He shivered as he remembered the room where she
slept, the corner that was shot away and left open to the street.
So he sat and watched. And at one o'clock the mill wheel began turning.
It was easy to count the revolutions by the red wing. Nine times it
turned, and stopped. After five minutes or so it turned again, thirty
times. Henri smiled: an ugly smile.
"A good guess," he said to himself. "But it must be more than a guess."
His work for the afternoon was done. Still with the bent-kneed swing he
struck back to the road, and avoiding the crossroads, went across more
fields to a lane where Jean waited with the car. Henri took a plunge
into the canal when he had removed his French uniform, and producing a
towel from under a bush rubbed himself dry. His lean boyish body
gleamed, arms and legs brown from much swimming under peaceful summer
suns. On his chest he showed two scars, still pink. Shrapnel bites, he
called them. But he had, it is to be feared, a certain young
satisfaction in them.
He was in high good humor. The water was icy, and Jean had refused to
join him.
"My passion for cleanliness," Henri said blithely, "is the result of my
English school days.
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