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."