She got up and came over, beamed on them all, and took the seat Alex vacated.  “Good-evening,” she said, in fair English, scrutinising them.  “What is it you say, ’How’s things’?”

Alex pressed a drink on her and beckoned the waiter.  She took a syrup, the rest martinis.  Peter sipped his, and watched her talking to Alex and Pennell.  The other Australian got up and crossed the room, and sat down with some other men.

The stories he had heard moved him profoundly.  He wondered if they were true, but he seemed to see confirmation in the girl before him.  Despite some making up, it was a clean face, if one could say so.  She was laughing and talking with all the ease in the world, though Peter noticed that her eyes kept straying round the room.  Apparently his friends had all her attention, but he could see it was not so.  She was on the watch for clients, old or new.  He thought how such a girl would have disgusted him a few short weeks ago, but he did not feel disgusted now.  He could not.  He did not know what he felt.  He wondered, as he looked, if she were one of “the multitude,” and then the fragment of a text slipped through his brain:  “The Friend of publicans and sinners.” “The Friend”:  the little adjective struck him as never before.  Had they ever had another?  He frowned to himself at the thought, and could not help wondering vaguely what his Vicar or the Canon would have done in Travalini’s.  Then he wondered instantly what that Other would have done, and he found no answer at all.

“Yes, but I do not know your friend yet,” he heard the girl say, and saw she was being introduced to Pennell.  She held out a decently gloved hand with a gesture that startled him—­it was so like Hilda’s.  Hilda!  The comparison dazed him.  He fancied he could see her utter disgust, and then he involuntarily shook his head; it would be too great for him to imagine.  What would she have made of the story he had just heard?  He concluded she would flatly disbelieve it....

But Julie?  He smiled to himself, and then, for the first time, suddenly asked himself what he really felt towards Julie.  He remembered that first night and the kiss, and how he had half hated it, half liked it.  He felt now, chiefly, anger that Donovan had had one too.  One?  But he, Peter, had had two....  Then he called himself a damned fool; it was all of a piece with her extravagant and utterly unconventional madness.  But what, then, would she say to this?  Had she anything in common with it?

He played with that awhile, blowing out thoughtful rings of smoke.  It struck him that she had, but he was fully aware that that did not disgust him in the least.  It almost fascinated him, just as—­that was it—­Hilda’s disgust would repel him.  Why?  He hadn’t an idea.

“Monsieur le Capitaine is very dull,” said a girl’s voice at his elbow.  He started:  Louise had moved to the sofa and was smiling at him.  He glanced towards his companions, Alex was standing, finishing a last drink; Pennell staring at Louise.