with hers.

Noel sipped, held it away, and sipped again.

"It's nice; but awfully sticky. May I have a cigarette?"

"Des cigarettes," said Lavendie to the waiter, "Et deux cafes noirs.
Now, mademoiselle," he murmured when they were brought, "if we imagine
that we have drunk a bottle of wine each, we shall have exhausted
all the preliminaries of what is called Vice. Amusing, isn't it?" He
shrugged his shoulders.

His face struck Noel suddenly as tarnished and almost sullen.

"Don't be angry, monsieur, it's all new to me, you see."

The painter smiled, his bright, skin-deep smile.

"Pardon! I forget myself. Only, it hurts me to see beauty in a place
like this. It does not go well with that tune, and these voices, and
these faces. Enjoy yourself, mademoiselle; drink it all in! See the way
these people look at each other; what love shines in their eyes! A pity,
too, we cannot hear what they are saying. Believe me, their talk is most
subtle, tres-spirituel. These young women are 'doing their bit,' as you
call it; bringing le plaisir to all these who are serving their country.
Eat, drink, love, for tomorrow we die. Who cares for the world simple
or the world beautiful, in days like these? The house of the spirit is
empty."

He was looking at her sidelong as if he would enter her very soul.

Noel got up. "I'm ready to go, monsieur."

He put her cloak on her shoulders, paid the bill, and they went out,
threading again through the little tables, through the buzz of talk
and laughter and the fumes of tobacco, while another hollow little tune
jingled away behind them.

"Through there," said the painter, pointing to another door, "they
dance. So it goes. London in war-time! Well, after all, it is never
very different; no great town is. Did you enjoy your sight of 'life,'
mademoiselle?"

"I think one must dance, to be happy. Is that where your friends go?"

"Oh, no! To a room much rougher, and play dominoes, and drink coffee and
beer, and talk. They have no money to throw away."

"Why didn't you show me?"

"Mademoiselle, in that room you might see someone perhaps whom one day
you would meet again; in the place we visited you were safe enough at
least I hope so."

Noel shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't matter now, what I do."

And a rush of emotion caught at her throat--a wave from the past--the
moonlit night, the dark old Abbey, the woods and the river. Two tears
rolled down her cheeks.

"I was thinking of--some