The final formalities seemed to offer certain difficulties.  Henri, who liked to do things quickly and like a prince, flushed with irritation.  He drew himself up rather haughtily in reply to one question, and glanced uneasily at the girl.  But it was all as intelligible as Sanskrit to her.

It was only after a whispered sentence to the man at the head of the table that the paper was finally signed.

As they went down to the street together Sara Lee made a little protest.

“But I simply must not take all your time,” she said, looking up anxiously.  “I begin to realize how foolhardy the whole thing is.  I meant well, but —­it is you who are doing everything; not I.”

“I shall not make the soup, mademoiselle,” he replied gravely.

VIII

Here were more things to do.  Sara Lee’s money must be exchanged at a bank for French gold.  She had three hundred dollars, and it had been given her in a tiny brown canvas bag.  And then there was the matter of going from Calais toward the Front.  She had expected to find a train, but there were no trains.  All cars were being used for troops.  She stared at Henri in blank dismay.

“No trains!” she said blankly.  “Would an automobile be very expensive?”

“They are all under government control, mademoiselle.  Even the petrol.”

She stopped in the street.

“Then I shall have to go back.”

Henri laughed boyishly.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, “I have been requested to take you to a place where you may render us the service we so badly need.  For the present that is my duty, and nothing else.  So if you will accept the offer of my car, which is a shameful one but travels well, we can continue our journey.”

Long, long afterward, Sara Lee found a snapshot of Henri’s car, taken by a light-hearted British officer.  Found it and sat for a long time with it in her hand, thinking and remembering that first day she saw it, in the sun at Calais.  A long low car it was, once green, but now roughly painted gray.  But it was not the crude painting, significant as it was, that brought so close the thing she was going to.  It was that the car was but a shell of a car.  The mud guards were crumpled up against the side.  Body and hood were pitted with shrapnel.  A door had been shot away, and the wind shield was but a frame set round with broken glass.  Even the soldier-chauffeur wore a patch over one eye, and his uniform was ragged.

“Not a beautiful car, mademoiselle, as I warned you!  But a fast one!”

Henri was having a double enjoyment.  He was watching Sara Lee’s face and his chauffeur’s remaining eye.

“But fast; eh, Jean?” he said to the chauffeur.  The man nodded and said something in French.  It was probably the thing Henri had hoped for, and he threw back his head and laughed.

“Jean is reminding me,” he said gayly, “that it is forbidden to officers to take a lady along the road that we shall travel.”  But when he saw how Sara Lee flushed he turned to the man.