Outside he demanded a taxi.  “I must have it, Julie,” he said.  “I want to drive up, and have the old buffer in gold braid open the door for me.  Have a cigarette?”

She took one, and laughed as they settled into the car.  “I know the feeling, my dear,” she said.  “And you want to stroll languidly up the red carpet, and pass by the pictures of chorus-girls as if you were so accustomed to the real thing that really the pictures were rather borin’, don’t you know.  And you want to make eyes at the programme-girl, and give a half-crown tip when they open the box, and take off your British warm in full view of the audience, and....”

“Kiss you,” said Peter uproariously, suiting the action to the word.  “Good Lord, Julie, you’re a marvel!  No more of those old restaurants for me.  We dine at our hotel to-night, in the big public room near the band, and we drink champagne.”

“And you put the cork in my stocking?” she queried, stretching out her foot.

He pushed his hand up her skirt and down to the warm place beneath the gay garter that she indicated, and he kissed her passionately again.  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said.  “I have more of you than that.  Why, that’s nothing to me now, Julie.  Oh, how I love you!”

She pushed him off, and snatched her foot away also, laughing gaily.  “I’m getting cheap, am I?” she said.  “We’ll see.  You’re going to have a damned rotten time in the theatre, my dear.  Not another kiss, and I shall be as prim as a Quaker.”

The car stopped.  “You couldn’t,” he laughed, helping her out.  “And what is more, I shan’t let you be.  I’ve got you, old darling, and I propose to keep you, what’s more.”  He took her arm resolutely.  “Come along.  We’re going to be confoundedly late.”

Theirs was a snug little box, one of the new ones, placed as in a French theatre.  The great place was nearly dark as they entered, except for the blaze of light that shone through the curtain.  The odour of cigarette-smoke and scent greeted them, with the rustle of dresses and the subdued sound of gay talk.  The band struck up.  Then, after the rolling overture, the curtain ran swiftly up, and a smart young person tripped on the stage in the limelight and made great play of swinging petticoats.

Julie had no remembrance of her promised severity at any rate.  She hummed airs, and sang choruses, and laughed, and was thrilled, exactly as she should have been, while the music and the panorama went on and wrapped them round with glamour, as it was meant to do.  She cheered the patriotic pictures and Peter with her, till he felt no end of a fellow to be in uniform.  The people in front of them glanced round amusedly now and again, and as like as not Julie would be discovered sitting there demurely, her child’s face all innocence, and a big chocolate held between her fingers at her mouth.  Peter would lean back in his corner convulsed at her, and without moving a muscle of her face she would put her leg tip on his seat and push him.  One scene they watched well back in their dark box, his arm round her waist.  It was a little pathetic love-play and well done, and in the gloom he played with the curls at her ears and neck with his lips, and held her hand.