l, I'll risk it." And she made up the two
pounds.

He wandered into a tobacconist's, and bought cigarettes which Julie's
soul loved, and then he made for a theatre booking-office.

Outside and his business done, he looked at his watch, and found he had a
bit of time to spare. He walked down Shaftesbury Avenue, and thought he
would get himself spruced up at a hairdresser's. He saw a little place
with a foreigner at the door, and he went in. It was a tiny room with
three seats all empty. The man seated him in one and began.

Peter discovered that his hair needed this and that, and being in a good
temper and an idle mood acquiesced. Presently a girl came in. Peter smelt
her enter, and then saw her in the glass. She was short and dark and
foreign, too, and she wore a blouse that appeared to have remarkably
little beneath it, and to be about to slip off her shoulders. She came
forward and stood between him and the glass, smiling. "Wouldn't you like
your nails manicured?" she demanded.

"Oh, I don't know," said Peter; "I had not meant to ..." and was lost.

"Second thoughts are best," she said; "but let me look at your hands.
Oh, I should think you did need it! Whatever will your girl say to you
to-night if you have hands like this?"

Peter, humiliated, looked at his hands. They did not appear to him to
differ much from the hands Julie and others had seen without visible
consternation before, but he had no time to say so. The young lady was
now seated by his side with a basin of hot water, and was dabbling his
hand in it. "Nice? Not too hot?" she inquired brightly.

Peter watched her as she bent over her work and kept up a running fire of
talk. He gathered that many officers habitually were manicured by her,
many of them in their own rooms. It was lucky for him that she was not
out. Possibly he would like to make an appointment; she could come early
or late. No? Then she thought his own manicure-set must be a poor one,
judging from these hands, and perhaps she could sell him another. No?
Well, a little cream. Not to-day? He would look in to-morrow? He
hadn't a chance? She would tell him what: where was he staying? (Peter,
for the fun of it, told her he had a private suite in the hotel.) Well,
that was splendid. She would call in with a new set at any time, before
breakfast, after the theatre, as he pleased; bring the cream and do his
hands once with it to show him how. How would that suit him?

Peter was not required