"Who could be anything but gloomy when he looks round a room like this? A crowd of French, Rumanian, and Austrian cocottes dancing to 'Tipperary' in this infernal tinkling din--forgive my frankness, but you know I don't include _you_ in the _galère_--while over there I see a cousin of my own, a member of one of our greatest families, haggling with a dirty German agent over the price of sending another six aeroplanes to Turkey disguised as agricultural implements; and over there I see a man, who I had always hoped was an honest editor, selling his pen to the fat little German baron that will substitute poison for ink and bank-notes for honest opinions; and over there are three brother officers with three girls on their knees singing the words of 'Tipperary' with as much intelligence as apes, while they brag to their companions of how in six weeks they will be marching to save France." "They don't miss much by not understanding the words," Sylvia said, with a smile. "I don't understand how a woman like you can tolerate or endure this life," Philidor exclaimed, fanatically. "Why don't you take that pretty little sister of yours out of it and back to England? I don't understand how you can stay here with your country at war." "That's too long a story to tell you now," Sylvia said. "But between ourselves she's not really my sister." "I never supposed she was," Philidor answered. "She's not English, either, is she?" Sylvia looked at him sharply. "Have you heard any one else say that?" she asked. "Nobody else here knows English as well as I do." The dance stopped, and Queenie, leaving her partner, came up to their table with a smile. "You're happy, anyway," said Philidor. "Oh yes. I'm so happy. She is so sweet to me," Queenie cried, embracing Sylvia impulsively. A French girl sitting at the next table laughed and murmured an epithet in argot. Sylvia's cheeks flamed; she was about to spring up and make a quarrel, but Philidor restrained her. "Do you wonder that I protest against your exposing yourself to that sort of thing?" he said. "What are you going to do? It wouldn't be quite you, would it, to hit her over the head with a champagne-bottle? Let the vile tongue say what it pleases." "Yes, but it's so outrageous, it's so--ah, I've no words for the beastliness of people," Sylvia exclaimed. "May I dance this dance?" Queenie interrupted, timidly. "Good heavens! Why do you ask me, girl? What has it to do with me? Dance with the devil if you like." Queenie looked bewildered by Sylvia's emphasis and went off again in silence. "And now you see the only person that's really hurt is your little friend," Philidor observed. "You're much too sure of yourself to care about a sneer like that, and she didn't hear what the woman called you, or perhaps understand it if she heard."