"She and her lady friends," Ruby muttered, contemptuously to Sylvia. "If you ask me, these French girls don't know a lady when they see one. She had the nerve to bring her in here to tea one day, an old crow with a bonnet that looked as if a dog had worried it. She's bound to ask you to meet her. She can't talk of anything else since she met her in a tram." "Well, how's the war getting on? What do they say about it now?" asked a dancer called Flora, flashing a malicious glance at her partner, a young Belgian of about twenty-five with a pale and unpleasantly debauched face, who glared angrily in response. "Armand cannot suffer us to talk about the war," she explained to Sylvia. "She hates him," Ruby whispered. "And whenever she can she gets in a dig because he hasn't tried to fight for his country. Funny thing for two people to live together for three years and hate each other like they do." Sylvia said that she had no more information about the war than they had in Odessa, and there followed groans from all the _artistes_ gathered together over coffee for the havoc which the war had brought in their profession. "I was always _anti-militariste_," Armand proclaimed, "even before the war. Why, once in France I was arrested for singing a song that made fun of the army. It's a fine thing to talk about valor and glory and _la patrie_ when you're _du premier grade_, but when you're not--" He shook his fist at a world of generals. "_Enfin_, Belgium no longer exists. And who first thought of stopping the Germans? The king! Does he have to dance for a living? _Ah, non alors!_ She is always talking about the war," he went on, looking at Flora. "But if I applied for a passport to go back, she'd be the first to make a row." "_Menteur!_" Flora snapped. "_Je m'en fiche._" "_Alors, ce soir je n'irai pas au cabaret._" "_Tant mieux! Qu'est-ce que ça peut me ficher? Bon Dieu!_" "_Alors, nous verrons, ma gosse._" "_Insoumis!_" she spat forth. "_Comme t'es lâche._" "They always carry on like that," Ruby whispered. "But they'll be dancing together to-night just the same as usual."