“Yes?”

“The Aquitania, a British ship, docked in Southampton last night, and she will make one more trip back to the States, where they're going to convert her to carry troops. And when she sails”—he almost choked on the words—“I want you and the girls on her.” She sat and listened to him in total silence, and he watched her. For a moment there was no reaction, and then slowly she shook her head.

She sat up very straight and looked him in the eye. “No, Armand, we're not going.”

For an instant it was his turn to be startled into silence.

“Are you mad? France is at war. You must go back. I want to know that you and the girls are safe.”

“On an English ship, with the Atlantic probably crawling with U-boats? They sank the Athenia, why not this ship?”

Armand shook his head. The horrors they were hearing out of Warsaw were too fresh in his mind. He would not allow his wife and girls to stay in France to fight the Germans.

“You must not argue with me.” But he was too tired to say much more, and he met in Liane a resolve he had never anticipated.

“We are not going. The girls and I are staying here with you. We discussed it as soon as war was announced. There are other women and children here. Why should we go?”

“Because it's safer for you in the States. Roosevelt has insisted that he will not enter this war.” That much wasn't news, and Liane heard it again with disgust.

“Have you no faith in France? It will not fall like Czechoslovakia or Poland.”

“And if they drop bombs, which they surely will, do you want to be here with the girls, Liane?”

“Others lived through it in the last war.” He was so tired he was almost ready to fall asleep at the table, and she was too determined to stay. He couldn't fight her. They talked about it again the next morning, the moment he awoke, but she was even more immovable then. She ignored almost everything he said, and as he prepared to leave for the office at seven thirty, she looked at him for a last time with her gentle smile. “I love you, Armand. My place is here with you. Don't ask me again. I won't go.”

He watched her eyes for a long moment. “You're an extraordinary woman, Liane, but I knew that before. You still have the choice. You should get back to the States while you can.”

“I have nothing there. My home is here with you.”

There were tears in his eyes as he bent to kiss her goodbye. She had moved him more than she ever had before. She was as brave as any of them in Poland. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She spoke in a whisper as she kissed him, and then he was gone. She knew that she wouldn't see him again until after midnight that night, and that he would return almost stumbling with exhaustion, but at least it was for a good cause now. The country was at war. And she was staying. She would always stand by him.





The dangers of this last crossing were well-known to all, with terrifying tales of German U-boats on the high seas, but due to her structure, she was less vulnerable to underwater attack than most of the others. And she had made her last crossing by zigzagging handsomely across the Atlantic, at great speed and in total blackout. The trip back to the States was going to be an interesting journey.