He drew up a chair and waited, but the girl smiled rather tremulously.
"Perhaps we'd better wait, if you feel that way, Harvey."
His face was set as he looked at her.
"There's only one thing I want to know," he said. "And I've got a right
to know that. You're a young girl, and you're beautiful--to me, anyhow.
You've been over there with a lot of crazy foreigners." He got up again
and all the bitterness of the empty months was in his voice. "Did any
of them--was there anybody there you cared about?"
"I came back, Harvey."
"That's not the question."
"There were many men--officers--who were kind to me. I--"
"That's not the question, either."
"If I had loved any one more than I loved you I should not have come
back."
"Wait a minute!" he said quickly. "You had to come back, you know."
"I could have stayed. The Englishwoman who took over my work asked me
to stay on and help her."
He was satisfied then. He went back to the arm of her chair and kissed
her.
"All right," he said. "I've suffered the tortures of the damned,
but--that fixes it. Now let's talk about something else. I'm sick of
this war talk."
"I'd like to tell you about my little house. And poor Rene--"
"Who was Rene?" he demanded.
"The orderly."
"The one on the step, with a rifle?"
"Yes."
"Look here," he said. "I've got to get to all that gradually. I don't
know that I'll ever get to it cheerfully. But I can't talk about that
place to-night. And I don't want to talk war. The whole business makes
me sick. I've got a car out of it, and if things keep on we may be able
to get the Leete house. But there's no reason in it, no sense. I'm
sick to death of hearing about it. Let's talk of something else."
But--and here was something strange--Sara Lee could find nothing else
to talk about. The thing that she had looked forward so eagerly to
telling--that was barred. And the small gossip of their little circle,
purely personal and trivial, held only faint interest for her. For the
first time they had no common ground to meet on.
Yet it was a very happy man who went whistling to his room that night.
He was rather proud of himself too. After all the bitterness of the
past months, he had been gentle and loving to Sara Lee. He had not
scolded her.