Only one man understood it. His laugh rang hollowly in the silent room and stopped suddenly.
The woman looked attentively at the faces round her for a moment, shrugged her shoulders, and began straightening the ribbon on the hat she held on her lap.
“How the hell did she get here? I thought the M. P.'s ran them out of town the minute they got here,” said one man.
The woman continued plucking at her hat.
“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.