"I think not." Colonel Lilias put a hand on Henri's shoulder affectionately. "They have not your finesse, boy. And I doubt if, in all their army, they have so brave a man."
Henri flushed.
"There is a courage under fire, with their fellows round—that is one thing. And a courage of attack—that is even more simple. But the bravest man is the one who works alone—the man to whom capture is death without honor."
The meeting broke up. Jean and Henri went away in the car, and though supplies came up regularly Sara Lee did not see the battered gray car for four days. At the end of that time Henri came alone. Jean, he said briefly, was laid up for a little while with a flesh wound in his shoulder. He would be well very soon. In the meantime here at last was mutton. It had come from England, and he, Henri, had found it lying forgotten and lonely and very sad and had brought it along.
After that Henri disappeared on foot. It was midafternoon and a sunny day. Sara Lee saw him walking briskly across the fields and watched him out of sight. She spoke some French now, and she had gathered from René, who had no scruples about listening at a door, that Henri was the bravest man in the Belgian Army.
Until now Sara Lee had given small thought to Henri's occupation. She knew nothing of war, and the fact that Henri, while wearing a uniform, was unattached, had not greatly impressed her. Had she known the constitution of a modern army she might have wondered over his freedom, his powerful car, his passes and maps. But his detachment had not seemed odd to her. Even his appearance during the bombardment in the uniform of a German lieutenant had meant nothing to her. She had never seen a German uniform.
That evening, however, when he returned she ventured a question. They dined together, the two of them, for the first time at the little house alone. Always before Jean had made the third. And it was a real meal, for Sara Lee had sacrificed a bit of mutton from her soup, and Henri had produced from his pocket a few small and withered oranges.
"A gift!" he said gayly, and piled them in a precarious heap in the center of the table. On the exact top he placed a walnut.
"Now speak gently and walk softly," he said. "It is a work of art and not to be lightly demolished."
He was alternately gay and silent during the meal, and more than once Sara Lee found his eyes on her, with something new and different in them.