est silver photo-frame I can find, see? And now come and eat
your kippers. They're half-cold, I expect. I thought you were never
coming."

So began a dream-like day to Peter. Julie was the centre of it. He
followed her into shops, and paid for her purchases and carried her
parcels: he climbed with her on to buses, which she said she preferred to
taxis in the day-time; he listened to her talk, and he did his best to
find out what she wanted and get just that for her. They lunched, at her
request, at an old-fashioned, sober restaurant in Regent Street, that
gave one the impression of eating luncheon in a Georgian dining-room, in
some private house of great stolidity and decorum. When Julie had said
that she wanted such a place Peter had been tickled to think how she
would behave in it. But she speedily enlightened him. She drew off her
gloves with an air. She did not laugh once. She did not chat to the
waiter. She did not hurry in, nor demand the wine-list, nor call him
Solomon. She did not commit one single Colonial solecism at table, as
Peter had hated himself for half thinking that she might. Yet she never
had looked prettier, he thought, and even there he caught glances which
suggested that others might think so too. And if she talked less than
usual, so did he, for his mind was very busy. In the old days it was
almost just such a wife as Julie now that he would have wanted. But did
he want the old days? Could he go back to them? Could he don the clerical
frock coat and with it the clerical system and outlook of St. John's? He
knew, as he sat there, that not only he could not, but that he would not.
What, then? It was almost as if Julie suggested that the alternative was
madcap days, such as that little scene in the bathroom suggested. He
looked at her, and thought of it again, and smiled at the incongruity of
it, there. But even as he smiled the cold whisper of dread insinuated
itself again, small and slight as it was. Would such days fill his life?
Could they offer that which should seize on his heart, and hold it?

He roused himself with an effort of will, poured himself another glass of
wine, and drank it down. The generous, full-bodied stuff warmed him, and
he glanced at his wrist-watch. "I say," he said, "we shall be late,
Julie, and I don't want to miss one scrap of this show. Have you
finished? A little more wine?"

Julie was watching him, he thought, as he spoke, and she, too, seemed to
him to make a little