and left next day by the Havre express.  The girl was horribly scared, but I said we’d try it.  Nothing happened at all.  We had a carriage to ourselves, and merely sat still at Amiens.  When we got to Paris we simply walked out, bold as brass.  I showed our tickets at Havre and told the French inspector we had overslept.  He merely told us the time to leave next day.  We went to an hotel, and then strolled up the Avenue d l’Opera.  And what do you think?  Who should I see but an old dear of a General I knew out in South Africa who is in the French Red Cross.  He was simply delighted to see us.  He motored us out to the Bois in the afternoon, dined us, and took us to the theatre—­only, by Jove!  I did curse that other girl.  She was in a ferment all the time.  Next morning he had a job on, but he sent a car for us with a subaltern to put us on the train, and we went to the R.T.O. this time.  He couldn’t do enough for us when he heard the name of General de Villiers and saw his card.  We got into Havre at midday, and nobody was a penny the wiser.”

Peter laughed.  “You were lucky,” he said; “perhaps you always are.”

“No, I’m not,” she said “but I usually do what I want and get through with it.  Hullo, is this the place?”

“I suppose so,” said Peter.  “Now for it.  Look as if you’d been going to such places all your life.”

“I’ve probably been more often than you, anyhow, Solomon,” said Julie, and she ran lightly up the steps.

They passed through swing-doors into a larger hall brilliantly lit and heavy with a mixed aroma of smoke and food.  There was a sort of hum of sound going on all the time and Peter looked round wonderingly.  He perceived immediately that there was an atmosphere about this French restaurant unlike that of any he had been in before.  He was, in truth, utterly bewildered by what he saw, but he made an effort not to show it.  Julie, on the other hand, was fairly carried away.  They seated themselves at a table for four near the end of the partition, and she led the party in gaiety.  Donovan hardly took his eyes off her, and cut in with dry, daring remarks with a natural case.  Tommy played a good second to Julie, and if she had had any fears they were not visible now.

“What about an appetiser?” demanded Donovan.

“Oh, rather!  Mixed vermuth for me; but Tommy must have a very small one:  she gets drunk on nothing.  Give me a cigarette now, padre; I’m dying to smoke.”

Peter produced his case.  “Don’t call him ‘padre’ here,” said Donovan; “you’ll spoil his enjoyment.”

“A cigarette, Solomon, then,” whispered Julie, as the other turned to beckon a garcon, flashing her eyes on him.

Peter resisted no longer.  “Don’t,” he said.  “Call me anything but that.”  It seemed to him that there was something inevitable in it all.  He did not formulate his sensations, but it was the lure of the contrast that won him.  Ever since he had landed in France he had, as it were, hung on to the old conventional position, and he had felt increasingly that it was impossible to do so.  True, there seemed little connection between a dinner with a couple of madcap girls in a French restaurant and religion, but there was one.  He had felt out of touch with men and life, and now a new phase of it was offered him.  He reached out for it eagerly.