Peter was horribly uncomfortable.  He felt how little he knew this girl, and he felt also how much he loved her.

“Nothing, dear,” he said; “I was a beast.”

“Well,” she said, “if you won’t tell me, I’ll tell you.  I was quite proper to-night, immensely and intensely proper, and you didn’t like it.  You had never seen me so.  You thought, too, that I was making up to your friend.  Isn’t that so?”

Peter nodded.  He marvelled that she should know so well, and he wondered what was coming.

“I wonder what you really think of me, Peter,” she went on.  “I suppose you think I never can be serious—­no, I won’t say serious—­conventional.  But you’re very stupid; we all of us can be, and must be sometimes.  You asked me just now what I thought of your friend—­well, I’ll tell you.  He is as different from you as possible.  He has his thoughts, no doubt, but he prefers to be very tidy.  He takes refuge in the things you throw overboard.  He’s not at all my sort, and he’s not yours either, in a way.  Goodness knows what will happen to either of us, but he’ll be Captain Langton to the end of his days.  I envy that sort of person intensely, and when I meet him I put on armour.  See?”

Peter stared at her.  “How is he different from Donovan?” he asked.

“Donovan!  Oh, Lord, Peter, how dull you are!  Donovan has hardly a thought in his head about anything except Donovan.  He was born a jolly good sort, and he’s sampled pretty well everything.  He’s cool as a cucumber, though he has his passions like everyone else.  If you keep your head, you can say or do anything with Donovan.  But Langton is deliberate.  He knows about things, and he refuses and chooses.  I didn’t want ...”  She broke off.  “Peter,” she said savagely, “in two minutes that man would know more about me than you do, if I let him.”

He had never seen her so.  The childish brown eyes had a look in them that reminded him of an animal caught in a trap.  He sprang up and dropped on his knees by her side, catching her hand.

“Oh, Julie, don’t,” he said.  “What do you mean?  What is there about you that I don’t know?  How are you different from either of them?”

She threw her cigarette away, and ran her fingers through his hair, then made a gesture, almost as if pushing something away, Peter thought, and laughed her old ringing trill of laughter.

“Lor’, Peter, was I tragic?  I didn’t mean to be, my dear.  There’s a lot about me that you don’t know, but something that you’ve guessed.  I can’t abide shams and conventions really.  Let’s have life, I say, whatever it is.  Heavens!  I’ve seen street girls with more in them than I pretended to your friend to have in me to-night.  They at least deal with human nature in the raw.  But that’s why I love you; there’s no need to pretend to you, partly because, at bottom, you like real things as much as I, and partly because—­oh, never mind.”

“Julie, I do mind—­tell me,” he insisted.