"Need you, mademoiselle?"
"Do they need what little I can give? They were smiling, all the ones I saw."
"A Belgian soldier always smiles. Even when he is fighting." His voice had lost its gayety and had taken on a deeper note. "Mademoiselle, I have brought you here, where I can think of no other woman who would have the courage to come, because you are needed. I cannot promise you entire safety"—his mouth tightened—"but I can promise you work and gratitude. Such gratitude, mademoiselle, as you may never know again."
That reassured her. But in her practical mind the matter of supplies loomed large. She brought the matter up again directly.
"It is to be hot chocolate and soup?" he asked.
"Both, if I find I have enough money. Soup only, perhaps."
"And soup takes meat, of course."
"It should, to be strengthening."
Henri looked up, to see Jean in the doorway smiling grimly.
"It is very simple," Jean said to him in French. "You have no other duties of course; so each day you shall buy in the market place at Dunkirk, with American money. And I shall become a delivery boy and bring out food for mademoiselle, and whatever is needed."