hall I do? My scent and powder-puff! Peter,
it's terrible! I can't go to Soho to dinner without them."

"Let's go and get some," he suggested; "there's time."

"No, I can't," she said. "You go. Don't be long. I want to sit in front
of the fire and be cosy."

Peter set off on the unfamiliar errand, smiling grimly to himself. He got
the scent easily enough, and then inquired for a powder-puff. In the old
days he would scarcely have dared; but he had been in France. He selected
a little French box with a mirror in the lid and a pretty rosebud
pattern, and paid for it unblushingly. Then he returned.

He opened the door of their sitting-room, and stood transfixed for a
minute. The shaded reading-lamp was on, the other lights off. The fire
glowed red, and Julie lay stretched out in a big chair, smoking a
cigarette. She turned and looked up at him over her shoulder. She had
taken off her dress and slipped on a silk kimono, letting her hair down,
which fell in thick tumbled masses about her. The arm that held the
cigarette was stretched up above her, and the wide, loose sleeve of the
kimono had slipped back, leaving it bare to her shoulder. Her white
frilled petticoat showed beneath, as she had pushed her feet out before
her to the warmth of the fire. Peter's blood pounded in his temples.

"Good boy," she said; "you haven't been long. Come and show me. I had to
get comfortable: I hope you don't mind."

He came slowly forward without a word and bent over her. The scent of her
rose intoxicatingly around him as he bent down for a kiss. Their lips
clung together, and the wide world stood still.

Julie made room for him beside her. "You dear old thing," she exclaimed
at the sight of the powder-puff. "It's a gem. You couldn't have bettered
it in Paris." She opened it, took out the little puff, and dabbed her
open throat. Then, laughing, she dabbed at him: "Don't look so solemn,"
she said, "Solomon!"

Peter slipped one arm round her beneath the kimono, and felt her warm
relaxed waist. Then he pushed his other hand, unresisted, in where her
white throat gleamed bare and open to him, and laid his lips on her hair.
"Oh, Julie," he said, "I had no idea one could love so. It is almost more
than I can bear."

The clock on the mantelpiece struck a half-hour, and Julie stirred in his
arms and glanced up. "Good Lord, Peter!" she exclaimed, "do you know what
the time is? Half-past seven! I shall never be dressed, and we shall get
no d