She was on her knees by the trunk, and had undone it.  She lifted the lid, and Peter saw the confusion inside, and caught sight of the unfamiliar clothes, Julie was rummaging everywhere.  “I know I’ve left them behind!” she exclaimed.  “Whatever shall I do?  My scent and powder-puff!  Peter, it’s terrible!  I can’t go to Soho to dinner without them.”

“Let’s go and get some,” he suggested; “there’s time.”

“No, I can’t,” she said.  “You go.  Don’t be long.  I want to sit in front of the fire and be cosy.”

Peter set off on the unfamiliar errand, smiling grimly to himself.  He got the scent easily enough, and then inquired for a powder-puff.  In the old days he would scarcely have dared; but he had been in France.  He selected a little French box with a mirror in the lid and a pretty rosebud pattern, and paid for it unblushingly.  Then he returned.

He opened the door of their sitting-room, and stood transfixed for a minute.  The shaded reading-lamp was on, the other lights off.  The fire glowed red, and Julie lay stretched out in a big chair, smoking a cigarette.  She turned and looked up at him over her shoulder.  She had taken off her dress and slipped on a silk kimono, letting her hair down, which fell in thick tumbled masses about her.  The arm that held the cigarette was stretched up above her, and the wide, loose sleeve of the kimono had slipped back, leaving it bare to her shoulder.  Her white frilled petticoat showed beneath, as she had pushed her feet out before her to the warmth of the fire.  Peter’s blood pounded in his temples.

“Good boy,” she said; “you haven’t been long.  Come and show me.  I had to get comfortable:  I hope you don’t mind.”

He came slowly forward without a word and bent over her.  The scent of her rose intoxicatingly around him as he bent down for a kiss.  Their lips clung together, and the wide world stood still.

Julie made room for him beside her.  “You dear old thing,” she exclaimed at the sight of the powder-puff.  “It’s a gem.  You couldn’t have bettered it in Paris.”  She opened it, took out the little puff, and dabbed her open throat.  Then, laughing, she dabbed at him:  “Don’t look so solemn,” she said, “Solomon!”

Peter slipped one arm round her beneath the kimono, and felt her warm relaxed waist.  Then he pushed his other hand, unresisted, in where her white throat gleamed bare and open to him, and laid his lips on her hair.  “Oh, Julie,” he said, “I had no idea one could love so.  It is almost more than I can bear.”

The clock on the mantelpiece struck a half-hour, and Julie stirred in his arms and glanced up.  “Good Lord, Peter!” she exclaimed, “do you know what the time is?  Half-past seven!  I shall never be dressed, and we shall get no dinner.  Let me up, for goodness sake, and give me a drink if you’ve got such a thing.  If not, ring for it.  I shall never have energy enough to get into my things otherwise.”