She dined alone that night, as usual. Henri did not appear, though she
had sent what she suspected was his only tunic back to him neatly mended
at five o'clock. As a matter of fact Henri was sound asleep. He had
meant to rest only for an hour a body that was crying aloud with fatigue.
But Jean, coming in quietly, had found him sleeping like a child, and
had put his own blanket over him and left him. Henri slept until morning,
when Jean, coming up from his vigil outside the American girl's door,
found him waking and rested, and rang for coffee.
Jean sat down on the edge of his bed and put on his shoes and puttees.
He was a taciturn man, but now he had something to say that he did not
like to say. And Henri knew it.
"What is it?" he asked, his arms under his head. "Come, let us have it!
It is, of course, about the American lady."
"It is," Jean said bluntly. "You cannot mix women and war."
"And you think I am doing that?"
"I am not an idiot," Jean growled. "You do not know what you are doing.
I do. She is young and lonely. You are young and not unattractive to
women. Already she turns pale when I so much as ask if she has heard
from you."
"You asked her that?"
"You were gone much longer than--"
"And you thought I might send her word, and not you!" Henri's voice was
offended. He lay back while the boy brought in the morning coffee and
rolls.
"Let me tell you something," he said when the boy had gone. "She is
betrothed to an American. She wears a betrothal ring. I am to her--the
French language!"
But, though Henri laughed, Jean remained grave and brooding. For Henri
had not said what Sara Lee already was to him.
It was later in the morning that Henri broached the subject again. They
were in the courtyard of an old house, working over the engine of the car.
"I think I have found a location for the young American lady," he said.
Jean hammered for a considerable time at a refractory rim.
"And where?" he asked at last.
Henri named the little town. Like Henri's family name, it must not be
told. Too many things happened there, and perhaps it is even now Henri's
headquarters. For that portion of the line has changed very little.