There was the business of checking them off, and the further business
of Sara Lee's paying for them in gold. She sat at the table, Jean
across, and struggled with centimes and francs and louis d'or, an
engrossed frown between her eyebrows.
Jean, sitting across, thought her rather changed. She smiled very seldom,
and her eyes were perhaps more steady. It was a young girl he and Henri
had brought out to the little house. It was a very serious and rather
anxious young woman who sat across from him and piled up the money he
had brought back into little stacks.
"Jean," she said finally, "I am not going to be able to do it."
"To do what?"
"To continue--here."
"No?"
"You see I had a little money of my own, and twenty pounds I got in
London. You and--and Henri have done miracles for me. But soon I
shall have used all my own money, except enough to take me back. And
now I shall have to start on my English notes. After that--"
"You are too good to the men. These cigarettes, now--you could do
without them."
"But they are very cheap, and they mean so much, Jean."
She sat still, her hands before her on the table. From the kitchen came
the bubbling of the eternal soup.
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