As he finished dressing, he heard her singing in the next room, and then talking to the maid.  When he entered the sitting-room the girl came out, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.  He went in and looked sharply at Julie; there was a suspicion of moisture in hers also.  “Oh, Peter,” she said, and took him by the arm as the door closed, “why didn’t you tell me about Jack?  I’m going out immediately after breakfast to buy her the best silver photo-frame I can find, see?  And now come and eat your kippers.  They’re half-cold, I expect.  I thought you were never coming.”

So began a dream-like day to Peter.  Julie was the centre of it.  He followed her into shops, and paid for her purchases and carried her parcels:  he climbed with her on to buses, which she said she preferred to taxis in the day-time; he listened to her talk, and he did his best to find out what she wanted and get just that for her.  They lunched, at her request, at an old-fashioned, sober restaurant in Regent Street, that gave one the impression of eating luncheon in a Georgian dining-room, in some private house of great stolidity and decorum.  When Julie had said that she wanted such a place Peter had been tickled to think how she would behave in it.  But she speedily enlightened him.  She drew off her gloves with an air.  She did not laugh once.  She did not chat to the waiter.  She did not hurry in, nor demand the wine-list, nor call him Solomon.  She did not commit one single Colonial solecism at table, as Peter had hated himself for half thinking that she might.  Yet she never had looked prettier, he thought, and even there he caught glances which suggested that others might think so too.  And if she talked less than usual, so did he, for his mind was very busy.  In the old days it was almost just such a wife as Julie now that he would have wanted.  But did he want the old days?  Could he go back to them?  Could he don the clerical frock coat and with it the clerical system and outlook of St. John’s?  He knew, as he sat there, that not only he could not, but that he would not.  What, then?  It was almost as if Julie suggested that the alternative was madcap days, such as that little scene in the bathroom suggested.  He looked at her, and thought of it again, and smiled at the incongruity of it, there.  But even as he smiled the cold whisper of dread insinuated itself again, small and slight as it was.  Would such days fill his life?  Could they offer that which should seize on his heart, and hold it?

He roused himself with an effort of will, poured himself another glass of wine, and drank it down.  The generous, full-bodied stuff warmed him, and he glanced at his wrist-watch.  “I say,” he said, “we shall be late, Julie, and I don’t want to miss one scrap of this show.  Have you finished?  A little more wine?”

Julie was watching him, he thought, as he spoke, and she, too, seemed to him to make a little effort.  “I will, Peter,” she said, not at all as she had spoken there before—­“a full glass too.  One wants to be in a good mood for the Coliseum.  Well, dear old thing, cheerio!”