I used to marvel at the patience of these girls. How bored they must have been with all this flirtation, which led to nothing except, perhaps, the purchase of a bit of soap at twice its proper price! They knew that these boys would leave to go back to the trenches in a few hours and that some of them would certainly be dead in a few days. There could be no romantic episode, save of a transient kind, between them and these good-looking lads in whose eyes there were desire and hunger, because to them the plainest girl was Womanhood, the sweet, gentle, and feminine side of life, as opposed to the cruelty, brutality, and ugliness of war and death. The shopgirls of Amiens had no illusions. They had lived too long in war not to know the realities. They knew the risks of transient love and they were not taking them⁠—unless conditions were very favorable. They attended strictly to business and hoped to make a lot of money in the shop, and were, I think, mostly good girls⁠—as virtuous as life in wartime may let girls be⁠—wise beyond their years, and with pity behind their laughter for these soldiers who tried to touch their hands over the counters, knowing that many of them were doomed to die for France and England.