"What shall I do?" she asked nervously.
"He will shake hands, mademoiselle. Bow as he approaches. That is all."
The amazing interlude, indeed! With Sara Lee being decorated by the King, and troops drawn up to do her honor, and over all the rumbling of the great guns. A palpitating and dazed Sara Lee, when the decoration was fastened to her black jacket, a Sara Lee whose hat blew off at exactly the worst moment and rolled, end on, like a hoop, into a puddle.
But, oddly, she did not mind about the hat. She had only one conscious thought just then. She hoped that, wherever Uncle James might be in that world of the gone before, he might know what was happening to her—or even see it. He would have liked it. He had believed in the Belgians and in the King. And now—the King did not go at once. He went back to the little house and went through it. And he and one of his generals climbed to the upper floor, and the King stood looking out silently toward the land he loved and which for a time was no longer his.
He came down after a time, stooping his tall figure in the low doorway, and said he would like some tea. So Marie put the kettle on, and Sara Lee and the King talked. It was all rather dazing. Every now and then she forgot certain instructions whispered her by the general, and after a time the King said: "Why do you do that, mademoiselle?"
For Sara Lee, with an intent face and moving lips, had been stepping backward.
Sara Lee flushed to the eyes.
"Because, sire, I was told to remain at a distance of six feet."
"But we are being informal," said the King, smiling. "And it is a very little room."
Sara Lee, who had been taught in the schoolroom that kings are usurpers of the divine rights of the people—Sara Lee lost just a bit of her staunch democracy that day. She saw the King of the Belgians for what he really was, a ruler, but a symbol as well. He represented his country, as the Flag she loved represented hers. The flag was America, the King was Belgium. That was all.