A people who had for centuries insisted not only on its rights but on
its privileges was now giving as freely as ever it had demanded. It
was as though, having hoarded all those years, it had but been hoarding
against the day of payment. As it had received it gave--in money, in
effort, in life. And without pretext.
So the Traverses, having given up all that had made life for them, sent
a clipping only, and no comment. Sara Lee, through a mist of tears,
saw them alone in their drawing-room, having tea as usual, and valiantly
speaking of small things, and bravely facing the future, but never, in
the bitterest moments, making complaint or protest.
Would America, she wondered, if her hour came, be so brave? Harvey had
a phrase for such things. It was "stand the gaff." Would America stand
the gaff so well? Courage was America's watchword, but a courage of the
body rather than of the soul--physical courage, not moral. What would
happen if America entered the struggle and the papers were filled, as
were the British and the French, with long casualty lists, each name a
knife thrust somewhere?
She wondered.
And then, before long, it was Sara Lee's turn to stand the gaff. There
was another letter, a curiously incoherent one from Harvey's sister. She
referred to something that the society had done, and hoped that Sara Lee
would take it in kindness, as it was meant. Harvey was well and much
happier. She was to try to understand Harvey's part. He had been
almost desperate. Evidently the letter had preceded one that should have
arrived at the same time. Sara Lee was sadly puzzled. She went to Henri
with it, but he could make nothing out of it. There was nothing to do
but to wait.
The next night Henri was to go through the lines again. Since his
wounding he had been working on the Allied side, and fewer lights there
were in his district that flashed the treacherous message across the
flood, between night and morning. But now it was imperative that he go
through the German lines again. It was feared that with grappling hooks
the enemy was slowly and cautiously withdrawing the barbed wire from the
inundated fields; and that could mean but one thing.
On the night he was to go Henri called Sara Lee from the crowded salle a
manger and drawing her into the room across closed the door.
"Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "once before, long ago, you permitted
me to kiss you. Will you do that for me again?"