ce 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 is war, and
you men want these things. But after--oh, I know you English--you'll go
home and be--how do you say?--'respectable,' and marry an English miss,
and have--oh! many, many bebes, and wear the top-hat, and go to church.
There is no country like England...." She made a little gesture. "What do
you believe, you English? In le bon Dieu? Non. In love? Ah, non! In what,
then? Je ne sais!" She laughed again. "What 'ave I said? Forgive me,
monsieur, and you also, Monsieur le Capitaine. But I do see a friend