第35章

An ordinary mortal may not interrupt a king, but a king may interrupt anything, except perhaps a German bombardment.

"Intervals, of course.If there were not you would be done in a month." "But I am a soldier.My place is -""Your place is where you are most useful."Henri was getting nothing out of the cigar.He flung it away and gotup.

"I want to fight too," he said stubbornly."We need every man, and Iam - rather a good shot.I do this other because I can do it.I speak their infernal tongue.But it's dirty business at the best, sire.He remembered to put in the sire, but rather ungraciously.Indeed he shot it out like a bullet.

"Dirty business!" said the King thoughtfully."I see what you mean.It is, of course.But - not so dirty as the things they have done, and are doing."He sat still and let Henri stamp up and down, because, as has been said, he knew the boy.And he had never been one to insist on deference, which was why he got so much of it.But at last he got up and when Henri stood still, rather ashamed of himself, he put an arm over the boy's shoulders.

"I want you to do this thing, for me.And this thing only," he said."It is the work you do best.There are others who can fight, but - I do not know any one else who can do as you have done."Henri promised.He would have promised to go out and drown himself in the sea, just beyond the wind-swept little garden, for the tall grave man who stood before him.Then he bowed and went out, and the King went back to his plain pine table and his work.That was the reason why Sara Lee found him asleep on the floor by her kitchen stove that morning, and went back to her cold bed to lie awake and think.But no explanation came to her.

The arrival of Marie roused Henri.The worst of the bombardment was over, but there was far-away desultory firing.He listened carefully before, standing outside in the cold, he poured over his head and shoulders a pail of cold water.He was drying himself vigorously when he heard Sara Lee'svoice in the kitchen.

The day began for Henri when first he saw the girl.It might be evening, but it was the beginning for him.So he went in when he had finished his toilet and bowed over her hand.

"You are cold, mademoiselle."

"I think I am nervous.There was an attack this morning." "Yes?"Marie had gone into the next room, and Sara Lee raised haggard eyes to his.

"Henri," she said desperately - it was the first time she had called him that -" I have something to say to you, and it's not very pleasant.""You are going home?" It was the worst thing he could think of.But she shook her head.

"You will think me most ungrateful and unkind." "You? Kindness itself!""But this is different.It is not for myself.It is because I care a great deal about - about -""Mademoiselle!"

"About your honor.And somehow this morning, when I found you here asleep, and those poor fellows in the trenches fighting -"Henri stared at her.So that was it! And he could never tell her.He was sworn to secrecy by every tradition and instinct of his work.He could never tell her, and she would go on thinking him a shirker and a coward.She would be grateful.She would be sweetness itself.But deep in her heart she would loathe him, as only women can hate for a failing they never forgive.

"But I have told you," he said rather wildly, "I am not idle.I do certain things - not much, but of a degree of importance.""You do not fight."

In Sara Lee's defense many things may be urged - her ignorance of modern warfare; the isolation of her lack of knowledge of the language; but, perhaps more than anything, a certain rigidity of standard that comprehended no halfway ground.Right was right and wrong was wrongto her in those days.Men were brave or were cowards.Henri was worthy or unworthy.And she felt that, for all his kindness to her, he was unworthy.

He could have set himself right with a word, at that.But his pride was hurt.He said nothing except, when she asked if he had minded what she said, to reply:

"I am sorry you feel as you do.I am not angry."He went away, however, without breakfast.Sara Lee heard his car going at its usual breakneck speed up the street, and went to the door.She would have called him back if she could, for his eyes haunted her.But he did not look back.