“I am Irma Lentz. I have been studying in Paris. This war is a hateful thing. It has almost ruined my career. It has got so now that one cannot work in peace even in the Latin Quarter of the town. War, war, war! That is all one hears. I am going back to New York to see if I can find peace and quietness—where one may work without being bothered.”
“You are——?”
“An artist. I have studied with some of the best painters in France. But I declare! even those teachers have closed their ateliers and gone to war. I must, perforce, close my own studio and go back to America. And America is crude.”
“Seems to me I have heard that said before,” sniffed Ruth. “Although my acquaintance among artists has been small. Do you expect to find perfect peace and quietness in the United States?”
“I do not expect to find the disturbance that is rife in Paris,” said Irma Lentz shortly. “This war is too unpopular in the United States for more than a certain class of the people to be greatly disturbed over what is going on so far away from home.”
Ruth looked at her amazedly. The artist seemed quite to believe what she said. Aside from some few pro-Germans whom she had heard talk before Ruth Fielding had left the United States, she had heard nothing like this. It was what the Germans themselves had believed—and wished to believe.
“I wonder where you got that, Miss Lentz,” Ruth allowed herself to say in amazement.
“Got what?”
“The idea that the war—at least now we are in it—is unpopular at home. You will discover your mistake. I understand that even in Washington Square they know we are fighting a war for democracy. You will find your friends of Greenwich Village—is that not the locality of New York you mean?—are very well aware that we are at war.”
“Perfect nonsense!” snapped Irma Lentz, and she got up and flounced away.