"But," said Sara Lee slowly, "I-I- can't be on your hands, you know.You must have many things to do.If you are going to have to order my meals and all that, I'm going to he a dreadful burden.""But you will learn very quickly." "I'm stupid about languages."Henri dismissed that with a gesture.She could not, he felt, be stupid about anything.He went to the window and looked out.The destroyers were still coaling, and a small cargo was being taken off the boat at the quay.The rain was over, and in the early sunlight an officer in blue tunic, red breeches and black cavalry boots was taking the air, his head bent over his chest.Not a detail of the scene escaped him.
"I have agreed to find the right place for you," he said thoughtfully.
"There is one, but I think - " He hesitated."I do not wish to place you again in danger.""You mean that it is near the Front?" "Very near, mademoiselle.""But I should be rather near, to be useful.""Perhaps, for your work.But what of you? These brutes - they shell far and wide.One can never be sure."He paused and surveyed her whimsically.
"Who allowed you to come, alone, like this?" he demanded."Is there no one who objected?"Sara Lee glanced down at her ring.
"The man I am going to marry.He is very angry.
Henri looked at her, and followed her eyes to Harvey's ring.He said nothing, however, but he went over and gave the bell cord a violent jerk.
"You must have food quickly," he said in a rather flat voice."You are looking tired and pale."A sense of unreality was growing on Sara Lee.That she should be alone in France with a man she had never seen three days before; that she knew nothing whatever about that man; that, for the present at least, she was utterly and absolutely dependent on him, even for the food she ate - it was all of a piece with the night's voyage and the little room at the Savoy.And it was none of it real.
When the breakfast tray came Henri was again at the window and silent.And Sara Lee saw that it was laid for two.She was a little startled, but the businesslike way in which the young officer drew up two chairs and held one out for her made protest seem absurd.And the flat-faced boy, who waited, looked unshocked and uninterested.
It was not until she had had some coffee that Henri followed up his line of thought.
"So - the fiance did not approve? It is not difficult to understand.There is always danger, for there are German aeroplanes even in remote places.And you are very young.You still wish to establish yourself, mademoiselle?""Of course!"
"Would it be a comfort to cable your safe arrival in France to the flance?" When he saw her face he smiled.And if it was a rather heroic smile it was none the less friendly."I see.What shall I say? Or will you write it?"So Sara Lee, vastly cheered by two cups of coffee, an egg, and a very considerable portion of bread and butter, wrote her cable.It was to be brief, for cables cost money.It said, "Safe.Well.Love." And Henri, who seemed to have strange and ominous powers, sent it almost immediately.Total cost, as reported to Sara Lee, two francs.He took the money she offered him gravely.
"We shall cable quite often," he said."He will be anxious.And I think he has a right to know."The "we" was entirely unconscious.
"And now," he said, when he had gravely allowed Sara Lee to pay her half of the breakfast, "we must arrange to get you out of Calais.And that, mademoiselle, may take time."It took time.Sara Lee, growing accustomed now to little rooms entirely filled with men and typewriters, went from one office to another, walking along the narrow pavements with Henri, through streets filled with soldiers.Once they drew aside to let pass a procession of Belgian refugees, those who had held to their village homes until bombardment had destroyed them - stout peasant women in short skirts and with huge bundles, old men, a few young ones, many children.The terror of the early flight was not theirs, but there was in all of them a sort of sodden hopelessness that cut Sara Lee to the heart.In an irregular column they walked along, staring ahead but seeing nothing.Even the children looked old and tired.
Sara Lee's eyes filled with tears.
"My people," said Henri."Simple country folk, and going to England, where they will grieve for the things that are gone - their fields and their sons.The old ones will die, quickly, of homesickness.It is difficult to transplant an old tree."The final formalities seemed to offer certain difficulties.Henri, who liked to do things quickly and like a prince, flushed with irritation.He drew himself up rather haughtily in reply to one question, and glanced uneasily at the girl.But it was all as intelligible as Sanskrit to her.
It was only after a whispered sentence to the man at the head of the table that the paper was finally signed.
As they went down to the street together Sara Lee made a little protest."But I simply must not take all your time," she said, looking up anxiously."I begin to realize how foolhardy the whole thing is.I meantwell, but - it is you who are doing everything; not I.""I shall not make the soup, mademoiselle," he replied gravely.
