"Yes, and see the people, Peter, I love seeing them. Somehow by night they"re more natural than they are by day. I hate seeing people going to work in droves, and men rushing about the city with dollars written all across their faces. At night that"s mostly finished with. One can see ugly things, but some rather beautiful ones as well. Let"s cross over.
There are more people that side."
They pa.s.sed together down the big street. Even the theatres were darkened to some extent, but taxis were about, and kept depositing their loads of men and smiling women. The street-walks held Tommies, often plainly with a sweet-heart from down east; men who sauntered along and scanned the faces of the women; a newsboy or two; a few loungers waiting to pick up odd coppers; and here and there a woman by herself. It was the usual crowd, but they were in the mood to see the unusual in usual things.
In the Circus they lingered a little. Shrouded as it was, an atmosphere of mystery hung over everything. Little groups that talked for a while at the corners or made appointments, or met and broke up again, had the air of conspirators in some great affair. The rush of cars down Regent Street, and then this way and that, lent colour to the thought, and it affected both of them. "What"s brooding over it all, Julie?" Peter half-whispered. "Can"t you feel that there is something?"
She shrugged her shoulders, and then gave a little shiver. "Love, or what men take for love," she said.
He clasped the hand that lay along his arm pa.s.sionately. "Come along," he said.
"Oh, this _is_ good, Peter," said Julie a few minutes later. She had thrown off her wrap, and was standing by the fire while he arranged the cigarettes, the biscuits, and a couple of drinks on the little table with its shaded light. "Did you lock the door? Are we quite alone, we two, at last, with all the world shut out?"
He came swiftly over to her, and took her in his arms for answer. He pressed kisses on her hair, her lips, her neck, and she responded to them.
"Oh, love, love," he said, "let"s sit down and forget that there is anything but you and I."
She broke from him with a little laugh of excitement. "We will, Peter,"
she said; "but I"m going to take off this dress and one or two other things, and let my hair down. Then I"ll come back."
"Take them off here," he said; "you needn"t go away."
She looked at him and laughed again. "Help me, then," she said, and turned her back for him to loosen her dress.
Clumsily he obeyed. He helped her off with the shimmering beautiful thing, and put it carefully over a chair. With deft fingers she loosened her hair, and he ran his fingers through it, and buried his face in the thick growth of it. She untied a ribbon at her waist, and threw from her one or two of her mysterious woman"s things. Then, with a sigh of utter abandonment, she threw herself into his arms.
They sat long over the fire. Outside the dull roar of the sleepless city came faintly up to them, and now and again a coal fell in the grate. At long last Peter pushed her back a little from him. "Little girl," he said, "I must ask one thing. Will you forgive me? That night at Abbeville, after we left Langton, what was it you wouldn"t tell me?
What was it you thought he would have known about you, but not I? Julie, I thought, to-night--was it anything to do with East Africa--those tropical nights under the moon? Oh, tell me, Julie!"
The girl raised her eyes to his. That look of pain and knowledge that he had seen from the beginning was in them again. Her hand clasped the lappet of his tunic convulsively, and she seemed to him indeed but a little girl.
"Peter! could you not have asked? But no, you couldn"t, not you.... But you guess now, don"t you? Oh, Peter, I was so young, and I thought--oh, I thought: the big thing had come, and since then life"s been all one big mockery. I"ve laughed at it, Peter: it was the only way. And then you came along. I haven"t dared to think, but there"s something about you--oh, I don"t know what! But you don"t play tricks, do you, Peter?
And you"ve given me all, at last, without a question.... Oh, Peter, tell me you love me still! It"s your love, Peter, that can make me clean and save my soul--if I"ve any soul to save," she added brokenly.
Peter caught her to him. He crushed he so that she caught her breath with the pain of it, and he wound his hand all but savagely in her hair. He got up--and she never guessed he had the strength--and carried her out in his arms, and into the other room.
And hours later, staring into the blackness while she slept as softly as a child by his side, he could not help smiling a little to himself. It was all so different from what he had imagined.
CHAPTER VIII
Peter awoke, and wondered where he was. Then his eye fell on a half-shut, unfamiliar trunk across the room, and he heard splashing through the open door of the bathroom. "Julie!" he called.
A gurgle of laughter came from the same direction and the splashing ceased. Almost the next second Julie appeared in the doorway. She was still half-wet from the water, and her sole dress was a rosebud which she had just tucked into her hair. She stood there, laughing, a perfect vision of unblushing natural loveliness, splendidly made from her little head poised lightly on her white shoulders to her slim feet. "You lazy creature!" she exclaimed; "you"re awake at last, are you? Get up at once," and she ran over to him just as she was, seizing the bed-clothes and attempting to strip them off. Peter protested vehemently. "You"re a shameless baggage," he said, "and I don"t want to get up yet. I want some tea and a cigarette in bed. Go away!"
"You won"t get up, won"t you?" she said. "All right; I"ll get into bed, then," and she made as if to do so.
"Get away!" he shouted. "You"re streaming wet! You"ll soak everything."
