanford. She was so serious about the ancestors that at first she took him literally.

"The American is better dressed for such an affair," Phil continued, "but I fancy that the Briton did his fighting in shirt-sleeves, too.

He was in that ornate get-up only when he posed for his portrait."

"They would both be in shirt-sleeves for this cause!" declared the vicar.

"Yes, and perhaps for the cause for which the American fought, too,"

Phil suggested.

"Very likely. I am proud of them both!" said the vicar.

But he and Mrs. Sanford were proudest of the living Sanford who was going to fight in the cause of the moment. The hour was the living hour of blows. Here was one who was about to strike a blow for a childless pair, who had never so much wanted a son as then in order that they might give him for their country. A son of their blood had come to them, now. They wanted to know more about him, his boyhood, his school-days, and the campaigns of the revolutionary ancestor--everything that put links in the chain of inheritance. Phil complied when he realised the genuineness of their interest, but found himself stumbling in details.

"Father knows everything he did," he said. "In fact, we have his diary; but I confess----"

"Too much ancestor!" put in Helen.

It was the first that she had spoken, and even this exclamation was casual and disinterested. Seated across from him as she had been at the first dinner, her plain part in her plain gown was much the same as then, only she was more subdued. Henriette was by his side, in the same part of beautiful woman and beautiful gown. She added her questions to the vicar's. Madame Ribot's only question was about Peter Smithers.

"We must get him to Europe," she said, when the vicar and Mrs. Sanford were declaring that now Phil's father and mother would surely come to England on their long-promised visit.

"I'd like to see Peter in Europe," said Phil.

"So should I!" declared Helen irresistibly. "I should like to have seen him having a set-to with von Stein."

What a cartoon! A whole series of Peter Smithers in moods of rage and humility; Peter shaking his fist; Peter threatened with firing squads and blank walls; Peter and old von Stein--there you had a contrast!

Her eyes were dancing; she was laughing to herself as the pictures flitted before her vision, only to bite her lip when she noticed her mother's stare and lapse into the marking-time att.i.tude which she had planned to take her through the meal.

"Yes, of course we must invite Peter," said Madame Ribot. "Do write to Dr. Sanford about it."

"Do, please!" chimed in Henriette.

The vicar was looking to Phil for his lead in the matter.