“They are not all like that,” broke in Mr. Travers hastily.

“Of course not.  But I merely think that Miss—­er—­Kennedy should know both sides of the picture.”

Somewhat later Sara Lee was ushered downstairs by the neat maid, who stood on the steps and blew a whistle for a taxi—­Sara Lee had come in a bus.  She carried in her hand the address of a Belgian commission of relief at the Savoy Hotel, and in her heart, for the first time, a doubt of her errand.  She gave the Savoy address mechanically and, huddled in a corner, gave way to wild and fearful misgivings.

Coming up she had sat on top of the bus and watched with wide curious, eyes the strange traffic of London.  The park had fascinated her—­the little groups of drilling men in khaki, the mellow tones of a bugle, and here and there on the bridle paths well-groomed men and women on horseback, as clean-cut as the horses they rode, and on the surface as careless of what was happening across the Channel.  But she saw nothing now.  She sat back and twisted Harvey’s ring on her finger, and saw herself going back, her work undone, her faith in herself shattered.  And Harvey’s arms and the Leete house ready to receive her.

However, a ray of hope opened for her at the Savoy—­not much, a prospect.

The Savoy was crowded.  Men in uniform, a sprinkling of anxious-faced wives and daughters, and more than a sprinkling of gaily dressed and painted women, filled the lobby or made their way slowly up and down the staircase.  It was all so utterly different from what she had expected—­ so bright, so full of life.  These well-fed people they seemed happy enough.  Were they all wrong back home?  Was the war the ghastly thing they thought it?

Long months afterward Sara Lee was to learn that the Savoy was not London.  She was to learn other things—­that America knew more, through a free press, of war conditions than did England.  And she was to learn what never ceased to surprise her—­the sporting instinct of the British which made their early slogan “Business as usual.”  Business and pleasure—­but only on the surface.  Underneath was a dogged and obstinate determination to make up as soon as possible for the humiliation of the early days of the war.

Those were the transition days in England.  The people were slowly awaking to the magnitude of the thing that was happening to them.  Certain elements of the press, long under political dominion, were preparing to come out for a coalition ministry.  The question of high-explosive shells as against shrapnel was bitterly fought, some of the men at home standing fast for shrapnel, as valuable against German artillery as a garden hose.  Men coming back from the Front were pleading for real help, not men only, not Red Cross, not food and supplies, but for something more competent than mere man power to hold back the deluge.