es by her side, catching her hand.

"Oh, Julie, don't," he said. "What do you mean? What is there about you
that I don't know? How are you different from either of them?"

She threw her cigarette away, and ran her fingers through his hair, then
made a gesture, almost as if pushing something away, Peter thought, and
laughed her old ringing trill of laughter.

"Lor', Peter, was I tragic? I didn't mean to be, my dear. There's a lot
about me that you don't know, but something that you've guessed. I can't
abide shams and conventions really. Let's have life, I say, whatever it
is. Heavens! I've seen street girls with more in them than I pretended to
your friend to have in me to-night. They at least deal with human nature
in the raw. But that's why I love you; there's no need to pretend to you,
partly because, at bottom, you like real things as much as I, and partly
because--oh, never mind."

"Julie, I do mind--tell me," he insisted.

Her face changed again. "Not now, Peter," she said. "Perhaps one day--who
can say? Meantime, go on liking me, will you?"

"Like you!" he exclaimed, springing up, "Why, I adore you! I love you!
Oh, Julie, I love you! Kiss me, darling, now, quick!"

She pushed him off. "Not now," she cried; "I've got to have my revenge.
I know why you wouldn't come home in the cab! Come! we'll clink glasses,
but that's all there is to be done to-night!" She sprang up, flushed and
glowing, and held out an empty glass.

Peter filled hers and his, and they stood opposite to each other. She
looked across the wine at him, and it seemed to him that he read a
longing and a passion in her eyes, deep down below the merriness that was
there now. "Cheerio, old boy," she said, raising hers. "And 'here's to
the day when your big boots and my little shoes lie outside the same
closed door!'"

"Julie!" he said, "you don't mean it!"

"Don't I? How do you know, old sober-sides. Come, buck up, Solomon; we've
been sentimental long enough. I'd like to go to a music-hall now or do a
skirt-dance. But neither's really possible; certainly not the first, and
you'd be shocked at the second. I'm half a mind to shock you, though,
only my skirt's not long and wide enough, and I've not enough lace
underneath. I'll spare you. Come on!"

She seized her hat and put it on. They went out into the hall. There
was a man in uniform there, at the office, and a girl, French and
unmistakable, who glanced at Julie, and then turned away. Julie no