She kissed him at once gravely. Once she would have flushed. She did
not now. For there was a change in Sara Lee as well as in her outlook.
She had been seeing for months the shortness of life, the brief tenure
men held on it, the value of such happiness as might be for the hours
that remained. She was a woman now, for all her slim young body and her
charm of youth. Values had changed. To love, and to show that love, to
cheer, to comfort and help--that was necessary, because soon the chance
might be gone, and there would be long aching years of regret.
So she kissed him gravely and looked up into his eyes, her own full of
tears.
"God bless and keep you, dear Henri," she said.
Then she went back to her work.