skin."

So Sara Lee ate her dinner alone, such a dinner as a healthy skin and
body demanded. And she watched tall young Englishwomen with fine
shoulders go out with English officers in khaki, and listened to a babel
of high English voices, and--felt extremely alone and very subdued.

Henri came rather late. It was one of the things she was to learn about
him later--that he was frequently late. It was only long afterward that
she realized that such time as he spent with her was gained only at the
cost of almost superhuman effort. But that was when she knew Henri's
story, and his work. She waited for him in the reception room, where a
man and a woman were having coffee and talking in a strange tongue.
Henri found her there, at something before nine, rather downcast and
worried, and debating about going up to bed. She looked up, to find him
bowing before her.

"I thought you were not coming," she said.

"I? Not come? But I had said that I would come, mademoiselle. I may
sit down?"

Sara Lee moved over on the velvet sofa, and Henri lowered his long body
onto it. Lowered his voice, too, for the man and woman were staring at
him.

"I'm afraid I didn't quite understand about this afternoon," began Sara
Lee. "You spoke about taking a chance. I am not afraid of danger, if
that is what you mean."

"That, and a little more, mademoiselle," said Henri. "But now that I am
here I do not know."

His eyes were keen. Sara Lee had suddenly a strange feeling that he
was watching the couple who talked over their coffee, and that, oddly
enough, the couple were watching him. Yet he was apparently giving his
undivided attention to her.

"Have you walked any to-day?" he asked her unexpectedly.

Sara Lee remembered the bus, and, with some bitterness, the two taxis.

"I haven't had a chance to walk," she said.

"But you should walk," he said. "I--will you walk with me? Just about
the square, for air?" And in a lower tone: "It is not necessary that
those two should know the plan, mademoiselle."

"I'll get my coat and hat," Sara Lee said, and proceeded to do so in a
brisk and businesslike fashion. When she came down Henri was emerging
from the telephone booth. His face was impassive. And again when in
time Sara Lee was to know Henri's face better than she had ever known
Harvey's, she was to learn that the masklike look he sometimes wore
meant danger--for somebody.

They went out without further speech into the clear cold night. He