rrow square, where emptiness and
silence reigned. He looked around into her face--in spite of bistre and
powder, and the faint rouging on her lips, it had a queer, unholy,
touching beauty. And he had suddenly the strangest feeling, as if they
stood there--the two of them--proving that kindness and human fellowship
were stronger than lust, stronger than hate; proving it against meanness
and brutality, and the sudden shouting of newspaper boys in some
neighbouring street. Their cries, passionately vehement, clashed into
each other, and obscured the words--what was it they were calling? His
head went up to listen; he felt her hand rigid within his arm--she too
was listening. The cries came nearer, hoarser, more shrill and
clamorous; the empty moonlight seemed of a sudden crowded with
footsteps, voices, and a fierce distant cheering. "Great victory--great
victory! Official! British! Defeat of the 'Uns! Many thousand
prisoners!" So it sped by, intoxicating, filling him with a fearful joy;
and leaning far out, he waved his cap and cheered like a madman; and the
whole night seemed to him to flutter and vibrate, and answer. Then he
turned to rush down into the street, struck against something soft, and
recoiled. The girl! She stood with hands clenched, her face convulsed,
panting, and even in the madness of his joy he felt for her. To hear
this--in the midst of enemies! All confused with the desire to do
something, he stooped to take her hand; and the dusty reek of the
table-cloth clung to his nostrils. She snatched away her fingers, swept
up the notes he had put down, and held them out to him.

"Take them--I will not haf your English money--take them." And suddenly
she tore them across twice, three times, let the bits flutter to the
floor, and turned her back to him. He stood looking at her leaning
against the plush-covered table which smelled of dust; her head down, a
dark figure in a dark room with the moonlight sharpening her
outline--hardly a moment he stayed, then made for the door....

When he was gone she still stood there, her chin on her breast--she who
cared for nothing, believed in nothing--with the sound in her ears of
cheering, of hurrying feet, and voices; stood, in the centre of a
pattern made by fragments of the torn-up notes, staring out into the
moonlight, seeing, not this hated room and the hated square outside, but
a German orchard, and herself, a little girl, plucking apples, a big dog
beside her; a hundr