She supposed that Petrograd had not yet sufficiently recovered from the shock of war to make an engagement there pleasant or profitable; besides, after her experience at the cabaret she was disinclined to face another humiliation of the same kind. The Jewish agent whom she consulted suggested Kieff, Odessa, and Constantinople as a good tour; from Constantinople she would be able to return home more easily and comfortably if she wished to return. He held up his hands at the idea of traveling to England by Archangel at this season. She could sing for a week at Kieff just to break the journey, take two months at Odessa, and be almost sure of at least four months at Constantinople: it was a great nuisance this war, but he was expecting every day to hear that the English fleet had blown Pola to pieces, and perhaps after Christmas there would be an opportunity of an engagement at Vienna. With so many troops in the city such an engagement would be highly remunerative; and he winked at Sylvia. She was surprised to find that it was so easy to secure an engagement in war-time, and still more surprised to learn that she would be better paid than before the war. Indeed, if she had been willing to remain in Petrograd, she could have earned as much as a thousand francs a month for singing, so many of the French girls had fled to France and so rare now were foreign _artistes_. As it was, she would be paid eight hundred francs a month at Kieff and Odessa. For the amount of her salary in Constantinople the agent would not answer, because on second thoughts he might observe that there was just a chance of war between Russia and Turkey, a very small chance; but in the circumstances it would be impossible to arrange a contract. Sylvia returned to the _pension_ to announce her success. "Well, if you get ill," said Mère Gontran, "mind you come back here at once. You're _not_ a good medium; in fact, I believe you're a deterrent; but I like to see you about the place, and of course I _do_ like to talk English, but there again, when shall I ever see England?" When Sylvia had heard Mère Gontran speak of her native country formerly, it had always been as the place where an unhappy childhood had been spent, and she had seemed to glory in her expatriation. Mère Gontran answered her unspoken astonishment: "I think it's the war," she explained. "It's seeing so much about England in the newspapers; I've got a feeling I'd like to go back, and I will go back after the war," she proclaimed. "Some kind of nationality my three sons shall have, if it's only their mother's. Which reminds me. Poor Carrier has been killed." "Killed," Sylvia repeated. "Already?" In the clutch of apprehension she realized that other and dearer friends than he might already be dead. "I thought we could celebrate your last night by trying to get into communication with him," said Mère Gontran. It was as if she had replied to Sylvia's unvoiced fear.