Sibyl Bascom, whose husband being on government duty in Washington left her free to go to France, and who rolled bandages all day long in the great hospital in Neuilly; Janet Maynard and Alice Thorndyke, who ran a canteen in the environs of Paris, and herself, had lived until the Armistice in a comfortable hotel not far from the house of Olive de Morsigny, and found much solace together. But their hotel had been commandeered for one of the Commissions; Sibyl had taken refuge with her sister-in-law, and Alexina, Janet, and Alice had found with no little difficulty vacant rooms in a second-rate pension in Passy. The food was even worse than at the hotel, the rooms were barely heated, and as trams at Alexina's hours were airless and jammed, and taxicabs in swarming Paris as scarce as tiaras, with drivers of an unsurpassable effrontery, she was forced to walk three miles a day in all weathers. It is true that she could have rented a limousine for a thousand francs a month, but it was almost a religion with workers of her class to economize rigorously and give all their surplus to the oeuvre of their devotion. Janet and Alice went back and forth in one of the supply camions of the Y.M.C.A. II Alexina passed Janet's room softly. She saw a light under the door and inferred that she and Alice were playing poker and consuming many cigarettes, that being their idea of recuperation between one hard day's work and the next. She was in no mood for talking. Her room was stuffy as well as cold; the furniture and curtains had probably not been changed since the second empire. She opened one of the long windows and stepped out on the balcony. The Seine was nearly in flood after the heavy rains, but it reflected the stars to-night and many long banners of light from the almost festive banks. It was bitterly cold and she closed her window in a moment and moved about her room. It was too cold to undress. She was inured to discomforts and thankful that she had been brought up in San Francisco, which is seldom warm; but she longed for a few creature comforts nevertheless. During the war she had sustained herself with the thought of the men in the trenches, but now that their lot was ameliorated she felt that she had a right to what comforts she could find. The difficulty was to find them. With Paris overflowing. Generals sleeping in servants' rooms under the roof, soldiers, even officers, picking up women on the streets if only to have a bed for the night, and hotel after hotel being requisitioned for the various Peace Commissions and their illimitable suites, conditions were likely to grow worse. Olive de Morsigny had repeatedly offered hospitality, but she preferred her independence.