"I don"t care," she retorted, laughing and struggling at the same time, and she succeeded in getting a foot between the sheets. Peter slipped out on the other side, and she ran round to him. "Come on," she said; "now for your bath. Not another moment. My water"s steaming hot, and it"s quite good enough for you. You can smoke in your bath or after it. Come on!"
She dragged him into the bathroom and into that bath, and then she filled a sponge with cold water and trickled it on him, until he threatened to jump out and give her a cold douche. Then, panting with her exertions and dry now, she collapsed on the chair and began to fumble with her hair and its solitary rose. It was exactly Julie who sat there unashamed in her nakedness, Peter thought. She had kept the soul of a child through everything, and it could burst through the outer covering of the woman who had tasted of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and laugh in the sun.
"Peter," she said, "wouldn"t you love to live in the Fiji--no, not the Fiji, because I expect that"s civilised these days, but on an almost desert island?--though not desert, of course. Why does one call Robinson Crusoe sort of islands _desert_? Oh, I know, because it means deserted, I suppose. But I don"t want it quite deserted, for I want you, and three or four huts of nice savages to cut up wood for the fire and that sort of thing. And I should wear a rose--no, a hibiscus--in my hair all day long, and nothing else at all. And you should wear--well, I don"t know what you should wear, but something picturesque that covered you up a bit, because you"re by no means so good-looking as I am, Peter." She jumped up and stretched out her arms, "Am I not good-looking, Peter? Why isn"t there a good mirror in this horrid old bathroom? It"s more necessary in a bathroom than anywhere, I think."
"Well, I can see you without it," said Peter. "And I quite agree, Julie, you"re divine. You are like Aphrodite, sprung from the foam."
She laughed. "Well, spring from the foam yourself, old dear, and come and dress. I"m getting cold. I"m going to put on the most thrilling set of undies this morning that you ever saw. The cami-... "
Peter put his fingers in his ears. "Julie," he said, "in one minute I shall blush for shame. Go and put on something, if you must, but don"t talk about it. You"re like a Greek G.o.ddess just now, but if you begin to quote advertis.e.m.e.nts you"ll be like--well, I don"t know what you"ll be like, but I won"t have it, anyway. Go on; get away with you. I shall throw the sponge at you if you don"t."
She departed merrily, singing to herself, and Peter lay a little longer in the soft warm water. He dwelt lovingly on the girl in the other room; he told himself he was the happiest man alive; and yet he got out of the bath, without apparent rhyme or reason, with a little sigh. But he was only a little quicker than most men in that. Julie had attained and was radiant; Peter had attained--and sighed.
She was entirely respectable by contrast when he rejoined her, shaven and half-dressed, a little later, but just as delectable, as she stood in soft white things putting up her hair with her bare arms. He went over and kissed her. "You never said good-morning at all, you wretch," he said.
She flung her arms round his neck and kissed him again many times.
"Purposely," she said. "I shall never say good-morning to you while you"re horribly unshaven--never. You can"t help waking up like it, I know, but it"s your duty to get clean and decent as quickly as possible.
See?"
"I"ll try _always_ to remember," said Peter, and stressed the word.
She held him for an appreciable second at that; then loosed him with a quick movement. "Go, now," she said, "and order breakfast to be brought up to our sitting-room. It must be a very nice breakfast. There must be kippers and an omelette. Go quick; I"ll be ready in half a minute."
"I believe that girl is sweeping the room," said Peter. "Am I to appear like this? You must remember that we"re not in France."
"Put on a dressing-gown then. You haven"t got one here? Then put on my kimono; you"ll look exceedingly beautiful.... Really, Peter, you do. Our island will have to be j.a.pan, because kimonos suit you. But I shall never live to reach it if you don"t order that breakfast."
Peter departed, and had a satisfactory interview with the telephone in the presence of the maid. He returned with a cigarette between his lips, smiling, and Julie turned to survey him.
"Peter, come here. Have you kissed that girl? I believe you have! How dare you? Talk about being shameless, with me here in the next room!"
"I thought you never minded such things, Julie. You"ve told me to kiss girls before now. _And_ you said that you"d always allow your husband complete liberty--now, didn"t you?"
Julie sat down on the bed and heaved a mock sigh. "What incredible creatures are men!" she exclaimed. "Must I mean everything I say, Solomon? Is there no difference between this flat and that miserable old hotel in Caudebec? And last, but not least, have you promised to forsake all other and cleave unto me as long as we both shall live? If you had promised it, I"d know you couldn"t possibly keep it; but as it is, I have hopes."
This was too much for Peter. He dropped into the position that she had grown to love to see him in, and he put his arms round her waist, looking up at her laughingly. "But you will marry me, Julie, won"t you?" he demanded.
Before his eyes, a lingering trace of that old look crept back into her face. She put her hands beneath his chin, and said no word, till he could stand it no longer.
"Julie, Julie, my darling," he said, "you must."
"Must, Peter?" she queried, a little wistfully he thought.
"Yes, must; but say you want to, say you will, Julie!"
"I want to, Peter," she said--"oh, my dear, you don"t know, you can"t know, how much. The form is nothing to me, but I want _you_--if I can keep you."