ent all the time. Next morning he
had a job on, but he sent a car for us with a subaltern to put us on the
train, and we went to the R.T.O. this time. He couldn't do enough for us
when he heard the name of General de Villiers and saw his card. We got
into Havre at midday, and nobody was a penny the wiser."

Peter laughed. "You were lucky," he said; "perhaps you always are."

"No, I'm not," she said "but I usually do what I want and get through
with it. Hullo, is this the place?"

"I suppose so," said Peter. "Now for it. Look as if you'd been going to
such places all your life."

"I've probably been more often than you, anyhow, Solomon," said Julie,
and she ran lightly up the steps.

They passed through swing-doors into a larger hall brilliantly lit and
heavy with a mixed aroma of smoke and food. There was a sort of hum of
sound going on all the time and Peter looked round wonderingly. He
perceived immediately that there was an atmosphere about this French
restaurant unlike that of any he had been in before. He was, in truth,
utterly bewildered by what he saw, but he made an effort not to show it.
Julie, on the other hand, was fairly carried away. They seated themselves
at a table for four near the end of the partition, and she led the party
in gaiety. Donovan hardly took his eyes off her, and cut in with dry,
daring remarks with a natural case. Tommy played a good second to Julie,
and if she had had any fears they were not visible now.

"What about an appetiser?" demanded Donovan.

"Oh, rather! Mixed vermuth for me; but Tommy must have a very small one:
she gets drunk on nothing. Give me a cigarette now, padre; I'm dying to
smoke."

Peter produced his case. "Don't call him 'padre' here," said Donovan;
"you'll spoil his enjoyment."

"A cigarette, Solomon, then," whispered Julie, as the other turned to
beckon a _garcon_, flashing her eyes on him.

Peter resisted no longer. "Don't," he said. "Call me anything but that."
It seemed to him that there was something inevitable in it all. He did
not formulate his sensations, but it was the lure of the contrast that
won him. Ever since he had landed in France he had, as it were, hung on
to the old conventional position, and he had felt increasingly that it
was impossible to do so. True, there seemed little connection between a
dinner with a couple of madcap girls in a French restaurant and religion,
but there was one. He had felt out of touch with men and life, and now