Later on that evening, with Harvey's wide cheerful face turned adoringly

to her, Sara Lee formulated a question: "Don't you sometimes feel as though you'd like to go to France and fight?"

"What for?"

"Well, they need men, don't they?"

"I guess they don't need me, honey. I'd be the dickens of a lot of use!

Never fired a gun in my life."

"You could learn. It isn't hard."

Harvey sat upright and stared at her.

"Oh, if you want me to go--" he said, and waited.

Sara Lee twisted her ring on her finger.

"Nobody wants anybody to go," she said not very elegantly. "I'd

just--I'd rather like to think you wanted to go."

That was almost too subtle for Harvey. Something about him was rather

reminiscent of Uncle James on mornings when he was determined not to

go to church.

"It's not our fight," he said. "And as far as that goes, I'm not so

sure there isn't right on both sides. Or wrong. Most likely wrong.

I'd look fine going over there to help the Allies, and then making up my

mind it was the British who'd spilled the beans. Now let's talk about

something interesting--for instance, how much we love each other."

It was always "we" with Harvey. In his simple creed if a girl accepted

a man and let him kiss her and wore his ring it was a reciprocal love

affair. It never occurred to him that sometimes as the evening dragged

toward a close Sara Lee was just a bit weary of his arms, and that she

sought, after he had gone, the haven of her little white room, and closed

the door, and had to look rather a long time at his photograph before

she was in a properly loving mood again.

But that night after his prolonged leave-taking Sara Lee went upstairs

to her room and faced the situation.

She was going to marry Harvey. She was committed to that. And she loved

him; not as he cared, perhaps, but he was a very definite part of her

life. Once or twice when he had been detained by business she had missed

him, had put in a lonely and most unhappy evening.

Sara Lee had known comparatively few men. In that small and simple

circle of hers, with its tennis court in a vacant lot, its one or two

inexpensive cars, its picnics and porch parties, there was none of the

usual give and take of more sophisticated circles. Boys and girls paired

off rather early, and remained paired by tacit agreement; there was

comparatively little shifting. There were few free lances among the men,

and none among the girls. When she was seventeen Harvey had made it

known unmistakably that Sara Lee was his, and no trespassing. And for

two years he had without intentional selfishness kept Sara Lee for

himself.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024