第43章

"Not so dangerous as it looks," said Sara Lee, smiling."The Germans seldom bother the town now.It is not worth while."Later on they went over the house.They climbed the broken staircase nd stared toward the break in the poplar trees, from the roofless floor above.

"Some girl!" one of them said in an undertone.

The others were gazing intently toward the Front.Never before had they been so close.Never had they seen a ruined town.War, until now, had been a thing of Valcartier, of a long voyage, of much drill in the mud at Salisbury Plain.Now here they saw, at their feet, what war could do.

"Damn them!" said one of the boys suddenly."Fellows, we'll get back at them soon."So they went away, a trifle silent and very grateful.But before they left they had a glimpse of Sara Lee's room, with the corner gone, and Harvey's picture on the mantel.

"Some girl!" they repeated as they drove up the street.It was the tribute of inarticulate youth.

Sara Lee went back to her bandages and her thoughts.She had not a great deal of time to think, what with the officers stopping in to fight their paper-and-pin battles, and with letters to write and dressings to make and supplies to order.She began to have many visitors - officers from the French lines, correspondents on tours of the Front, and once even an English cabinet member, who took six precious lumps of sugar in his tea nd dug a piece of shell out of the wall with his pocketknife as a souvenir.

Once a British aviator brought his machine down in the field by the mill, and walked over with the stiff stride of a man who has been for hours in the air.She gave him tea and bread and butter, and she learned then of the big fighting that was to come.

When she was alone she thought about Henri.Generally her thoughts were tender; always they were grateful.But she was greatly puzzled.He had said that he loved her.Then, if he loved her, why should he not be gentle and kind to her? Men did not hurt the women they loved.And because she was hurt, she was rather less than just.He had not asked herto marry him.He had said that he loved her, but that was different.And the insidious poison of Harvey's letter about foreigners began to have its effect.

The truth was that she was tired.The strain was telling on her.And at a time when she needed every moral support Henri had drawn off behind a wall of misery, and all her efforts at a renewal of their old friendship only brought up against a sort of stony despair.

There were times, too, when she grew a little frightened.She was so alone.What if Henri went away altogether? What if he took away the little car, and his protection, and the supplies that came so regularly? It was not a selfish fear.It was for her work that she trembled.

For the first time she realized her complete dependence on his good will.And now and then she felt that it would be good to see Harvey again, and be safe from all worry, and not have to depend on a man who loved her as Henri did.For that she never doubted.Inexperienced as she was in such matters, she knew that the boy loved her.Just how wildly she did not know until later, too late to undo what the madness had done.

Then one day a strange thing happened.It had been raining, and when in the late afternoon the sun came out it gleamed in the puddles that filled the shell holes in the road and set to a red blaze the windows of the house of the mill.

First, soaring overhead, came a half dozen friendly planes.Next, the eyes of the enemy having thus been blinded, so to speak, there came a regiment of fresh troops, swinging down the street for all the world as though the German Army was safely drinking beer in Munich.They passed Rene, standing open-mouthed in the doorway, and one wag of a Belgian boy, out of sheer joy of spring, did the goose step as he passed the little sentry and, head screwed round in the German salute, crossed his eyes over his impudent nose.

Came, then, the planes.Came the regiment, which turned off into a field and there spread itself, like a snake uncoiling, into a double line.Came a machine, gray and battered, containing officers.Came a general with gold braid on his shoulder, and a pleasant smile.Came the strangeevent.

The general found Sara Lee in the salle manger cutting cotton into three-inch squares, and he stood in the doorway and bowed profoundly.

"Mademoiselle Kennedy?" he inquired.

Sara Lee replied to that, and then gave a quick thought to her larder.Because generals usually meant tea.But this time at last Sara Lee was to receive something, not to give.She turned very white when she was told, and said she had not deserved it; she was indeed on the verge of declining, not knowing that there are certain things one does not decline.But Marie brought her hat and jacket - a smiling, tremulous Marie - and Sara Lee put them on.