“It means these girls have lost more than life—they have had killed for them the possibility of living.... They can never have homes and families.... The future is nothing but a stretch of years for them—lonesome years without happiness and without sorrow.” “I suppose it is as hard to be deprived of sorrow as it is of happiness,” said Kendall, slowly. She paused before replying. “Yes,” she said, “I can understand that—if the sorrow is brought because you love. Sorrow is a necessary experience of life. Emerson’s essay on compensation is all about that....” She paused again and then broke out with a vehemence foreign to her. “I don’t blame them—I don’t blame them a bit. Everybody is entitled to live and to have the experiences of life. I never thought I should feel this way, but it is _so_.... If you can have a life full of living you are entitled to snatch your little moments of happiness—just as these French girls are doing. It is their right, because it is the best life has to offer them.... It isn’t France alone—it might happen in America. Suppose half the girls at home were deprived of the possibility of marriage.... It’s awful.” The little moments of happiness! Kendall’s mind seized on that phrase and held it.... It was the essence of the whole matter. These women, shut out from the Banquet of Life, were seizing hungrily the crumbs of happiness that were brushed from the table. In the pause that followed an American soldier and a French girl sat down in the chairs at the right of Maude and Kendall and talked jerkily, half in French, half in English. They tried so hard to talk to each other, because each was lonesome.... And then, as Kendall and Maude eavesdropped shamelessly, the siren sounded—the _Gothas_ were coming! People started to their feet and began scurrying away to seek for shelter, but Maude and Kendall did not move, nor did the boy and girl next them. Presently Kendall heard the boy ask, “Ain’t you afraid of the bombs, mademoiselle?” “_Non.... Non...._” She shrugged her shoulders and then said, in a hopeless voice, a pitiful voice: “I have not the fear, because what does it matter?... There is nothing in life for me. If I am kill—_pouf!... So...._ There is an end, and it will be well....” Kendall felt Maude’s fingers on his arm, felt their sudden pressure. “There,” she whispered. “There it is.... She _knows_. They all know.... Who has a right to say they sha’n’t have their little moments?...” Kendall stood up. It seemed as if movement were necessary, any sort of movement, of physical action. This sudden, close contact with terrible reality had seared through to his consciousness with a terrible, burning depression.... The thing was unbearable.... And this, he thought, is what war means!... “Come,” he said, almost roughly. She arose obediently and they walked rapidly toward the Étoile. “We have fifteen minutes,” he said. “If we walk fast we can almost make your hotel.”