Sylvia, listening to Blanche's tirade, wondered if all the English were like that. She thought of her father's books, and decided that life in France must have changed him somehow. Then she called to mind with a shiver the solemn light-blue eyes of the little girls. England must be a cold sort of a place where nobody ever laughed; perhaps that was why her father had come away. Sylvia decided to remain in France, always in a caravan if possible, where no English miss could poke about with bony fingers in one's bread and butter.
Sylvia acquired a good deal of worldly wisdom from being so continuously in the society of Blanche, and for a child of eleven she was growing up somewhat rapidly. Yet it would have been hard to say that the influence of her noisy friend was hurtful, for it never roused in Sylvia a single morbid thought. Life in those days presented itself to her mostly as an amusing game, a game that sometimes caused tears, but tears that were easily dried, because, after all, it was only a game. Such was the situation created on one occasion by the unexpected arrival of Blanche's _fiancé_ from his regiment, the 717th of the line.
The company was playing at St.-Nazaire at the time, and Louis Moreau telegraphed from Nantes that he had been granted a _congé_ of forty-eight hours.
"_Mince, alors!_" cried Blanche to Sylvia. "And, you know, I don't want to give him up, because he has thirty thousand francs and he loves me _à la folie_. We are only waiting till he has finished his military service to get married. But I don't want him here. First of all, I have a very _chic_ lover, who has a _poignon fou_ and doesn't care how much he spends, and then the lover of my heart is here."
Sylvia protested that she had heard the last claim too often.
"No, but this is something much greater than a _béguin_. It is real love. _Il est très trr-ès-beau garçon, tu sais._ And, _chose très-drôle_, he also is doing his military service here. _Tout ça ne se dessine pas du tout bien, tu sais, mais pas du tout, tu comprends! Moi, je ne suis pas veineuse. Ah, non, alors, c'est le comble!_"
Blanche had been sufficiently agile to extract the usual wagonette and pair of horses from the chic lover to whom she had introduced her real lover, a tall cuirassier with fierce mustaches, as her brother; but the imminent arrival of Louis was going to spoil all this, because Louis knew well that she did not possess a relative in the world, in fact, as Blanche emphasized, her solitary position had been one of her charms.