a score of times. He went up Whitehall, and across the
Square, and hesitated whether or not he should take the Strand. Deciding
against it, he made his way to Piccadilly Circus and chose a music-hall
that advertised a world-famous comedian. He heard him and came out, still
laughing to himself, and then he walked down Piccadilly to Hyde Park
Corner, and stood for a minute looking up Park Lane. Hilda ought to come
down, he said to himself amusedly. Then, marvelling that he could be
amused at all at the thought, he turned off for his hotel.

It is nothing to write down, but to Peter it was very much. Everything
was old, but everything was new to him. At his hotel he smoked a
cigarette in the lounge just to watch the men and women who came and
went, and then he declined the lift and ascended the big staircase to his
room. As he went, it struck him why it was that he felt so much wiser
than he had been; that he looked on London from the inside, whereas he
had used to look from the outside only; that he looked with a charity of
which he had never dreamed, and that he was amazingly content. And as he
got into bed he thought that when next he slept in town he would not be
alone. He would have crossed Tommy's Rubicon.

Next morning he went down into the country to relations who did not
interest him at all; but he walked and rode and enjoyed the English
countryside with zest. He went to the little country church on the Sunday
twice, to Matins and Evensong, and he came home and read that chapter of
Mr. Wells' book in which Mr. Britling expounds the domestication of God.
And he had some fierce moments in which he thought of Louise, and of
Lucienne's sister, and of Mariette, and of Pennell, and, last of all, of
Jenks, and asked himself of what use a domesticated God could be to any
of them. And then on the Thursday he came up to meet Julie.

It thrilled him that she was in England somewhere and preparing to come
to him. His pulses beat so as he thought of it that every other
consideration was temporarily driven from his mind; but presently he
caught himself thinking what ought to be done, and of what she would be
like. He turned it over in his mind. He had known her in France,
in uniform, when he was not sure of her; but now, what would she be like?
He could not conceive, and he banished the idea. It would be more
splendid when it occurred if he had made no imaginary construction of it.

His station was King's Cross, and he took a