第20章

Now up to this point Sara Lee's mind had come to rest at Calais.She must get there; after that the other things would need to be worried over.Henri had already in their short acquaintance installed himself as the central figure of this strange and amazing interlude - not as a good-looking young soldier surprisingly fertile in expedients, but as a sort of agent of providence, by whom and through whom things were done.

And Henri had said she was to go to the Gare Maritime at Calais and make herself comfortable - if she got there.After that things would be arranged.

Sara Lee therefore took a hot bath, though hardly a satisfactory one, for there was no soap and she had brought none.She learned later on to carry soap with her everywhere.So she soaked the chill out of her slim body and then dressed.The room was cold, but a great exultation kept her warm.She had run the blockade, she had escaped the War Office - which, by the way, was looking her up almost violently by that time, via the censor.It had found the trunk she left at Morley's, and cross-questioned the maid into hys-teria - and here she was, safe in France, the harbor of Calais before her, and here and there strange-looking war craft taking on coal.Destroyers, she learned later.Her ignorance was rather appalling at first.

It was all unreal - the room with its cold steam pipes, the heavy window hangings, the very words on the hot and cold taps in the bathroom.A great vessel moved into the harbor.As it turned she saw its name printed on its side in huge letters, and the flag, also painted, of a neutral country - a hoped-for protection against German submarines.It brought home to her, rather, the thing she had escaped.

After a time she thought of food, but rather hopelessly.Her attempts to get savon from a stupid boy had produced nothing more useful than a flow of unintelligible French and no soap whatever.She tried a pantomime of washing her hands, but to the boy she had appeared to be merely wringingthem.And, as a great many females were wringing their hands in France those days, he had gone away, rather sorry for her.

When hunger drove her to the bell again he came back and found her with her little phrase book in her hands, feverishly turning the pages.She could find plenty of sentences such as "Garcon, vous avez renverse du vin sur ma robe," but not an egg lifted its shining pate above the pages.Not cereal.Not fruit.Not even the word breakfast.

Long, long after ward Sara Lee found a quite delightful breakfast hidden between two pages that were stuck together.But it was then far too late.

"Donnez-moi," began Sara Lee, and turned the pages rapidly, "this; do you see?" She had found roast beef.

The boy observed stolidly, in French, that it was not ready until noon.She was able to make out, from his failing to depart, that there was no roast beef.

" Good gracious!" she said, ravenous and exasperated."Go and get me some bread and coffee, anyhow." She repeated it, slightly louder.

That was the tableau that Henri found when, after a custom that may be war or may be Continental, he had inquired the number of her room and made his way there.

There was a twinkle in his blue eyes as he bowed before her - and a vast relief too.

"So you are here!" he said in a tone of satisfaction.He had put in an extremely bad night, even for him, by whom nights were seldom wasted in a bed.While he was with her something of her poise had communicated itself to him.He had felt the confidence, in men and affairs, that American girls are given as a birthright.And her desire for service he had understood as a year or two ago he could not have understood.But he had stood by the rail staring north, and cursing himself for having placed her in danger during the entire crossing.

There was nothing about him that morning, however to show his bad hours.He was debonnaire and smiling.

"I am famishing," said Sara Lee."And there are no eggs in this book -none whatever."

"Eggs! You wish eggs?"

"I just want food.Almost anything will do.I asked for eggs because they can come quickly."Henri turned to the boy and sent him off with a rapid order.Then: "May I come in?" he said.

Sara Lee cast an uneasy glance over the room.It was extremely tidy, and unmistakably it was a bedroom.But though her color rose she asked him in.After all, what did it matter? To have refused would have looked priggish, she said to herself.And as a matter of fact one of the early lessons she learned in France was learned that morning - that though convention had had to go, like many other things in the war, men who were gentlemen ignored its passing.

Henri came in and stood by the center table.

"Now, please tell me," he said."I have been most uneasy.On the quay last night you looked - frightened.""I was awfully frightened.Nothing happened.I even slept." "You were very brave.""I was very seasick." "I am sorry."

Henri took a turn up and down the room.