“You venay Paris?” said a boy with a soft voice who sat near her. He had blue eyes and a milky complexion, faintly tanned, that went strangely with the rough red and brown faces in the room. “Oui; de Paris,” she said after a pause, glancing suddenly in the boy's face. “She's a liar, I can tell you that,” said the red-haired man, who by this time had moved his chair very close to the woman's. “You told him you came from Marseilles, and him you came from Lyon,” said the boy with the milky complexion, smiling genially. “Vraiment de ou venay vous?” “I come from everywhere,” she said, and tossed the hair back from her face. “Travelled a lot?” asked the boy again. “A feller told me,” said Fuselli to Bill Grey, “that he'd talked to a girl like that who'd been to Turkey an' Egypt I bet that girl's seen some life.” The woman jumped to her feet suddenly screaming with rage. The man with the red hair moved away sheepishly. Then he lifted his large dirty hands in the air. “Kamarad,” he said. Nobody laughed. The room was silent except for feet scraping occasionally on the floor. She put her hat on and took a little box from the chain bag in her lap and began powdering her face, making faces into the mirror she held in the palm of her hand. The men stared at her. “Guess she thinks she's the Queen of the May,” said one man, getting to his feet. He leaned across the table and spat into the fireplace. “I'm going back to barracks.” He turned to the woman and shouted in a voice full of hatred, “Bon swar.” The woman was putting the powder puff away in her jet bag. She did not look up; the door closed sharply. “Come along,” said the woman, suddenly, tossing her head back. “Come along one at a time; who go with me first?” Nobody spoke. The men stared at her silently. There was no sound except that of feet scraping occasionally on the floor. III The oatmeal flopped heavily into the mess-kit. Fuselli's eyes were still glued together with sleep. He sat at the dark greasy bench and took a gulp of the scalding coffee that smelt vaguely of dish rags. That woke him up a little. There was little talk in the mess shack. The men, that the bugle had wrenched out of their blankets but fifteen minutes before, sat in rows, eating sullenly or blinking at each other through the misty darkness. You could hear feet scraping in the ashes of the floor and mess kits clattering against the tables and here and there a man coughing. Near the counter where the food was served out one of the cooks swore interminably in a whiny sing-sing voice. “Gee, Bill, I've got a head,” said Fuselli. “Ye're ought to have,” growled Bill Grey. “I had to carry you up into the barracks. You said you were goin' back and love up that goddam girl.” “Did I?” said Fuselli, giggling. “I had a hell of a time getting you past the guard.” “Some cognac!... I got a hangover now,” said Fuselli. “I'm goddamned if I can go this much longer.” “What?”