She tried, sitting in the strange train with its small compartments, to
think of Harvey. She looked at her ring and tried to recall some of
the tender things he had said to her. But Harvey eluded her. She could
not hear his voice. And when she tried to see him it was Harvey of the
wide face and the angry eyes of the last days that she saw.
Morley's comforted her. The man at the door had been there for forty
years, and was beyond surprise. He had her story in twenty-four hours,
and in forty-eight he was her slave. The elderly chambermaid mothered
her, and failed to report that Sara Lee was doing a small washing in
her room and had pasted handkerchiefs over the ancient walnut of her
wardrobe.
"Going over, are you?" she said. "Dear me, what courage you've got,
miss! They tell me things is horrible over there."
"That's why I'm going," replied Sara Lee, and insisted on helping to
make up the bed.
"It's easier when two do it," she said casually.
Mr. Travers put in a fretful twenty-four hours before he came to see her.
He lunched at Brooks', and astounded an elderly member of the House by
putting her problem to him.
"A young girl!" exclaimed the M. P. "Why, deuce take it, it's no place
for a young girl."
"An American," explained Mr. Travers uncomfortably. "She's perfectly
able to look after herself."
"Probably a correspondent in disguise. They'll go to any lengths."
"She's not a correspondent."
"Let her stay in Boulogne. There's work there in the hospitals."
"She's not a nurse. She's a--well, she's a cook. Or so she says."
The M. P. stared at Mr. Travers, and Mr. Travers stared back defiantly.
"What in the name of God is she going to cook?"
"Soup," said Mr. Travers in a voice of suppressed irritation. "She's
got a little money, and she wants to establish a soup kitchen behind
the Belgian trenches on a line of communication. I suppose," he
continued angrily, "even you will admit that the Belgian Army needs all
the soup it can get."
"I don't approve of women near the lines."
"Neither do I. But I'm exceedingly glad that a few of them have the
courage to go there."
"What's she going to make soup out of?"
"I'm not a cooking expert. But I know her and I fancy she'll manage."