of
dozen girls scattered about the place besides.

The friends found a corner with a big plush couch which took three of
them, and a chair for Alex. A waiter bustled up and they ordered drinks,
which came on little saucers marked with the price. Peter lay back
luxuriously.

"Chin-chin," said the other Australian, and the others responded.

"That's good," said Pennell.

"Not so many girls here this afternoon," remarked Alex carelessly. "See,
Dick, there's that little Levantine with the thick dark hair. She's
caught somebody."

Peter looked across in the direction indicated. The girl, in a cerise
costume with a big black hat, short skirt, and dainty bag, was sitting in
a chair halfway on to them and leaning over the table before her. As he
watched, she threw her head back and laughed softly. He caught the gleam
of a white throat and of dark sloe eyes.

"She's a pretty one," said Pennell. "God! but they're queer little bits
of fluff, these girls. It beats me how they're always gay, and always
easy to get and to leave. And they get rottenly treated sometimes."

"Yes I'm damned if I understand them," said Alex. "Now, padre, I'll tell
you something that's more in your way than mine, and you can see what you
make of it. I was in a maison toleree the other day--you know the sort
of thing--and there were half a dozen of us in the sitting-room with the
girls, drinking fizz. I had a little bit of a thing with fair hair--she
couldn't have been more than seventeen at most, I reckon--with a laugh
that did you good to hear, and, by gum! we wanted to be cheered just
then, for we had had a bit of a gruelling on the Ancre and had been
pulled out of the line to refit. She sat there with an angel's face, a
chemise transparent except where it was embroidered, and not much else,
and some of the women were fair beasts. Well, she moved on my knee, and I
spilt some champagne and swore--'Jesus Christ!' I said. Do you know, she
pushed back from me as if I had hit her! 'Oh, don't say His Name!' she
said. 'Promise me you won't say it again. Do you not know how He loved
us?' I was so taken aback that I promised, and to tell you the truth,
padre, I haven't said it since. What do you think of that?"

Peter shook his head and drained his glass. He couldn't have spoken at
once; the little story, told in such a place, struck him so much. Then he
asked: "But is that all? How did she come to be there?"

"Well," Alex said, "that's just as strange