e war. When will it
end?"

He looked at her attentively, and said:

"I say--what nationality are you?"

"Rooshian."

"Really! I never met a Russian girl."

He was conscious that she looked at him, then very quickly down. And he
said suddenly:

"Is it as bad as they make out?"

She slipped her yellow-gloved hand through his arm.

"Not when I haf any one as nice as you; I never haf yet, though"; she
smiled--and her smile was like her speech, slow, confiding--"you stopped
because I was sad, others stop because I am gay. I am not fond of men
at all. When you know, you are not fond of them."

"Well! You hardly know them at their best, do you? You should see them
at the front. By George! they're simply splendid--officers and men,
every blessed soul. There's never been anything like it--just one long
bit of jolly fine self-sacrifice; it's perfectly amazing."

Turning her blue-grey eyes on him, she answered:

"I expect you are not the last at that. You see in them what you haf in
yourself, I think."

"Oh! not a bit--you're quite out. I assure you when we made the attack
where I got wounded, there wasn't a single man in my regiment who wasn't
an absolute hero. The way they went in--never thinking of themselves--it
was simply superb!"

Her teeth came down on her lower lip, and she answered in a queer voice:
"It is the same too perhaps with--the enemy."

"Oh yes, I know that."

"Ah! You are not a mean man. How I hate mean men!"

"Oh! they're not mean really--they simply don't understand."

"Oh! you are a baby--a good baby, aren't you?"

He did not quite like being called a baby, and frowned; but was at once
touched by the disconcertion in her powdered face. How quickly she was
scared!

She said clingingly:

"But I li-ike you for it. It is so good to find a ni-ice man."

This was worse, and he said abruptly:

"About being lonely? Haven't you any Russian friends?"

"Rooshian! No!" Then quickly added: "The town is so beeg! Haf you been
in the concert?"

"Yes."

"I, too--I love music."

"I suppose all Russians do."

She looked up at his face again, and seemed to struggle to keep silent;
then she said quietly:

"I go there always when I haf the money."

"What! Are you so on the rocks?"

"Well, I haf just one shilling now." And she laughed.

The sound of that little laugh upset him--she had a way of making him
feel sorry for her every time she spoke.

They had come by now to a narrow square,