y, for ever."

Peter said nothing. He continued to stare into the fire.

"What do you feel?" demanded Julie.

Peter drew hard on his cigarette, and then he blew out the smoke. "I
don't know," he said. "Yes, I do," he added quickly; "I feel I want to
get up and preach a sermon."

"Good Lord, Peter! what a dreadful sensation that must be! Don't begin
now, will you? I'm beginning to wish we'd gone into the lounge after all;
you surely couldn't have preached there."

Peter did not smile. He went on as if she had not spoken, "Or write a
great novel, or, better still, a great play," he said.

"What would be the subject, then, you Solomon, or the title, anyway?"

"I don't know," said Peter dreamily. "_All Men are Grass_, _The Way of
all Flesh_--no, neither of those is good, and besides, one at least is
taken. I know," he added suddenly, "I would call it _Exchange_, that's
all. My word, Julie, I believe I could do it." He straightened himself,
and walked across the room and back again, once or twice. "I believe I
could: I feel it tingling in me; but it's all formless, if you
understand; I've no plot. It's just what I feel as I sit there in a
theatre, as we did just now."

Julie leaned forward and took the cigarette she had just refused. She lit
it herself with a half-burnt match, and Peter stood and watched her, but
hardly saw what she was doing. She was as conscious of his preoccupation
as if it were something physical about him.

"Explain, my dear," she said, leaning back and staring into the fire.

"I don't know that I can," he replied, and she felt as if he did not
speak to her. "It's the bigness of it all, the beauty, the triumphant
success. It's drawn that great house full, lured them in, the thousands
of them, and it does so night after night. Tired people go there to be
refreshed, and sad people to be made gay, and people sick of life to
laugh and forget it. It's the world's big anodyne. It offers a great
exchange. And all for a few shillings, Julie, and for a few hours. The
sensation lingers, but one has to go again and again. It tricks one into
thinking, almost, that it's the real thing, that one can dance like
mayflies in the sun. Only, Julie, there comes an hour when down sinks the
sun, and what of the mayflies then?"

Julie shifted her head ever so little. "Go on," she said, looking up
intently at him.

He did not notice her, but her words roused him. He began to pace up and
down again, and her eyes f