"Then I shall not go. How can you think that I would consider my own safety and leave them here?"
Jean had ascertained before speaking that Marie was not in the house. As for René, he sat on the single doorstep and whittled pegs on which to hang his rifle inside the door. And as he carved he sang words of his own to the tune of Tipperary.
Inside the little salle à manger Jean reassured Sara Lee. It was important—vital—that René and Marie should not know far in advance of the bombardment. They were loyal, certainly, but these were his orders. In abundance of time they would be warned to leave the village.
"Who is to warn them?"
"Henri has promised, mademoiselle. And what he promises is done."
"You said this morning that he was in England."
"He has returned."
Sara Lee's heart, which had been going along merely as a matter of duty all day, suddenly began to beat faster. Her color came up, and then faded again. He had returned, and he had not come to the little house. But then—what could Henri mean to her, his coming or his going? Was she to add to her other sins against Harvey the supreme one of being interested in Henri?
Not that she said all that, even to herself. There was a wave of gladness and then a surge of remorse. That is all. But it was a very sober Sara Lee who put on her black suit with the white collar that afternoon and ordered, by Jean's suggestion, the evening's preparations as though nothing was to happen.
She looked round her little room before she left it. It might not be there when she returned. So she placed Harvey's photograph under her mattress for safety, and rather uncomfortably she laid beside it the small ivory crucifix that Henri had found in a ruined house and brought to her. Harvey was not a Catholic. He did not believe in visualizing his religion. And she had a distinct impression that he considered such things as did so as bordering on idolatry.