“Quite alone, I suppose?  And there will be no necessity for me to sit up?”

“Peter,” said Julie suddenly, “the tea’s cold.  Take me upstairs, will you? we can have better sent up.”

He turned to her in surprise, and then saw that she too had heard and seen.

“Right, dear,” he said, “It is beastly stuff.  I think, after all, I’d prefer a spot, and I believe you would too.”

He rose carefully, not looking towards the lounge, like a man; and Julie got up too, glancing at that other couple with such an ordinary merely interested look that Peter smiled to himself to see it.  They threaded their way in necessary silence through the tables and chairs to the doors, and said hardly a word in the lift.  But in their sitting-room, cosy as ever, Julie turned to him in a passion of emotion such as he had scarcely dreamed could exist even in her.

“Oh, you darling,” she said, “pick me up, and sit me in that chair on your knee.  Love me, Peter, love me as you’ve never loved me before.  Hold me tight, tight, Peter hurt me, kiss me, love me, say you love me...” and she choked her own utterance, and buried her face on his shoulder, straining her body to his, twining her slim foot and leg round his ankle.  In a moment she was up again, however, and glanced at the clock.  “Peter, we must dress early and dine early, mustn’t we?  The thing begins at seven-forty-five.  Now I know what we’ll do.  First, give me a drink, a long one, Solomon, and take one yourself.  Thanks.  That’ll do.  Here’s the best....  Oh, that’s good, Peter.  Can’t you feel it running through you and electrifying you?  Now, come”—­she seized him by the arm—­“come on!  I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do.”

Smiling, though a little astonished at this outburst, Peter allowed himself to be pulled into the bedroom.  She sat down on the bed and pushed out a foot.  “Take it off, you darling, while I take down my hair,” she said.

He knelt and undid the laces and took off the brown shoes one by one, feeling her little foot through the silk as he did so.  Then he looked up.  She had pulled out a comb or two, and her hair was hanging down.  With swift fingers she finished her work, and was waiting for him.  He caught her in his arms, and she buried her face again.  “Oh, Peter, love me, love me!  Undress me, will you?  I want you to.  Play with me, own me, Peter.  See, I am yours, yours, Peter, all yours.  Am I worth having, Peter?  Do you want more than me?” And she flung herself back on the bed in her disorder, the little ribbons heaving at her breast, her eyes afire, her cheeks aflame.

“Well,” said Peter, an hour or two later, “we’ve got to get this dinner through as quickly as we’ve ever eaten anything.  You’ll have to digest like one of your South African ostriches.  I say,” he said to the waitress in a confidential tone and with a smile, “do you think you can get us stuff in ten minutes all told?  We’re late as it is, and we’ll miss half the theatre else.”