nd give her a cold douche. Then, panting with her exertions and
dry now, she collapsed on the chair and began to fumble with her hair
and its solitary rose. It was exactly Julie who sat there unashamed in
her nakedness, Peter thought. She had kept the soul of a child through
everything, and it could burst through the outer covering of the woman
who had tasted of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and laugh in the
sun.

"Peter," she said, "wouldn't you love to live in the Fiji--no, not the
Fiji, because I expect that's civilised these days, but on an almost
desert island?--though not desert, of course. Why does one call Robinson
Crusoe sort of islands _desert_? Oh, I know, because it means deserted, I
suppose. But I don't want it quite deserted, for I want you, and three
or four huts of nice savages to cut up wood for the fire and that sort of
thing. And I should wear a rose--no, a hibiscus--in my hair all day long,
and nothing else at all. And you should wear--well, I don't know what you
should wear, but something picturesque that covered you up a bit, because
you're by no means so good-looking as I am, Peter." She jumped up and
stretched out her arms, "Am I not good-looking, Peter? Why isn't there a
good mirror in this horrid old bathroom? It's more necessary in a
bathroom than anywhere, I think."

"Well, I can see you without it," said Peter. "And I quite agree, Julie,
you're divine. You are like Aphrodite, sprung from the foam."

She laughed. "Well, spring from the foam yourself, old dear, and come and
dress. I'm getting cold. I'm going to put on the most thrilling set of
undies this morning that you ever saw. The cami-... "

Peter put his fingers in his ears. "Julie," he said, "in one minute I
shall blush for shame. Go and put on something, if you must, but don't
talk about it. You're like a Greek goddess just now, but if you begin to
quote advertisements you'll be like--well, I don't know what you'll be
like, but I won't have it, anyway. Go on; get away with you. I shall
throw the sponge at you if you don't."

She departed merrily, singing to herself, and Peter lay a little longer
in the soft warm water. He dwelt lovingly on the girl in the other room;
he told himself he was the happiest man alive; and yet he got out of the
bath, without apparent rhyme or reason, with a little sigh. But he was
only a little quicker than most men in that. Julie had attained and was
radiant; Peter had attained--and sighed.