It was after seven when Sara Lee's turn came. The heavy-set man spoke

to her in French, but he failed to use a single one of the words she

had memorized.

"Don't you speak any English?" she asked helplessly.

"I do; but not much," he replied. Though his French had been rapid he

spoke English slowly. "How can we serve you, mademoiselle?"

"I don't want any assistance. I--I want to help, if I can."

"Here?"

"In France. Or Belgium."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"We have many offers of help. What we need, mademoiselle, is not

workers. We have, at our base hospital, already many English nurses."

"I am not a nurse."

"I am sorry. The whole world is sorry for Belgium, and many would work.

What we need"--he shrugged his shoulders again--"is food, clothing,

supplies for our brave little soldiers."

Sara Lee looked extremely small and young. The Belgian sat down on a

chair and surveyed her carefully.

"You English are doing a--a fine work for us," he observed. "We are

grateful. But of course the"--he hesitated--"the pulling up of an

entire people--it is colossal."

"But I am not English," said Sara Lee. "And I have a little money. I

want to make soup for your wounded men at a railway station or--any

place. I can make good soup. And I shall have money each month to buy

what I need."

Only then was Sara Lee admitted to the crowded little room.

Long afterward, when the lights behind the back drop had gone down and

Sara Lee was back again in her familiar setting, one of the clearest

pictures she retained of that amazing interlude was of that crowded

little room in the Savoy, its single littered desk, its two typewriters

creating an incredible din, a large gentleman in a dark-blue military

cape seeming to fill the room. And in corners and off stage, so to

speak, perhaps a half dozen men, watching her curiously.

The conversation was in French, and Sara Lee's acquaintance of the

passage acted as interpreter. It was only when Sara Lee found that a

considerable discussion was going on in which she had no part that she

looked round and saw her friend of two nights before and of the little

donkey. He was watching her intently, and when he caught her eye

he bowed.

Now men, in Sara Lee's mind, had until now been divided into the ones at

home, one's own kind, the sort who married one's friends or oneself, the

kind who called their wives "mother" after the first baby came, and were

easily understood, plain men, decent and God-fearing and self-respecting;

and the men of that world outside America, who were foreigners. One

might like foreigners, but they were outsiders.




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