“I don’t want to know,” said Peter hastily.

“Well, you shall.  He said if more parsons were like you, more men would go to church.  What do you make of that, old Solomon?”

“It isn’t true to start with.  A few might come for a little, but they would soon fall off.  And if they didn’t, they’d get no good.  I don’t know what to say to them.”

Julie threw away her cigarette-stump.  “One sees a lot of human nature in hospitals, my boy,” she said, “and it doesn’t leave one with many illusions.  But from what I’ve seen, I should say nobody does much good by talking.”

“You don’t understand,” said Peter.  “Look here, I shouldn’t call you religious in a way at all Don’t be angry.  I don’t know, but I don’t think so, and I don’t think you can possibly know what I mean.”

“I used to do the flowers in church regularly at home,” she said.  “I believe in God, though you think I don’t.”

Peter sighed.  “Let’s change the subject,” he said.  “Have you seen any more of that Australian chap lately?”

“Rather!  He’s engaged to a girl I know, and I reckon I’m doing her a good turn by sticking to him.  He’s a bit of a devil, you know, but I think I can keep him off the French girls a bit.”

Peter looked at her curiously.  “You know what he is, and you don’t mind then?” he said.

“Good Lord, no!” she replied.  “My dear boy, I know what men are.  It isn’t in their nature to stick to one girl only.  He loves Edie all right, and he’ll make her a good husband one day, if she isn’t too particular and inquisitive.  If I were married, I’d give my husband absolute liberty—­and I’d expect it in return.  But I shall never marry.  There isn’t a man who can play fair.  They’ll take their own pleasures, but they are all as jealous as possible.  I’ve seen it hundreds of times.”

“You amaze me,” said Peter.  “Let’s talk straight.  Do you mean to say that if you were married and your husband ran up to Paris for a fortnight, and you knew exactly what he’d gone for, you wouldn’t mind?”

“No,” she declared roundly.  “I wouldn’t.  He’d come back all the more fond of me, I’d know I’d be a fool to expect anything else.”

Peter stared at her.  She was unlike anything he had ever seen.  Her moral standards, if she had any, he added mentally, were so different from his own that he was absolutely floored.  He thought grimly that alone in a motor-car he had got among the multitude with a vengeance.  “Have you ever been in love?” he demanded.

She laughed.  “Solomon, you’re the quaintest creature.  Do you think I’d tell you if I had been?  You never ought to ask anyone that.  But if you want to know, I’ve been in love hundreds of times.  It’s a queer disease, but not serious—­at least, not if you don’t take it too seriously.”

“You don’t know what love is at all,” he said.

She faced him fairly and unashamed.  “I do,” she said, “It’s an animal passion for the purpose of populating the earth.  And if you ask me, I think it is rather a dirty trick on the part of God.”