"But you--you have been fighting!" she gasped.
"I? No, mademoiselle. There has been no battle." His eyes left her
and traveled over the room. "They are doing everything for you? They
are attentive?"
"Everything is splendid," said Sara Lee. "If you won't tell me how you
got into that condition, at least you can send your coat down to me to
mend."
"My tunic!" He looked at it smilingly. "You would do that?"
"I am nearly frantic for something to do."
He smiled, and suddenly bending down he took her hand and kissed it.
"You are not only very beautiful, mademoiselle, but you are very good."
He went away then, and Sara Lee got out her sewing things. The tunic
came soon, carefully brushed and very ragged. But it was not Jean who
brought it; it was the Flemish boy.
And upstairs in a small room with two beds Sara Lee might have been
surprised to find Jean, the chauffeur, lying on one, while Henri shaved
himself beside the other. For Jean, of the ragged uniform and the patch
over one eye, was a count of Belgium, and served Henri because he loved
him. And because, too, he was no longer useful in that little army
where lay his heart.
Sometime a book will be written about the Jeans of this war, the great
friendships it has brought forth between men. And not the least of its
stories will be that of this Jean of the one eye. But its place is not
here.
And perhaps there will be a book about the Henris, also. But not for a
long time, and even then with care. For the heroes of one department of
an army in the field live and die unsung. Their bravest exploits are
buried in secrecy. And that is as it must be. But it is a fine tale to
go untold.
After he had bathed and shaved, Henri sat down at a tiny table and wrote.
He drew a plan also, from a rough one before him. Then he took a match
and burned the original drawing until it was but charred black ashes.
When he had finished Jean got up from the bed and put on his overcoat.
"To the King?" he said.
"To the King, old friend."
Jean took the letter and went out.
Down below, Sara Lee sat with Henri's ragged tunic on her lap and
stitched carefully. Sometime, she reflected, she would be mending worn
garments for another man, now far away. A little flood of tenderness
came over her. So helpless these men! There was so much to do for them!
And soon, please God, she would be helping other tired and weary men,
with food, and perhaps a word--when she had acquired some French--and
perhaps a thread and needle.