The waiter pulled back the chairs.  The padrone came up all bows and smiles.  He hoped the Captain would come again—­any time.  It was better to ring up, as they were often very full.  A taxi?  No?  Well, the walk through the streets was enjoyable after dinner, even now, when the lights were so few.  Good-evening, madame; he hoped everything had been to her liking.

Julie sauntered across the now half-empty little room, and took Peter’s arm in the street.  “Do you know the way?” she demanded.

“We can’t miss it,” he said.  “Up here will lead us to Shaftesbury Avenue somewhere, and then we go down.  Sure you want to walk, darling?”

“Yes, and see the people, Peter, I love seeing them.  Somehow by night they’re more natural than they are by day.  I hate seeing people going to work in droves, and men rushing about the city with dollars written all across their faces.  At night that’s mostly finished with.  One can see ugly things, but some rather beautiful ones as well.  Let’s cross over.  There are more people that side.”

They passed together down the big street.  Even the theatres were darkened to some extent, but taxis were about, and kept depositing their loads of men and smiling women.  The street-walks held Tommies, often plainly with a sweet-heart from down east; men who sauntered along and scanned the faces of the women; a newsboy or two; a few loungers waiting to pick up odd coppers; and here and there a woman by herself.  It was the usual crowd, but they were in the mood to see the unusual in usual things.

In the Circus they lingered a little.  Shrouded as it was, an atmosphere of mystery hung over everything.  Little groups that talked for a while at the corners or made appointments, or met and broke up again, had the air of conspirators in some great affair.  The rush of cars down Regent Street, and then this way and that, lent colour to the thought, and it affected both of them.  “What’s brooding over it all, Julie?” Peter half-whispered.  “Can’t you feel that there is something?”

She shrugged her shoulders, and then gave a little shiver.  “Love, or what men take for love,” she said.

He clasped the hand that lay along his arm passionately.  “Come along,” he said.

“Oh, this is good, Peter,” said Julie a few minutes later.  She had thrown off her wrap, and was standing by the fire while he arranged the cigarettes, the biscuits, and a couple of drinks on the little table with its shaded light.  “Did you lock the door?  Are we quite alone, we two, at last, with all the world shut out?”

He came swiftly over to her, and took her in his arms for answer.  He pressed kisses on her hair, her lips, her neck, and she responded to them.

“Oh, love, love,” he said, “let’s sit down and forget that there is anything but you and I.”

She broke from him with a little laugh of excitement.  “We will, Peter,” she said; “but I’m going to take off this dress and one or two other things, and let my hair down.  Then I’ll come back.”