also painted, of a
neutral country--a hoped-for protection against German submarines. It
brought home to her, rather, the thing she had escaped.

After a time she thought of food, but rather hopelessly. Her attempts
to get _savon_ from a stupid boy had produced nothing more useful than
a flow of unintelligible French and no soap whatever. She tried a
pantomime of washing her hands, but to the boy she had appeared to be
merely wringing them. And, as a great many females were wringing their
hands in France those days, he had gone away, rather sorry for her.

When hunger drove her to the bell again he came back and found her with
her little phrase book in her hands, feverishly turning the pages. She
could find plenty of sentences such as "_Garcon, vous avez renverse du
vin sur ma robe_," but not an egg lifted its shining pate above the
pages. Not cereal. Not fruit. Not even the word breakfast.

Long, long afterward Sara Lee found a quite delightful breakfast
hidden between two pages that were stuck together. But it was then far
too late.

"_Donnez-moi_," began Sara Lee, and turned the pages rapidly, "this; do
you see?" She had found roast beef.

The boy observed stolidly, in French, that it was not ready until noon.
She was able to make out, from his failing to depart, that there was no
roast beef.

"Good gracious!" she said, ravenous and exasperated. "Go and get me
some bread and coffee, anyhow." She repeated it, slightly louder.

That was the tableau that Henri found when, after a custom that may be
war or may be Continental, he had inquired the number of her room and
made his way there.

There was a twinkle in his blue eyes as he bowed before her--and a vast
relief too.

"So you are here!" he said in a tone of satisfaction. He had put in an
extremely bad night, even for him, by whom nights were seldom wasted in
a bed. While he was with her something of her poise had communicated
itself to him. He had felt the confidence, in men and affairs, that
American girls are given as a birthright. And her desire for service
he had understood as a year or two ago he could not have understood.
But he had stood by the rail staring north, and cursing himself for
having placed her in danger during the entire crossing.

There was nothing about him that morning, however to show his bad
hours. He was debonnaire and smiling.

"I am famishing," said Sara Lee. "And there are no eggs in this
book--none whatever."

"Eggs! You w