"Did you ask Belle to do this?" he demanded bluntly.
"To do what?"
"To put things off."
"I have already told you, Harvey," Belle put in. "It is my own idea.
She is tired. She's been through a lot. I've heard the story you're
too stubborn to listen to. And I strongly advise her to wait a while."
And after a time he agreed ungraciously. He would buy the house and fix
it over, and in the early fall it would be ready.
"Unless," he added to Sara Lee with a bitterness born of
disappointment--"unless you change your mind again."
He did not kiss her that night when she and Belle went together up the
stairs. But he stared after her gloomily, with hurt and bewilderment in
his eyes.
He did not understand. He never would. She had come home to him all
gentleness and tenderness, ready to find in him the things she needed so
badly. But out of his obstinacy and hurt he had himself built up a
barrier.
That night Sara Lee dreamed that she was back in the little house of
mercy. Rene was there; and Henri; and Jean, with the patch over his eye.
They were waiting for the men to come, and the narrow hall was full of
the odor of Marie's soup.
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