over in his mind the difficulty of trying to treat young American girls
like rational human beings.

But Henri understood. He had had a French mother, and there is a leaven
of French blood in the American temperament, old Huguenot, some of it.
So Americans love beauty and obey their impulses and find life good to
do things rather than to be something or other more or less important.
And so Henri could quite understand how Sara Lee had forgotten herself
when Mr. Travers could not. And he understood, also, when Sara Lee,
having composed the little donkey's quiet figure, straightened up with
tears in her eyes.

"It was very dear of you to come out," she said. "And--of course it was
the best thing."

She held out her hand. The crowd had gone. Traffic was moving again,
racing to make up for five lost precious moments. The square was dark,
that first darkness of London, when air raids were threatened but had
not yet taken place. From the top of the Admiralty, near by, a
flashlight shot up into the air and began its nightly process of brushing
the sky. Henri took her hand and bent over it.

"You are very brave, mademoiselle," he said, and touched her hand with
his lips.

The amazing interlude had commenced.