She intended at first to make no change in her frock. After all, it was
not a social call, and if she did not dress it would put things on the
right footing.

But slipping along the corridor after her bath, clad in a kimono and
slippers and extremely nervous, she encountered a young woman on her
way to dinner, and she was dressed in that combination of street skirt
and evening blouse that some Englishwomen from the outlying districts
still affect. And Sara Lee thereupon decided to dress. She called in
the elderly maid, who was already her slave, and together they went over
her clothes.

It was the maid, perhaps, then who brought into Sara Lee's life the
strange and mad infatuation for her that was gradually to become a
dominant issue in the next few months. For the maid chose a white dress,
a soft and young affair in which Sara Lee looked like the heart of a rose.

"I always like to see a young lady in white, miss," said the maid.
"Especially when there's a healthy 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