great for him to
imagine. What would she have made of the story he had just heard? He
concluded she would flatly disbelieve it....

But Julie? He smiled to himself, and then, for the first time, suddenly
asked himself what he really felt towards Julie. He remembered that first
night and the kiss, and how he had half hated it, half liked it. He felt
now, chiefly, anger that Donovan had had one too. One? But he, Peter,
had had two.... Then he called himself a damned fool; it was all of a
piece with her extravagant and utterly unconventional madness. But what,
then, would she say to this? Had she anything in common with it?

He played with that awhile, blowing out thoughtful rings of smoke. It
struck him that she had, but he was fully aware that that did not
disgust him in the least. It almost fascinated him, just as--that _was_
it--Hilda's disgust would repel him. Why? He hadn't an idea.

"Monsieur le Capitaine is very dull," said a girl's voice at his elbow.
He started: Louise had moved to the sofa and was smiling at him. He
glanced towards his companions, Alex was standing, finishing a last
drink; Pennell staring at Louise.

He looked back at the girl, straight into her eyes, and could not read
them in the least. The darkened eyebrows and the glitter in them baffled
him. But he must speak, "Am I?" he said. "Forgive me, mademoiselle; I was
thinking."

"Of your fiancee--is it not so? Ah! The Capitaine has his fiancee, then?
In England? Ah, well, the girls in England do not suffer like we girls in
France.... They are proud, too, the English misses. I know, for I have
been there, to--how do you call it?--Folkestone. They walk with the head
in the air," and she tilted up her chin so comically that Peter smiled
involuntarily.

"No, I do not like them," went on the girl deliberately. "They are
only half alive, I think. I almost wish the Boche had been in your
land.... They are cold, la! And not so very nice to kiss, eh?"

"They're not all like that," said Pennell.

"Ah, non? But you like the girls of France the best, mon ami; is it not
so?" She leaned across towards him significantly.

Pennell laughed. "_Now_, yes, perhaps," he said deliberately; "but after
the war ..." and he shrugged his shoulders, like a Frenchman.

A shade passed over the girl's face, and she got up. "It is so," she
said lightly. "Monsieur speaks very true--oh, very true! The girls of
France now--they are gay, they are alive, they smile, and it