She had seen and nursed most grievously wounded soldiers; but unconsciously a sort of convention had been established in her mind by which nothing that she saw, or that happened in the hospital at Surville, should move her. This first result of the war which had faced her elsewhere than at Surville, and under another aspect, impressed her almost intolerably. On the other hand, Simone had become accustomed to the dramatic scenes which at times occur in Paris, where everything is perhaps all the more sad because the war drama is close at hand, aping normal life. This juxtaposition of the manners of a time of peace and these shadows of the pit which mingle with the life of every day, more like a prolonged dream than like reality, produce surprising effects upon reflective minds. Simone de Prans, who for a time had taken up work in a model hospital, an American hospital, was no longer a nurse. That was no longer done. "What about our good Rose?" asked Odette. "Rose Misson has arranged her life. She has resolved not to yield to things; she has been too much teased about her old husband, always going about in his automobile. Neither Rose nor her husband is disturbed by that; he remains on his seat; she dresses, visits the shops as in former times and receives the few friends who are not indignant because her husband has not lost two or three limbs. Between ourselves, I think she is a woman who is doing a great deal of good." "Only she does not cry it upon the housetops?" "No; they will be upbraided for it all their lives, she and her husband; he, free from all military obligation, for having 'ambushed' himself in his automobile, she for having retained her placid manner, her good humor." "I thought that optimism was in fashion." "Optimism, yes, but not naturalness. The approved sort of optimism consists in unendingly predicting victory, with the jaw of a tigress, and in determinedly transforming all bad news into a presage of success. But those who maintain a quiet confidence without talking about it, and make life around them more pleasant by their usual good temper, are suspected of indifference." "And in all this, what about you, Simone?" "Me? I have a husband deep in government councils, haven't I? It is a power in these days. People leave me alone." "And Germaine?" asked Odette. Simone appeared somewhat embarrassed. People hardly dared to talk of Germaine Le Gault. Germaine Le Gault had lost her husband at about the same time with Odette, and almost under the same circumstances. Like Odette, Germaine adored her husband. Germaine had taken the loss even more deeply to heart than Odette; her life had even been in danger. Germaine, like Odette, still wore her deep widow's mourning. And Germaine was now in love; in love beyond the possibility of concealment, in love with a head physician in whose service she had worked. He was a married man and a father.